Whirlwind Week and A Visit to Kingsville
Generally, my trunk show gigs, where I speak and show my bags and quilts, start sometime in September after a summer off the circuit, but there are guilds that never stop stitching and one of those year-long active guilds meets in Kingsville, Ontario at the Erie Shores Quilters’ Guild.
Whenever possible, my sister-in-law Kathy and I travel together to these events, and for this outing, we had back-to-back activities. Tuesday night was trunk show night in Kingsville at the guild. Then we’d stay overnight at Point Pelee with our friend Lisa Hill in her holiday home. And first thing Thursday we wanted to be a four-hour drive away checking out a textile trade show at the International Centre near Pearson Airport in Toronto.
Kathy and I always have a great time together on the road; after all, we’ve been teaming up together for a lot of years now. We’ve had some goofy adventures, like the time we used our GPS to locate a guild and ended up at a pig farm in the middle of nowhere.
We’ve learned to go with the flow because last-minute adjustments are not uncommon – like this time, when we once again ended up at the wrong location. For some reason, I had it in my head that the meeting took place at the Lion’s Club in Kingsville. We were a bit early and the clubhouse was locked, so we took some time to explore the community garden beside the building and the spiffy scarecrow keeping guard over the raised bed vegetable patches.
The building caretaker set us straight when she arrived. The Lions were meeting there that night. A quick call to friend Lisa set us straight: our destination was the Kingsville Arena.
Unpacking and getting the trunk show and the contents of my pop-up shop set up takes about an hour. Sometimes we have stairs to deal with. Down is fine with gravity working with us, but going upstairs to set up is another matter!
The arena was blessed with an elevator – oh bliss. It’s still a bit of a performance though, getting everything moved, as you can see from the picture above where we try to cram everything into one elevator load! Trying to look cool, calm and composed for the membership after playing stevedore is certainly a challenge…
Erie Shores is a large guild and it was fun to meet lots of members who have made my bags and followed my activities over the years.
Friend, Lisa Hill from the Tilbury area, gave us some sales help at our pop-up shop. She told us it would be busy. Lisa has her own in-home quilting business and is an old hand at these events. I think she learned salesmanship from her grandmother. Early on, her summer job was to work the family vegetable stand, and the veggie stands in the area are very competitive! You can find Lisa online at softimpressions.ca Her shop is located at 20 Ella St. South in Tilbury just off Hwy 401 near Windsor.
It was a lovely visit, but with Toronto beckoning, and the 5:30 am alarm ringing, it was time to say our goodbyes to Lisa and get back on the 401 for another adventure!
Find an event
I regularly do classes and trunk shows in Ontario and hold classes at the ABQ Studio. To find an event near you, or to see the ABQ Studio class schedule, check our calendar.
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