Catherine Roberts' Quilt Market 2010 Diary

Oct. 28
I left home, Anacortes WA for Seattle’s airport,SEATAC with plenty of time to spare. Usually I have to get up at 2AM to take the shuttle to arrive in time for all the necessary airport procedures. But this time, I drove...savoring the time in the car listening to the end of “The Good Earth” by Pearl Buck. I was looking forward to going to Houston for the launching of a new line of fabrics for QOVF by nine, 9, nueve fabric companies plus the launch of a brilliant program created by Marianne Fons called Under Our Wings. Marianne was overseeing the birth of UOWs program/new fabric lines. I was there in a familiar setting...delivering babies but now from a national program vantage point.

We had people in Houston area, Cynthia Chaffee and the two Karens who were very helpful in getting the items of our School House Session in order...like getting 400 bottles of water and putting UOW labels on each bottle, 400 granola bars along with emails from Marianne and myself. In addition to the Houston team, we had the services of some of the Stitch N’ Stuff owner/staff...Holly Ebert-Zuber, Sue ???, Sandra ??? and Kim???. They were responsible for the design and set-up for the UOWs booth which included bringing tons of suitcases packed with props and a visit to the Houston Ikea shop.

Got in late to the hotel and then had a late nite meeting with all the participants for UOW and Schoolhouse session led by Marianne. After the meeting, went to Sue and Sandra’s room and saw the UOW cookies, totes, water bottles. Was blown away by all the ground work that had gone on and was still going on. Plan...to meet Kim at 730am to help put together a couple of Ikea table/desk stuff for booth.

I fell into my bed and slept like a baby.

Oct. 29 Booth Set-up plus 2 Schoolhouse Sessions

The morning came too early especially for someone from PST. I made my way to Starbucks Coffee at the George Brown Convention Center (GBCC) before they were open. Got a table and an outlet to plug my laptop in. Two small double shot lattes later, the crew showed up. Marianne came with the UOW’s fan packet which took to our various vendors before she had to start her interviews for her Iowa PBS production.

Finally got to our booth...2022 where Kim was already assembling the Ikea desk.

We had already decided that we were the non-union assembly workers while Holly, our Alpha-booth-manager, was the set-designer.


Here is a pix of our Market Team minus Kim who had to leave early. Present left to right...Holly Erdei-Zuber, Marianne Fons, Sue Hoehring, Catherine Roberts and Sandra Fraenkel. Holly, Sue and Sandra presented Marianne and myself our own miniature QOVs of their QOV designed “With Gratitude” which will be available for “Official UOW’s Quilt Shops” with kitting instructions!

As we were setting up the booth, I quickly remembered how much work is involved. Like...did you remember to bring the cordless screw-driver, staples? Begging, borrowing and more borrowing is the name of the game. One of my jobs was to get various items which you think would be easy BUT think again. Everyone at Market is busy assembling THEIR own booths. Workers at the GBCC are unionized and they don’t cross lines. Oy vey.

Outside the GBCC, Cynthia and Karen were coming with lunch and their willingness to help