I had a great couple of days with some lovely new quilting friends

from the Ozark Piecemakers Quilt Guild in Springfield, MO last week.

I first met many of these ladies at their guild’s quilt show last September.

My daughter & I had a booth there selling my patterns.

Their quilt show helps support the most incredible

& unusual set-up for a quilt guild that I have ever encountered!

They actually rent a storefront in a strip mall 365 days a year.

Their membership is about 300.

They have two business meetings on the same day each month,

one in the morning & another the same evening for their members that work during the day.

They also have a lot of satellite clubs that meet at different times throughout the month; several charity sewing groups, a Featherweight sewing group, a modern sewing group & a group of strippers for heaven’s sake, lol! And that’s just a small sampling.

I’m telling you, they have it all!!!

They invited me to setup my goodies & speak to both groups.

They have a beautiful “In Between” raffle quilt

shown here behind Vicky’s Bonnie Hunter sew-along quilt.

While on my journey there I was able to stop at a few antique malls

including Relics in Springfield.

It’s huge with lots to see!

I found this cool “hanger” for drying tops.

The interesting part is that it’s adjustable.

I’ll probably hang a quilt or two on it.

Between lectures (with suggestions from my lunch pals)

I was also able to visit The Vintage Peddler.

This place is awesome!

They have lots of lovely, thoughtfully displayed booths.

I found several items that I needed there…

including these HUGE display hangers.

That’s a 30″ wide table that they’re hanging on.

I showed these to some of my new quilt friends during our workshop the next day.

One of them asked what I’m going to do with them…

Hang quilts on them of course!

We laughed that I could hang all 12 of my Tiny Dresden quilts on the two of them; one from each clip.

I could also hang one quilt per hanger:

or…

or I could hang one larger quilt like these between the two hangers…

I also found this metal shelving unit that comes apart to store flat.

I’m always looking for display pieces that are durable

& don’t take up a lot of space for travel purposes

whether for quilt shows or trunk shows & workshops like theirs.

I will for sure be taking this to the Kansas City Quilt Festival in June.

(this is where I initially met some of my Ozark Piecemakers friends

who thankfully persuaded me to join their quilt show last year!)

Perhaps I’ll find a purpose for it in my booth

at Spring Quilt Market in May

which is also being held in Kansas City this year.

We’ll see.

Our workshop was a fun day as well,

with 100% of the quilters successfully completing

at least 1 ore more perfect little Dresden plates!

Look at the smiles & the complete plates.

(Some of them are smiling because they think they tricked me into making their center circles while I demonstrated with my Apliquick Bars, Lol!)

Little do they know I love making them.

I’ll make them for your group too if you invite me to teach a workshop.

You can see my lecture & workshop offerings here.

I hope you are all making more plates.

Please send me pics when you do.

It really is all about having the right tools for the right job.

Thanks new quilting friends!

I hope to see you again soon!

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan