Paducah Registration Guide

The quilt show staff has been working hard to get the Paducah Registration Guide ready. It went to the printer today.

The online registration will be open next week as soon as our Webmaster gets the links and all of the information uploaded onto our Web site, www.AmericanQuilter.com . Just click on the Show & Contests link at the top of the page.

The past Best of Show winners will be our guests at the 25th Anniversary Celebration. Several of those winners will be teaching too. This will be your opportunity to take classes from some of the best quilters in the world.

If you are looking for lodging for the Paducah show, please go to the Paducah Visitors Bureau's Web site, www.paducah.travel and click on the AQS Quilt Show, then look for the AQS Approved Accommodations list. You will see that most of the hotels in the city are already filled.

Another option for lodging is the AQS Home Bed & Breakfast where local homeowners open up their guest rooms to house more quilters in the city. This program starts February 1, when you can call 1-800-PADUCAH to request the AQS Home Bed & Breakfast form. If you are an AQS member, they will find you lodging in this program.

Wednesday night will be the 25th Anniversary Celebration & Reception at the Four Rivers Center. This will be the night when the 2009 winners receive their awards (not Tuesday night like we have been doing), we'll honor all 25 of the Best of Show winners, and more surprises. Thursday evening will be Alive on Stage: 30 Years of Eleanor Burns, and Friday night will be Ricky Tims in Concert to help celebrate our 25th anniversary.

Make your plans now to be in Paducah for this extra special show, April 22 - 25, 2009!

Harman Sister Reunion at Des Moines AQS Quilt Expo

We Are Family!

We are sisters—one from California, one from Florida, and two from Illinois who share many interests and thoroughly enjoy doing things together. We have had opportunities to gather for birthdays and weddings (each of us has two children) but we wanted a Harman sister reunion. No husbands, no children, no responsibility, no accountability—just food, fabric, and fun!

We’ve had only two reunions in the last 15 years, so our third had to be especially memorable. We all love needle crafts including cross-stitch, embroidery, knitting, and quilting. Following a very brief discussion of the interests we share, we made the decision—let’s quilt!

The AQS selection of Des Moines for its new quilt show offered the perfect venue for our reunion. The weather and hotel accommodations were wonderful. The instructors inspired us and the classes gave us the confidence to continue on our own, stitching and piecing back in the hotel room well into the night.

We signed up for the Mystery Quilt with Kimberly Einmo and wore our matching lime-green Harman Sister Reunion 2008 T-shirts to class on Thursday. Instructors, vendors, quilters, and shoppers greeted us and laughed as we explained the significance. Several people asked if they could become honorary sisters. We browsed through the huge variety of quilting supplies and beautiful fabrics every chance we could, and when we returned to the market on Friday to purchase one more fat quarter or quilting tool, many people greeted us saying, “Oh you’re the sisters!”

Mom introduced us to the world of fabric, thread, and needles. The four of us have made quilts for our own children (five girls and three boys), and now for their children (six boys and two girls), and our daughters have made quilts as well. Guess you could say quilting is in our family.

Linda (Harman) Apple, California
Susan (Harman) Nelson, Illinois
Karen (Harman) Anderson, Illinois
Janet (Harman) Turner, Florida

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Thank you to the Harman sisters for sharing their story, and to AQS American Quilter Editor Chris Brown for snapping a great photo of them. Many reunions happen at AQS shows - moms and daughters, sisters, friends from across the country all make their plans to spend some quality time together. If you want to plan your own reunion in Des Moines, Iowa, next year, the dates are October 28 - 31, 2009.