May 5th, 2010

The fifth of May was a very windy day here in Madison, WI. It was a good thing I was not working in the Rust-Tex studio, because a branch came down

EXACTLY

where I would have been standing!

The fabulous maple tree that gives so much shade to the deck is dying. It makes me sad. I can accept that there are cycles of life and death, it just makes me sad.

The Rust-Tex Collection at International Quilt Festival-Chicago

For those of you who didn't make it to Chicago for the International Quilt Festival and couldn't see the Rust-Tex Collection (RTC) make its debut, I will attempt to show you what it was like. Just remember quilts are so much better viewed in the cloth then on the internet.

Here is the sign marking the entrance to the show. Our youngest daughter, who goes to MIAD, designed the Rust-Tex logo when she was a sophomore in high school. For this show she made a pdf that could be enlarged to whatever size was necessary. This poster was 24" x 36". IQF did a great job on all the signs.

The 25 quilts of the RTC were displayed in these four bays.

Here is one of the "Quilt Angles", that is what IQF calls their "white glove ladies", admiring the RTC. The one of the left is Rusted Geometry the one on the right is Moonstruck.

Setting up a booth

There is a certain procedure I follow when setting up my booth at a quilt show. The first step is to get every thing out of the van. I had planed to get in line for International Quilt Festival-Chicago and sit in line until noon. I told my "crew" not to arrive before then.

I was able to drive to my booth when I arrived at 8:15 am.

Boy was I surprised!!! After you get everything out of the van you go park it so no one blocks you in.

The next step it to rough in the booth. Which means you need to see where you are going to put the tables, and racks. At every show you get a different location. It seems I can never use the same set up. I usually draw up a map before I get there but it never works out.

...sigh...maybe I should give up drawing a map...

Because my crew was not going to show up until noon I had a hard time getting everything set up. A nice young man named Scott, who was on the decorating team for the convention center, helped me hang the drapes. You can see in the above picture just above the white drapes, I had a wide support beam in my booth. Although the show is draped in white you are not allowed to pin things to their drapes. So I had to replace quite a lot of drapes.

The next thing I do is hang up the samples. I usually do that before I put the tablecloths on. I stand on the tables to reach the top poles, 8' off the ground, which is where I hang my samples. That way I am not getting dirty foot prints on my tablecloths.

My crew arrived after I got the samples up. They were anxious to helped me so we draped the tables before I took a picture of the booth with out the table cloths.

Here is the finished booth from one side and the other.

It was a successful show for me. I hope you had a chance to visit the Rust-Tex booth at International Quilt Festival-Chicago.

Rust-Tex on CSI

The episode of CSI that bought rust dust and rust flakes from me was aired in Madison, WI on Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 8:00 PM. It was called, "Take My Life, Please". Here is a synopsis of the plot from the TV guide, "A legendary comic duo from the glory days of Las Vegas is set to reunite for one night only, until one half of the duo is found dead." The dead guy, I don't remember his name, was drown by his friend, I don't remember his name either but he was played by Tim Conway. Tim killed his friend because the friend couldn't remember his lines and Tim didn't want his friend to embarrassed himself. Tim fed his friend oxycontin to put him to sleep and then forced ice cubes into him as they melted, he drown. So I was wrong in saying they cut open his stomach and found rust. It was his lungs where they found the rust!!! In this picture, captured for the actual show, one of the forensic experts finds the magnetic rust flakes. I am thinking of putting, "As Seen on TV", on all my bags of rust flakes.

(hee hee hee)