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Building a village...

Building a village...

Written by: 
cnelson

Arriving at the convention center for Quilt Market set-up is a little bit like having a blank canvas put in front of you.

You know the size of the canvas ahead of time, and you probably know what you want to paint or draw.  Your tools are there, you just have to find them, organize them and start painting.

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Crates.  Big crates.  Lots of them.

As you can guess, the leaders of the crew know which crates to unload first.  One of the first things done is to find the hand-truck-dolly-thing that makes it possible to move some of the large crates without the aid of a forklift.  Then there are schematics, a plan, big jobs and little jobs, and a team of people to get it done.  Or to get started.  Rome wasn't built in a day, neither is Modaland.

We arrived at the Minneapolis Convention Center a few minutes to 10:00 am on Wednesday morning - after a run to the downtown Target store to get some snacks, water and so on.

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Lissa / Outlaw / Ducky / Tammy / Moi / Kelli.  Photo by Alison.

After the hand-dolly, the next things unpacked are tools and the rolls of flooring.  Table and whatever "stuff" might be in the way is moved - flooring first.

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It's taped down along the edges and seams; the edges are covered by the carpeting that will be laid down by the convention center.  It's royal blue this time.

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Holly Hickman - she's the crew leader.  She loaded the crates, knows where everything goes and can do everything required to build the booth herself.  The girl's got skills.

And she has help...

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Jamie and Lissa.  You'd think getting on the floor would be the easiest way to do this but you'd be wrong, it isn't.

Everybody is working.

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Cheryl - the poles have to be taken down so that backdrops can be hung and pole covers added.  They're 10' long, heavy and just a little unwieldy.

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Building the United Notions part of the booth.  That's Outlaw on the ladder, Juan Carlos on the left and Louis on the right.

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Josh.image

Juan Carlos.image

Ducky and John.image

Outlaw and Kelli.

Yes, it's work but it's also a lot of fun.

By about 3:00 pm, this is what it all looked like...

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While not everybody was there all day, there were at least fifteen different people working to build the booth today.  A couple of company Veeps, some experienced veterans and a rookie, we were there about 6 1/2 hours today.  (We left early-ish for a company dinner.)

The work will continues on Thursday but it's mostly "fluffing" at this point.  There are a few Schoolhouse presentations to attend, present - ack! - and observe, and by afternoon, it'll all be done.

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As for me, I need a new hat.  It can be any style or color, that's not very important.  What matters is that the hat says "yes, I'm on my phone and yes, I'm working."

Until tomorrow!

 

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