Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year from AQS


All of the staff at the American Quilter's Society wishes you a new year full of peace, happiness and lots of quilting. We hope to see you at one of our four shows this year - Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in March; Paducah, Kentucky, in April; Knoxville, Tennessee, in July; and Des Moines, Iowa, in October. Find all of the show information on our Web site...just click here.

Did you all see the Blue Moon on New Year's Eve? It was beautiful shining over the Mississippi River at Davenport, Iowa.

See you in 2010!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Attention: Garment Sewers

The AQS/Hobbs Bonded Fibers Fashion Show & Contest will be held at the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah in April. There is still time to enter your ensemble for this fashion show. Click here to print the rules for the 2010 fashion contest. Your entry must be postmarked on January 4, 2010, or before. There are categories and professionals and amateurs. A Viewer's Choice is also selected by the audience during the fashion show.

If you aren't able to attend to model your garment, just let us know on the entry form and we'll find a model for you.

$10,000 in prizes will be awarded; the winner of the Design Excellence Award will receive a new Bernina sewing machine.

The fashion show will be held at the Carson Four Rivers Center on Friday, April 23, 2010. Contestants will practice with our modeling consultant from 8:30 to 11:00 a.m.; the fashion show will begin at 1:00 p.m. The contestants tell me that it is a really fun experience.

If you have any questions about the rules, please contact Erin Ulrich at erinulrich@AQSquilt.com or 270-898-7903, ext. 174.

Bonnie Browning
Executive Show Director

Friday, December 18, 2009

Paducah Registration is Open Online

At 3:00 p.m. on Friday, the online registration was opened for the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky, April 21 - 24, 2010.

Click here to go directly to the online registration site. We are still working on the photos of the class projects and will get them uploaded next week. It will take a few more days to get the General Information loaded on the Web site too.

We apologize for the delay in getting the Paducah registration ready for you. We under-estimated the time it would take to get the registration materials ready for the new AQS Quilt Show in Lancaster, PA. If you ordered a printed copy of the Paducah Registration Guide, it is at the printer and will be mailed as soon as they are delivered to us.

We have made a change in the way we are processing tickets for our special evening events that will be held at the Carson Four Rivers Center. We have An Evening with Kaffe Fassett on Wednesday evening, Eleanor Burns - Live on Stage on Thursday evening, and Music & More: Ricky Tims Concert on Friday evening. The tickets for all of these events will be sold by the Carson Four Rivers Center so that all of you will have reserved seats. The past few years, people were lining up at 3 and 4 p.m. to get the best seats for these 7 p.m. events. There is no need to stand in line for hours again. Now you can just call the Carson Four Rivers Center at 270-450-4444 to order your reserved seat. The tickets are $17 each (includes fees). AQS will not be processing any tickets for these three special evening events.

Telephone registration will begin on January 27, 2010. Between now and then, you can register online, by sending a registration form through the U.S. Mail, or by faxing the registration form to the AQS office (270-898-1173).

We'll have some photos of the new Pavilion to post soon. Come see what is new at the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Yes, Virginia, There Will Be a Quilt Show in Paducah!

The Paducah City Commission has been hard at work on a resolution to the now-closed Executive Inn, and to provide alternate facilities for the AQS Quilt Show. At last night's Commission meeting several actions were approved - see the notes below from Pam Spencer, City Information Officer.

