Sunday, March 18, 2012

My Friends Won't Let Me Forget

 The show in Lancaster is over!  What a great success.  The exhibits were so beautiful and unique.  The weather was perfect, the vendors were great and the crowds were huge.  Just over 3300 unique visitors to the show so much larger than last year.  All the vendors were happy.  And the results were the same for Sue Ash and her show in the Continental Inn.

So here I sit at 5 in the morning.  Can’t sleep and waiting for Patricia and Devlin to wake up so we can head for home.   I am thinking I am the only one up and all my friends are wishing me a happy birthday.  Don’t any of you sleep or are we just a bunch of insomniacs?  So to all of you Thank You.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Day Three at the Show

 Well day two came and went and I have no idea how it passed so swiftly.  In two days we surpassed the attendance we had in four days last year.  And today we were over 1000 people for the day.  We are so happy.  Our shoppers were happy and spending money.  Our vendors are happy.  What more could you ask?

Tonight we are having Gallery Tours of the Quilts.  We have allowed people to come back.  The vendors are closed and the curators are here giving tours and talking one on one with folks interested in the history of the Quilts.  It is quiet, there are no crowds, and everyone is happy.

We will do this again next year.  Plan to attend.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

First Day of the Show

We were so happy with the first day.  Mary Kerr, Sue Riech and Cindy Souder did such a great job of hanging their exhibits.  The comments on the quilts was delivered all day long.  Devlin had reset the vendors and they looked so wonderful.. I am so proud of all of them for making the show look so well.

Yesterday channel 11 came to do an interview.  Now many of you know that I can not talk about Quilts of Valor without getting all watery eyed.  Now I know I simply feel that way about anything connect with a veteran.  And I had to learn that while doing an interview for TV. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Lancaster, PA

Let me catch everybody up.  We are in Lancaster, PA, at the Lancaster Spring Quilt show at the Host Hotel.  It is Wednesday morning at 5 AM.  We left Dallas at about 8 PM on Sunday.  The Dallas show was a great show as I have reported earlier, despite the fact it rained all day on Saturday and most of Sunday.  The clouds did part and the sun did come out late in the day and we were able to load out without getting everything all wet.  That made all the vendors in a better mood.

We drove to Texarkana, TX and spent 4 hours in a hotel room. Got up and drove 918 miles to Salem, VA.  Got to sleep for 6 hours because I did not hear my alarm and had forgotten to tell the hotel to give me a wakeup call.  Got back in the car and drove for 5 more hour to arrive at the Host Hotel to set up the show.  We finished setting up last night at 9 PM.  Checked into the hotel went down to the bar to meet a couple of people and were surprised to also find Mike and Virginia Walton who had come to see us.  They are doing the show downtown. 

Exhaustion set in after the second drink and we went back to the room to balance the till from the last day of Dallas and get some sleep.   Finally laid down about quarter to midnight.  I feel remarkable good this morning.

I hope all of you who are in and near Lancaster this morning will come to our show.  Please tell me if you are reading this.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Daylight Savings Time

Last night we set our clocks forward one hour.  So what, we have been on Standard Time since November?  So why does Day Light Saving time last longer than Standard Time?  This is one of those quirks that the government thinks up to do something and then never gives up. 

I really don’t care which time they use, just use one and leave it alone.
Enough Said.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

A Day at the Dallas Show

Yesterday was a good day at the show.  The crowd was great. We were busy from about 45 minutes after the show opened until 3:30 in the afternoon when the buses started to leave and the things ground down to vendors looking at other vendors by 4:30.  The show closed at 6PM.   If you live in the Dallas area and want to see the show without crowds, come after 4 and you will have a couple of hours of pleasant shopping without crowds.  The vendors would appreciate something to do the last two hours.

If you have never been to the Dallas show you should come to this show.  It is a great North Texas regional show.  Quilts are beautiful and there is a good selection of vendors.  With all the quilt stores that come plus the national vendors you should be able to find almost anything you want.

We had Barbeque for dinner last night and then went to the movies.  The new Disney movie John Carter is to be expected Y chromosome movie.  If you like action Science Fiction with a love story thrown in you will probably like the move.  Besides the previews of the new movies mean I will get to go to the movies after set up all summer.  Love to watch movies.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Dallas, TX

Set up today went very well a little over 7 and a half hours.  When we started the temperature was nearly 70 and the humidity was close to 100% since it was raining.  By the time we finished the temperature had dropped almost 30 degrees.  Anyway we finished and went and got cleaned up, had dinner at the Big Horn Brewing Company otherwise known as Humperdinks.  Building looks a lot like the Ram Brewing Company building in Portland, OR.  Food was good the beer was better after the first one went down. Normally the first is best.

