Its amazing how a neighbourhood can come together to create something special. Last year I had the pleasure of being invited to Ailsa Craig, Ontario, Canada along with  other New Zealanders. We brought an amazing quilt exhibition and taught classes and best of all interacted all week with locals, ex-pat kiwis, quilters and those that had visited New Zealand. It was a once in a lifetime experience!

Each year the Ailsa Craig community of approx 900+ people (just a village) invite a different country to bring an exhibition, host it and teach quilting in some form. How do they do it? They combine together and support each other. The local butcher provides the meat for the Quilt Cafe, The local liquor store provides the alchohol for the event, locals billet the guests from overseas – I got to stay with the Thorpes in this wonderful yellow house!

The people involved see the value of the exhibition and how it helps the community – teaching rooms added to Ye Olde Town Hall, coverage for outside seating at the Recreation Centre from the sun, artwork in the local park and ssupport of local businesses. This neighbourhood is not just quilters – in fact the majority aren’t quilters but they bring this exhibition in as a way of getting visitors to their local town – approx 3000 attendees who spent at the show and in the village.  So welcoming, so helpful and now lifetime friends. I hope some of them will visit New Zealand so that I can look after them the way their neighbourhood looked after us.