Well, that was a busy week and no mistake... Monday I left here at 5 am, and was working unwrapping and checking and measuring quilts all day
All of this in an almost entirely empty hall, the big white display boxes to hang the quilts in are at the back, stll being touched up with white paint. Every quilt is unwrapped, carefully measured, checked for labels and sleeve (really? no hanging sleeve? how did you expect it to stay on the wall?) and then carefully folded and put in a labelled paper sack (potato sacks) and the packaging (if re-usable) put in another labelled sack and put into a huge box on a pallet which then gets put into a store, also made of white chipboard temporary walls... That was Monday...
Then on Tuesday, much running around with ladders and electric screw-drivers and all the quilts are hung... Much shortening of battens, as almost every quilt is smaller than the declared size. Apart from some where the maker has listed the width and height the wrong way round...
Note to self, finish things earlier next year and get them hung up at the workshop for a goodly while to settle...
Wednesday was Judging Day, and set-up for the Traditional Special Interest Group section of the Guild stand...
As usual, the Guild stand was different YET AGAIN, the walls were smaller than I had been told (3 weeks before the show!! How am I supposed to present stuff nicely?) and I have to mung the drapes. Wall 10cm shorter than declared. Apparently all the walls are made fom 95cm units...
Lots of little blocks from Trad members and hot-water-bottle covers for Quilts For Care Leavers, and a small selection from the Travelling Suitcase...
Thursday to Sunday, show proper.. Guild stand like a draughty corridor, no internal branding, outside wall like a corporate nightmare (or a prison); not enough tables or chairs; endless idiocies like expecting old ladies (the volunteers are pretty much all Old Ladies) to stand all day; nowhere to put anything down; etc.etc...
Lots of interest, and lots of hard work. I did a couple of stints of stewarding in the competition quilts, huge areas and hard to watch but mostly people were well-behaved...
This is Buttermilk Sky, my entry for the Modern Challenge, "Broken Lines". 20 inches square
There were far more Modern Challenge quilts than could be shown on the walls, so many were put on hangers and people could page through them with white gloves on. There was a Viewers Choice (I hate these and I would not let mine be numbered for this.) Sadly, my entry for the Miniature Challenge was labelled in such a way that it could not be excluded from their VC, but I definitely didn't win, so that's OK
Theme was "China" and there was a very respectable 63 quilt submission, impressive from about 150 members...
Along the wall
More wall
And more
And again. Mine is the fan-shaped one in this image, bottom row..
Here's the wall-full. I ended up hanging most of these, on idiotic sticky Velcro dots, which Do Not Work and are horrendous...
We were sent (for this Challenge) two 1/8 cuts of fabrics to make our little quilts. All the selections were different (so, no coherence) and mostly much too big patterns for minis. Mine were two orange fabrics exactly the same colour, one with a faint orange print on and the other plain. We were asked to use blue for the bindings. Hmmm
Heather's Unbroken Dishes top right
And. last-but-not-least, bought fabrics - these for quilting
This, stretchy, for leggings...
Phew... Now I'm going to lie down
I didn't get to photograph nearly as many quilts as I would have liked, but I will post some another day
