ktaa annual exhibition 08 or how things don't always follow the gameplan

Our annual exhibition was scheduled for May 14th - 17th, two weeks earlier than last year as I was travelling to the States for 2 family weddings. everything was organised; VIPs invited, including to open the show, judges recruited, over 170 items entered and hung, opening night catering sorted, newspapers and tv primed and ready to go, charity representatives booked for presentation.

and then I got a telephone call.


The father emir, a much loved and respected member of the ruling al Sabah family, had just died. everything had to stop, out of respect and for the official mourning. I spent the next several hours on the phone, like 24, and with the help of my amazing committee, and the support of the Rajab family whose halls we were using for the exhibition, we rescheduled it for the following Monday, tuesday and wednesday. It meant we had to telescope the final meeting and agm into the tuesday evening after the exhibition closed for the day, and we also managed to make the charity presentation that evening too, and then I set off for the States on the wednesday, leaving the team behind to pack everything away at the end of the last day.


talk about stress! it was probably only the stress that was holding me together actually, but I was so proud of the way everyone rallied round to support their group, and pleased that despite everything, our VIPs turned up, our members turned up, huge numbers of visitors turned up, everyone thought it was fantastic and we raised about 900KD in raffle ticket sales for a quiltmade by our quilt group ladies. We donated this money to our 2008 charity, KACCH, which supports children in hospital and will be building the largest hospice in the middle east over the next couple of years.

The judged categories this year were 'quilting emotion' and 'quilting in motion'. The two winners were:



Call to Prayer, call to peace by Kathi Ewen.



and Ghobar by Janet Vigeant.



this is the best in show, Suleyman Mosque, made by Q8quilters member Diana Hill from a photo she took on holiday. She made the quilt in a class she took with Paramjeet Bawa, whose own quilt Duststorm did so well last year at Birmingham, Houston and Dubai.




this was the visitors choice, Handbags, made by Debra Norton, a very popular winning choice. And this last was the children's choice, Waqanqi and the butterfly by Shyamala Rao.