Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!

I guess the big news that I learned at Thursday's LFQGuild meeting, was that the Russians were coming! Master Quilters from Russia will be visiting Canada for a Russian Quilt Exhibit on October 15 to 20, 2007 in Ailsa Craig, Ontario hosted by Cotton-By-Post Quilt Shoppe. One of the owners, Garnet, is just thrilled with this visit! He's making all the arrangements. There will be lectures, classes all week with Russian quilters, special classes with a Russian Master quilter, demos, a merchant's mall, and a tea room. You can visit the Russian Quilters Association website to see a sampling of the type of quilts that will be brought over with them here. The page is full of photos but it can take awhile to download, so be patient. I will post more info as I get it, because I think it will be a really unique opportunity to see these amazing quilts. I was checking out their web page and they offer quilt tours of Russia, but I am not sure I will get there anytime soon! So if they're coming here, all the better! There will be a chance to meet some of these ladies in advance. They will be visiting in March to check things out and will be in the store on Saturday March 3 to greet customers.

Other Guild events included a merchant's mall and I managed to spend a few dollars! I signed up for a Quilt 'til you Wilt day on Februar 24. It's a great opportunity to spend the day quilting with friends and complete those UFO's. Robyn Pandolph
will be visiting our guild on March 8 & 9, she will be doing a talk to the guild on the Thursday, non guild members welcome with a $5.00 an entrance fee. Then an all-day workshop, on the Friday; it costs extra. Unfortunately, demand is higher than the limit so there will be a lottery for the workshop. I will post a 'backstage pass' post if I win. Other than that, I managed to totally embarrass myself during Show and Tell. I am so totally afraid of public speaking, even among the friendly people of the guild. I brought my liberated 'tea' tea cozy, and couldn't hold up the cozy and speak into the microphone at the same time and even managed to get tangled in the microphone cord upon my exit! Laurel and Hardy rolled up into one ditzy blonde!

I managed to recover my self esteem by Friday, and was interviewed by the local cable station for 'Today's Londoner' as a business owner. That went well for the most part and I hope to digitize it and add it to my store blog.

As for actually quilting, I haven't done too much. This year's guild challenge is for each member to make a placemat that will be donated to Meals on Wheels and be given out to their clients. I took apart an old project I wasn't too crazy about and am going to turn it into 2 placemats. I also made these dice bags to sell in the store. We sell Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games (D&D) and you need all sorts of dice to play. Many players collect dice and they need dice bags. I discovered that the game suppliers don't have a lot of variety of dice bags. So I started making them out of left over quilting fabrics and as long as they're not too girly, they sell pretty well. Now I actually look for fabric just to make the bags, the ones with dragons on it do well.

8 comments:

Joyce said...

Lucky you to meet those Russian quilters. Did you see that travelling show a few years ago that had quilts from all over the world? It came to Winnipeg maybe 4 years ago. You could almost tell the country the quilts came from by the colors they used. It was the most amazing art show I have ever seen and I wasn't even quilting yet at that time.

Paula, the quilter said...

Have you used the fabric that looks like flames? I have always felt that it looked like the forked tongues of lizards and what is a dragon if not a largeish lizard?

Laurie Ann said...

Great bags! I made some last year for DH's birthday and want to make some more for this year.

Darcie said...

Welcome to the Mavericks!

Love these little dice bags...great idea!

Hope you can win that *backstage pass* with the Russian quilters. We'll want details!

Carol said...

Beautiful fabric for your bags there. Perfect!

Judy H. said...

I imagine celestial bags would do well for dice bags, too!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Wow, I know some of these Russian fabric artists firsthand from my summer trips there, to my Old Country. Only just now learned that they are coming to visit!

Amazing! Maybe I should go to Canada to them again. How big really is this town, and the place where they hold an event?