Purchase of Executive Inn: Commissioners unanimously approved an ordinance to purchase the Executive Inn from the mortgage-holder, Logan Asset Backed Fund, in the amount of $1.8 million. The Convention Center Corporation owns the land that is occupied by the hotel and convention centers. Commissioners also unanimously approved an ordinance to acquire the land that the Executive Inn sits on from the Convention Center Corporation. In addition to the purchase price of $1.8 million, the City expects to spend an additional estimated $1.8 million for demolition, liens, and other hotel expenses. The Executive Inn closed in September 2008 and briefly reopened for the Quilt Show and a few other conventions in 2009. Before voting, Mayor Paxton discussed the City’s commitment for providing a pavilion due to the lack of the vendor space that the Executive Inn has provided in the past. Paxton asked Meredith Schroeder co-founder of the American Quilter’s Society to make a statement about AQS’s five-year commitment to keeping the Quilt Show in Paducah. Schroeder says, “Paducah’s home. We want the show here. We think it’s a benefit for the City. We don’t want to move.” Mayor Paxton then thanked the Commission for its hard work over the past year. Paxton says, “Starting in January of this year, we started working on what we were going to do about this hotel. We all decided we were going to do what was best for the City.”

At this meeting and the previous meeting Downtown Development Director, Steve Doolittle, outlined the history and ownership of the property, the importance of tourism for Paducah, and the importance of the City/County investment into the Julian Carroll Convention Center and the Expo Center. Here are some of the highlights from those presentations: The Julian Carroll Convention Center (51,000 square feet) is connected to the Executive Inn. Earlier this year, the facility was renovated for $5 million by the City and County.
· The $6.5 million Expo Center (50,000 square feet) was built in 2002.
· The convention center facilities and the Executive Inn sit on a publicly owned 27-acre site.
· Paducah is 8th in Kentucky tourism out of the State’s 120 counties.
· Paducah ranks 4th in the State for the amount of convention center space.
· Tourism in the Paducah area generates approximately 3000 jobs with tourism expenditures nearing $200 million per year.
· The AQS Quilt Show provides an impact of $20 million per year to the area.
· Paducah has 30 hotels with 2500 rooms and 200 eating establishments. Together the hotels and restaurants generate $142 million in annual sales and $39.4 million in annual salaries.
· Approximately 20% of the Carson Center’s 60,000 annual visitors travel more than 100 miles. The travel distance means the visitors will more than likely spend the night in Paducah.
· Regarding the Executive Inn, the City is not working with another hotelier, does not plan to operate the facility, and has not negotiated with Mr. Singh.
· Doolittle also outlined upcoming decisions for the Commission including maintaining security and fire protection for the hotel, liquidation, and demolition.

Purchase of Pavilion: Commissioners unanimously approved an ordinance to purchase a 37,800 square foot air dome pavilion from Arizon Structures of St. Louis, Missouri. The pavilion structure will be used, among other things, to house vendors for the 2010 AQS Quilt Show and Contest. The cost of the pavilion is $807,929. The City has an agreement with Arizon that states Arizon will give the city an option of buying back the pavilion 24 months after installation. The price would be determined by taking 80% of the average of three appraisals of the pavilion’s value at that time. There will be additional costs associated with the site preparation, furniture and amenities, and installation.
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Here is a link to WPSD Local 6 TV for their 10 p.m. news broadcast on December 15: http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/79373637.html

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Deadline for Entering the Paducah Quilt Show is January 4

Entries for the 2010 AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky, must be postmarked January 4, 2010 or before.

In all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, don't forget to prepare your two digital images for each quilt entry (you can enter a maximum of two quilts). One image must be of the entire completed quilt. The other image should be a good detail of your quilt - choose a spot on your quilt that shows off your work the best.

More than $120,000 in cash awards will be given at the 2010 AQS Quilt Show. The Janome Best of Show winner will receive $20,000. We just announced this week that Janome is the new sponsor of that Best of Show award.

Read the rules carefully and make sure you have chosen the correct category for your quilt. Measure the quilt to make sure it fits the category you have chosen. Complete your entry form and mail it by January 4, 2010.


Erin Ulrich, AQS Contest Coordinator, is processing entries now. You don't need to wait until the deadline to send in your entry. If you have any questions about entering your quilt, you can e-mail Erin at erinulrich@AQSquilt.com or call her at 270-898-7903, ext. 174.


Good Luck!

Bonnie Browning
Executive Show Director