We had a fun time “meeting the board” last Tuesday at RWQG. Seventeen board members took part sharing some personal details and lots of quilts. We had 26 door prizes so everyone stayed awake…
Here is a summary of the personal details as revealed in the program,
The average board member (is there such a thing?) has been a member of the guild for 7½ years and is serving their 4th year on the board (It must be fun!). Board members have 54 children and 58 grandchildren, with several more on the way. They have 18 cats, 10 dogs, 12 birds, 2 bunnies, lots of fish and a horse between them. One board member owns 11 sewing machines. The ladies own a total of 63 machines at present. Bernina was named most often as the favorite brand, followed by Janome and Viking. Brother and Pfaff were also mentioned.
Pieceful Heart Fabrics was the clear favorite amongst local independent quilt stores. Stitches and Stuffing, Thimbles, Tammy Tadd and QuiltFabric.com were also named. The board members owned up to having 5000 yards of fabric in their stashes but several ignored the question and several just lied… It’s probably at least double that amount. The AQS show in Paducah tied with the IQA show at Rosemont as favorite quilt show.
An equal number of board members create in a studio or a sewing room. One designated her space a “sweatshop”. Others sew in the dining room, living room, basement or even outside on the deck. Local teacher Connie Pomering was mentioned most often as favorite instructor, followed by Sharon Schamber. Also mentioned were Tricia Spitzmueller, Jane Sassaman, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Mary Ellen Hopkins, Karen MacTavish and Marti Mitchell.
The only real problem was a time management issue. I discovered you cannot possibly interview that number of Naperville quilters in 1 hour. Even with some gentle pressure to keep the stories short and sweet the program took around an hour and three quarters. That meant there was no time for show and tell. It’s the Small Quilt Auction next month so we will be waiting until November to see what people have been creating recently…
