The quilt show for Ocean Waves Quilt Guild happened “last” weekend. If you are a “regular reader” you know I have spent “months” getting ready as part of my role in the guild with the Second Time Around committee.
Lots of donated fabric came in; and lots of volunteers have been over to my house to press trim, measure, price and fold fabric for the show. The end result was over 40 boxes of fabric to be set up and displayed and sold for the good of the Guild. This helped offset some of the overhead of putting on a very professional looking show by the Guild. It’s an expensive endeavor and the costs continue to climb for things like rental of pipe & drape; programs, insurance etc.
A guild holds the show for several reasons in my opinion – 1) to have a local place for members to display their quilts in a public setting; 2) to share with the community all of the amazing talent; 3) to raise money for the guild to offset the cost of the speakers and teachers who come to monthly meetings and to help finance charitable efforts. A show of the scale that our Guild puts on is huge. Over 300 quilts; 30+ vendors, and over 1300 attendees and a national speaker is a lot to manage. Our show chairs did an amazing job.
You can see, the Second Time Around committee is just one of the many “moving parts” and without all the numerous volunteers, we could not have been as successful as we were. If you were one of the volunteers working with Second Time Around, over the last week or year, I can’t thank you enough. If you donated fabric to the Guild, your items were well received.
Here is a “peak” at some of the activity from my little part of the show! 2 days before the show opened, I had drivers come with SUV’s and “load up” with boxes and totes. Banker boxes are the perfect size for our age group of 60+ backs to lift and carry. Fabric is HEAVY!
The morning before the show; those same drivers delivered to the school where the show was held. I had them come at staggered times so we could get them unloaded and the boxes etc into the building. Preliminary set up of the booth was done by 3 of us.
We staged boxes where we needed them so when the “volunteer work crew” came in the afternoon they could start right up setting the tables. We used dollies and carts to get all the totes and boxes into the building; step ladders to hang our signs and display items on the pipe & drape, milk crates and baskets to create risers and elevation for display, and several bolts of muslin to “cover” the bigger school tables. Those tables that are provided for each “booth” by the pipe & drape company are narrow and short; so we arranged for additional “school” tables and that really helped to fill our 40 ft booth. We also used 2 playpens for our “fill a bag” with scraps and ties.
Setting this all up and making multiple trips to the drop off point outside the school gave us ALL some exercise!
Every one of us got a good “workout” for the set up day!
If you click in on the photo below; you will see some signs with our pricing and “suggestions” on how to use scraps & ties. For more info, you can look back at my earlier post Final Prep for the Quilt Show that has details on those signs
The string quilt top in the photo below is one of mine hanging to “spark ideas” for scraps.
We had a serger donated and we sold it; along with LOTS of fat quarters. My team did a great job “marketing” the booth.
We had lots of panels to sell and figured the drying rack was an effective way to put them on display!
We even sold “wreath kits” for the wreaths we had made back in January. (More on those on my post here – Feeling a little crafty ). They SOLD OUT! We also sold 2 vintage quilts and were delighted when the appraiser came over and offered a pricing suggestion.
All in all; set up day went well, and the next 2 days of the show were a blur of sales. By 2 pm on Friday; all 40+ boxes of fabric were out on the table for sale. The volunteers were restocking as fast as I was “ringing the cash register”. The “shopping baskets” I got at Dollar Tree were a huge hit. The volunteers handed baskets to shoppers. We sold bags and bags of scraps and ties and buttons.
My only opportunity to walk around and look at the quilts in the main gym was on set up day for a few minutes, while they were still being hung. I did get to look closely at the quilts in the smaller gym where my booth was located. My phone for taking pictures was unavailable to me because it was being used for “credit card” transactions. So; no show pictures to share. If you are a Facebook user, you can take a peek at the photo’s shared by someone from a nearby guild – Quilters by the Sea Guild Ocean Pines MD
When the show ended on Saturday; the volunteers “did the work” boxing up anything that was left-over. We did NOT bring much home. Take down was in the hands of my co-chair, Nancy. She kept everything organized while I dealt with getting money counted and turned in. Thankfully my dear hubby was there for the worst of the loading and organizing into vehicles. Those racks; baskets; step ladders; extra folding table; stool; cash register and empty boxes all had to be “brought back home”.
We had taken a load of boxes home on set up day; and after all was unloaded at home; we broke them all back down to store in a giant tote for “the next show”. Leftover fabric will end up back at the quilt guild in September when we resume selling at the 2nd Time Around tables before the meetings. I plan on taking a break for a month or more after the show. I want to do a little sewing! More about that next post!
Thanks to the 280 members at Ocean Waves Quilt Guild for the fantastic work making quilts to show and for all your hard work putting on a very successful show. My eyes glazed over seeing the work of the members, and then I saw the quilts.
Curious – does your guild do shows? Have you ever been involved in the organization of a show? Do tell.
Stitching Grandma 