We also found the local AMC movie theatre as we want to go see John Carter tomorrow when it opens.  We have choice of 3-D, D-Box and regular.  I must be getting old, we are getting the regular tickets.  I don’t even know what D-box is, but the told  us the seats move.  What is wrong with just watching a good Y chromosome movie.  Oh I know watching it with a good beer.

Then we found a Walgreens and tried to go back to the hotel.  Did you know it takes a long time when they close off and on ramps and build new roads?  I should have know there is almost as much road construction here as there is in Houston.  We know where all that stimulus money went.

Tomorrow will be a great day.   Rain is forecast, I know they need it here, but next week would have worked for me.  We will try to get in early to take and up load a few pictures of quilts.  We will not be able to transfer them to the Quilter’s Rule Facebook page until tomorrow evening.  So if you want to see them during the day check out my personal page and Patricia personal page.  We can upload to those pages from our phones.

I think a good night’s sleep is in order for me.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Facebook Changes

Timeline is coming and for some of us, it has already come to our Facebook page.  On the 22nd of February my personal Facebook page was forced over to the new timeline format.  Do I like the change?  Not really, but it is time to suck it up and deal with the changes.  I signed up for a webinar on the Edge Ranking that controls how long posts stay in on my friends pages.   I worked right through the webinar on Friday afternoon and missed it.  Now I will have to read the report next week.  So what does it all mean?  I really don’t know, but if I figure it out I will tell you. 
But as long as the change is here I would like to do something positive with it rather than just complain.  On everyone’s timeline, is a cover photo that can be changed as often as you desire.  And you have the ability to pin a story at the top of your Timeline. While I was trying to decide what I wanted to put up for Quilter’s Rule page, I had a couple of thoughts.  Some mediocre thoughts and maybe one good thought.  What do you do if are not supposed to be commercial?  Well the Quilter’s Rule page is commercial. 
So what to do?  What could we do that would be of interest to all our friends?  One thing Quilters have in common is they love to look at quilts.  We know there are a lot of great quilts out there that never get seen by anyone except the quilter and their family.  We would like to show our friends some of these quilts using our Facebook page.
So here is how it is going to work.  Subject to revisions as we figure this out!
Send me an email at jim@quiltersrule.com attach a photograph of your quilt.
Tell me a little about the quilt.  You know, how big, why you did the quilt.  How long it took to complete.  Fabrics, thread and batting used.  And any other information you think is important.
Once a week we will choose one quilt from the photos we receive to be the Quilter’s Rule Pin Story.   For each quilt photo we post we will send out a complimentary Quilter’s Rule ruler (Your choice of any of our Fabric Gripping rulers).  Just a little incentive to do it today not next week.  Don’t forget to like the Quilter’s Rule page if you have not done so previously.
Currently, I have posted a quilt that was created for the Quilter’s Rule Tool Challenge.  The quilt was pieced by Virginia Walton owner of Creative Curves, using her Multi-Angle Tool.  This photo was taken before it was quilted by Gayle Bong of Gaylee Quilting.  I forgot to get another picture before we presented the quilt.  The quilt was presented to Juanita Canfield, a longarm quilter and a great supporter of QOV, for her service to this great country during the Quilts of Valor auction at the Milwaukee Machine Quilting Show in 2011.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Weather

Monday we pack the trailer and we leave on Tuesday for our next show run.  First stop is the Dallas Quilt show.  While the company has done the show several times, Patricia and I have never done the show.  It will take us a day and a half to get to Dallas.  We will be making a stop in Joplin to visit with Richard and Sandy King.  We will update everyone on the progress they are making on their new home.  
Dallas is a three day show starting on Friday.  We will be setting up on Thursday.  After Dallas we will leave Sunday evening on our way to the show in Lancaster.  We have to set up on Tuesday.  That means we have 1400 miles more or less to drive.   A couple of hundred miles to drive on Sunday night, 900-1000 miles on Monday, and couple of hundred more on Tuesday.  Early mornings and late nights will be the rule for a couple of days. Remember it takes us about 6 hours to set up.
Devlin will be leaving on Monday a week from tomorrow to fly to Erie, PA and ride with Dusty and Stephanie to Lancaster.   His job is to work with the decorator and curators of the exhibits to get the quilts hung.  He will also be checking in the vendors. So if you would like to help out come to the Host Hotel and Resort on Tuesday morning and volunteer.  We could use the help.
So what does all this have to do with the weather?  Almost everything!  If the weather does not cooperate we could be late for either or both of the shows.  On the way to Dallas we will be skirting the western edge of all the tornados that have been forming.  And the weather forecast is not exactly great for next week.  Then when we leave Dallas we will go right through the middle of the strike zone.  Looking forward to that trip is so thrilling.  We could go around the worst of the weather, maybe, but it would add about 300 miles.  Really not an option. 
On the lighter side, Patricia and I would love to meet you at the show in Dallas and the show in Lancaster.  Please stop by and tell us how we can help you and if you like the way we are communicating this year.