The Story of the Little Guild
that Could
by Agnes Stadler
How
many Modern Quilt Guilds have the opportunity to show their work overseas? Well,
this little guild did exactly that!
We hit
an historic first with
24 of our members exhibiting at our own all-modern, all-Oklahoman quilt show in
Budapest, Hungary, this past November. This is the story of how we did
it.
Our former Treasurer, Agnes
Stadler, is originally from Hungary and she regularly flies home for family
visits. On one such occasion, she got together with her college friend, Agnes Kéki, who is an independent marketing
consultant in Budapest - and thus, one snowy coffee-infused afternoon, the idea
of the show was born.
Our guild members were quick in
embracing the idea; the signup list grew and grew. We decided on showing mini
quilts only, so the whole exhibit could fit into Agnes’ rollie bag when she
flew back to Budapest.
Despite the incredible avalanche
of responses on the event’s Facebook page (we had 170 positive responses for
the opening night), interest in the show of modern minis was uncertain. Agnes
and Agnes set up the exhibit and kept fingers crossed for good participation
from the Hungarian quilty public.
See
how these quilts just shine, so full of joy and vitality on one gloomy East European
afternoon (…the word most frequently used in describing our work was: Happy!)
Opening
night rolled around, and the public just kept on coming. We ran out of chairs,
we ran out of paper napkins, …eventually ran out of room altogether, so late
arrivals had to watch the opening from the lobby!
Thanks to our wonderful local
sponsors (Oklahoma QuiltWorks, Je’s Bend), as well as MODA, we were able to hand out
generous door prizes and we had enough left over to hold three free workshops
during the time the exhibit was on.
The workshops were centered around
a “big stitch quilting” technique that our own Elizabeth Ladd Richards
presented at the OKCMQG last year. There was much ooh-ing and ahh-ing, and vigorous
debate over what is considered modern quilting. You see, Hungarian quilters
tend to see modern quilting as the contemporary branch of art quilts, so our
minis hanging around us came in handy as we walked through all the specific
characteristics of the modern quilting style.
First Workshop:
One thing
that Agnes encountered during the workshops, was that participants were reluctant
to use the MODA fabric mini charm packs provided. So we went with various
scraps instead. Hmm… there had to be a way to have these ladies make something
pretty AND modern with these cute MODA candies, right?!
So the idea emerged: “Let’s
challenge the Hungarian quilters to make modern mini quilts with the Moda
“candy” charm packs they received as door prizes!” The entries would be judged
by our own OKCMQG members – and the winner would be exhibited at the OKC Winter
show! We had 17 entries, nine of which
made the return trip with Agnes to Oklahoma!
Oh, but the influence of the
little quilt guild that could does not stop there! This is the story with
multiple happy endings. You see, we not only showed
Hungarian quilters how we do modern, but also served as an example of how to
build a modern quilting community! The cultural center was so
pleasantly surprised at the popularity of the exhibit that they offered to host
a modern quilting group for a very reasonable fee. The workshop participants
were so enthusiastic with their experience, that they formed the first ever(!)
modern-quilting group, which had its first meeting on January 28,
2015. In all, 27 ladies enrolled and
paid their annual dues at this first meeting.
Wow, right?!
How (and whether) we continue with
this success story depends on us… I see fun swaps, exchanges and who knows,
maybe an international sew day down the line! After all, nothing is impossible
for this little modern guild that COULD!
Read Part 2 HERE
