Absolutely Twisted


My friend and co-worker M and I got to thinkin'( always dangerous, always scarey, and often a source of hilarity...if only our own), a few years ago...that by damn, there should be a guild right here in our town. There had never been one to our knowledge, all the quilting talent had to jump in the car and travel east or west to find a place to share the love. We whined back and forth about it...seemingly in an attempt to talk ourselves into doing it I think. It finally worked...or we got sick of listening to ourselves. Time to shit or get off the pot as they (whoever?) say.
To our credit, we were bright enough to go lookin' for back-up before setting anything in stone. We sweet-talked (okay manhandled) two other hard working members of the quilt industry into joining us on this adventure. We needed some sanity in the group , not to mention two more brains to pick and four more hands to pick up the slack. We got the brains and the hands...sanity remains illusive. And I'm thinkin'...that's a good thing!
Thus......... Twisted Stitchers was born.
We dealt with all the crap that it takes to start up a guild, finding a place to have it at a price we could afford....since we had zero dollars, that pretty much eliminated anything with four walls and a ceiling. Persistence and out and out begging finally secured us a home. We planned a program, made samples of anything we were offering....and put the word out that this new guild was open.
Then we waited.
Our goal for the first year was to get 15 members. Gawd we hoped we could. To us, that was a good number to start with. None of us had ever run a guild before. Some of us had been on the executive of other guilds....but to have it all be your baby...there's alittle pressure there. We figured we could make all the mistakes and only fifteen other people would ever know about it....and if we could make it thru the year....we'd be all the better our second year...should we actually get a few more members. Ha!
We got 30....with a waiting list for another 10. This was serious...and ya...we were alittle freaked. No backing out now... altho it had always seemed in my head anyway, that we could with 15, when truly, that would not have been possible either.
So there we were opening night....looking like this so together executive, each of us trying to appear like we knew exactly what we were doing while fighting the urge to puke. We so pulled it off...if only there were Emmy's or Oscars for such performances!
And in just one...short...short...week, we're going to do it all again. Year two finds us with 40 members, a waiting list, a strong, yet crazy executive (sexutive), a terrific volunteer who arranges our food and coffee, and a new librarian.
The fact that we don't have a library...is a mere technicality....and in keeping with our style of operation.......just alittle bit Twisted!
Let the fun begin!