I'm with the band

At the end of May was the Salon 2010 Quebec Quilt show which Mr. Peabody and I have been looking forward to for quilt a while. Really since getting super geeky with the whole quilt thing. So naturally when his boss decided to have a booth at the show, we both were excited to help man it.

I was super excited getting my special pass. I kept saying to everyone "I'm with the band! Here's my backstage pass to the Quilt show!" and felt SUPER COOL flashing at the front tables each time I breezed past. There may have been the odd wink thrown into the mix as well.

Of course the best part of working the show is getting to see what all the other quilt shops are and what they carry. The side benefits of working the show are vast and plentiful. You get to know some of the other booth keepers and hear everyone's favourite techniques, tricks and gadgets. Plus Mr. Peabody went to scope things out on Thursday evening during our usual appointed Courtepointistes timeslot. We did a round of all the booths, checking out their wares. Then went back around and picked up the things that caught my eye.

On Saturday, we met up at the Metro and headed up to the quilt show with our various provisions. Both of us brought a plethora of healthy snacks, 2 huge bottles of water and some craftivities to keep busy during slower times.

The general strategy: sit when you can. If seated, take a sip of water and have a snack. I was pretty eager to start selling fabric and talking quilts from the get-go, but most people were just checking things out for the first hour or so. I ended up hanging out and working on my hexagon quilt so I wouldn't be that crazy super eager (and annoying) customer service person that I hate when I go shopping.

Then things started to pick up. I'd say we worked in equal parts French and English which can be a challenge for me. I can speak French quite well having lived in Montreal for almost 4 years now, but would not consider myself Bilingual by local standards. But of course, it's practise that causes improvement which I don't get so much at my day job. I like that I can work in English, as mostly I deal in French at shops and such. Of course a Quebec Quilt show has quilts and people from all over Quebec, especially smaller communities with much less English inclinations than here in Montreal. There were also some booths and quilters who came in from Ontario. So both ends of the language spectrum were represented.

It was super fun to work the Effiloché booth at the quilt show. Everyone was super excited about the fabrics we had. And I got to help many quilters with fabric choices and colour combinations. The part I like most of working with fabric: picking it all out. There was one lady who got super excited every time I found a fabric that worked well with the other choices she had already made. Talk about job satisfaction!

Mr. Peabody and I each took breaks to breeze through the quilts on display. He has all the pictures on his camera and has yet to upload them onto his computer. There's lots, so they'll have to wait for another day.

But here's my goodies from the quilt show:

Awesome fat quarter pack of 30's reproduction fabrics (my absolute favourite fabrics).


Some more small scale Japanese prints to add the ones I bought at Christmas time. I have to start thinking of a pattern for that one.


More 30's reproduction fabrics, this time the über awesome Judy Rothermel Aunt Grace fabrics. There was a shop from Ontario that had a quilt kit with all of them and a box full of fat quarters. We opted to pretty much one of every fat quarter they had, minus some I already have in my box of scrap.


Here are the fabulous books I found. The Cathedral Quilt book I found while browsing around. It has pretty much every variation possible with this construction method. Some really fantastic ideas in there. I was walking around after buying it and had instant street cred with the quilters. Many booth keepers and quilters stopped me to tell me how great a book it was.

The other book was recommended by a booth owner that Mr. Peabody chatted with for quite a while. They were talking about their preference for working by hand instead of by machine and how great it was to see how many people still did all their quilting by hand. He took over my Hexagon Quilt and his Tumbling blocks to show her. Apparently she has made 8 paper-pieced hexagon quilts and ONLY hand quilts all her projects. This book on hand quilting was recommended by her. I had a browse through and it's pretty mind-blowing!

She also recommended the Roxanne n°10 brights for quilting with, so I picked some up. Numerous quilters recommended this jelly sided Clover thimble to us so both Mr. Peabody and I bought one. And all of my seam rippers have managed to disappear on me so I bought a new one recommended as the Cadillac of seam rippers. I'm going to keep my eye on this one!

Overall a super fun quilty time and I can wait for next year. Maybe if we work at it, Mr. Peabody and I could have something exhibited in the next one.