Sweet Home Quilt Co.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as tired as I was Sunday after the East Cobb Quilt Guild show ended! Four days of non-stop standing on my feet, battling the incessant rain we’ve had for the last week, and meeting and visiting with customers in the booth really took a toll on me, and today I didn’t even get out of my pajamas until nearly 3PM! Even then, with the continuing downpours and feeling totally wiped out, all I could manage was curling up on the sofa with a good book! A much needed respite indeed! We had so much fun this weekend, though, seeing old friends and meeting new that it was all worth it.

I did manage to get all the photos from the weekend downloaded and resized, and I wanted to share pictures of our booth as well as some of the amazing quilts from the show. I entered our Shop Hop quilt in the group category and it was selected to hang in the show. I was so humbled to have our quilt hanging with the spectacular works of art on display! I hope you enjoy the show, too.

I have learned that it is best to just rent a van when we vend at shows; it makes things much easier on those of us loading and unloading our stuff for the booth. We have to take everything from product to props so it is always a LOT of stuff! Just like packing for any other trip, I always take far more than we need, but I don’t want to take a chance on needing something and not having it.

Booth set up in progress. I try to have a plan on paper before we get there so I don’t have to “think on the fly” about where things need to hang or be displayed in the booth. Even so, after getting everything unloaded out of the van it still takes about 4 or 5 hours to get the booth set up.

Here’s Pam doing the final tweaking Thursday afternoon.

I realized belatedly that I never got a really good photo of the booth once it was all put together – drats! These are left and right shots of the booth, though. We had a number of new samples displayed that were totally new, not even seen in the shop. I’ll share details of those over the next few days as we get everything restored at the shop.

I didn’t get any photos of the tear down process either. By Sunday afternoon, we were all exhausted and just ready to snatch the booth down and get it loaded for the trip home. We were trying to beat the impending storms, too, so we didn’t have to load stuff in the rain! It always amazes me that it takes 4 to 5 hours to put the booth together, and then only about an hour to take it down!

At this venue, the vendors are all on the second floor so we have a terrific bird’s eye view of the quilts displayed.

As a show sponsor, Sweet Home Quilt Co. is allowed to select a quilt to honor with a Sponsor’s Award. I admit to selecting the quilt primarily based on what appeals to me, but I also am conscious of the association with the type of traditional quilt shop we are known to be. Pam and I browsed the show Thursday afternoon after finishing the booth set up, and I made notes on the quilts I liked. There were a lot that I liked, but I was waiting for that “WOW” factor to kick in before I made my final selection. When I spotted this quilt, I knew it would be my choice for our Sponsor’s Award:

Imagine my delight when I learned that this quilt, entitled The Pleasures of Pomegranates & Poinsettias, was made by Sandy Gilreath, one of our customers from Macon, GA and that some of the fabrics were purchased at SHQC!  Sandy does exquisite needleturn applique and machine quilting. Sandy also received the Judges’ Recognition Award for this quilt, as well as a first place ribbon for another quilt she had in the show (I’ll share that one later.) Congratulations, Sandy!

This post has gotten too long, so I will save the other quilt pictures for another post tomorrow. Prepare to be awed and inspired!  I’ll leave you with a shot of the SHQC 2009 Shop Hop Quilt hanging in the show, entitled “Everything’s Not Always Black and White!”