Fall '10 Quilt Market Recap - More great booths

There is a lot more than just the big fabric companies at market so here are some of my favorite "other" booths that had fun displays and great patterns:

Make Your Day Designs

Indygo Junction

Art Gallery Fabrics

Here are two of my favorite quilts that I saw:

I can't remember the name of this designer, if you know her name please post a comment below

Tula Pink

To see more photos from Quilt Market be sure to check out True Up, Kim has a great overview of TONS of booths and sneak peeks at upcoming fabrics.

Fall '10 Quilt Market Recap - Top 5 fabric designer booths

I think I had the same late Quilt Market recap for spring market. I have so many things to catch up on after market it seems like the blog post gets pushed aside. Sorry about that! Without putting you through more waiting here are some of my favorites from market.

Of course the bigger designers always have amazing booths - here are my 5 fabric fabric booths:

Amy Butler - Always amazing, first place booth winner this year

Tina Givens - I didn't get a photo so this is the best one I could find online, not too great, her booth was awesome!

Anna Maria Horner - Always a colorful place

Alexander Henry Fabrics - great setup, really awesome tablecloths

Jenean Morrison - awesome booth, yes that's a bike covered in fabric - too fun! And over to the left a guitar covered in fabric too.

Spring 2010 Quilt Market...finally

So this post is only about 3 weeks overdue but I finally uploaded my quilt market pictures to my computer. I didn't take a ton of photos but I got a few of some of my favorites.

Enjoy!

The wonderful Seven Islands/Kokka/Echino:

Indygo Junction:

The wonderful Amy Butler:

A new organic fabric company - Birch:

Favorite Things:

A great new pattern company called - Make Your Day Designs:

Back from my travels

I am back from my crazy travels and back to the blog! I haven't had a chance to upload my photos from Quilt Market yet but I will have them up soon. If you are starving for a little Quilt Market goodness, head over to True Up to see some of Kim's fantastic photos and reviews of some of the exciting new collections from market. She has tons of posts on a wide variety of booths so be sure to check out each and every lovely one.

I just found out that the summer Bazaar Bizarre show has a few openings so I might be hopping up to Cleveland for that show on July 3rd if I can get my act together and start sewing (a lot!) over the next few weeks. I will keep you updated on my progress along the way.

I will be back soon with market pictures and other updates. And since I've never done a picture-less post, here are the two new books I picked up at market, signed by the lovely authors themselves!

Quilt Market Packing, Minneapolis here I come!

I don't leave for 5 more days but I have already started planning my quilt market outfits and trying to pack in my head. I've pulled lots of clothes out and started making outfits that will work for the show. I am far from a fashionista so the advanced planning is very necessary so I don't show up with a pair of jeans a few shirts and then realize that I didn't bring any underwear or shoes (totally possible). I will be in Minneapolis for 8 days with lots of running around but hopefully that will also include lots of yummy food and adult beverages as quilt market usually does. I don't have to travel a lot for my job so I still enjoy going to trade shows, I am also a bit of a nerd and I love packing and traveling for any reason so I usually start early (for example, I've already started looking for hiking shoes and mentally tagging different clothes for my trip to Costa Rica this fall, only 6 months in advance - no biggie).

I can't wait to see old friends and all the new booth displays and fill myself up with new inspiration. And then fill my suitcase with any book, fat quarter and vintage button I can get my hands on!

Quilt Market 2009

Quilt Market was a blast, as always. It was busy all day and delicious food and drinks every night. I didn't get out of the booth much so I don't have tons of pictures but I got a few of my favorite booths:

Amy Butler -

Alexander Henry -

Echino -

I didn't get tons of photos but there are many great blogs out there with great recaps of quilt market. True Up is one of my favorite blogs and she has done a fantastic job with her recaps.

Quilt Market Part II

Well, it’s all over. A bit sad but I had a great time. I tried to write earlier when I was at the airport but the Internet would not connect. I don’t really know where to start because I saw so much and talked to so many great people. The booth at AH was great, I had a great time with everybody there and loved catching up with all of them, hopefully I will see them again soon in
Pittsburgh for Spring Market.

I guess I will start by just going through some of my pictures and let you know what I saw. I stopped by Anna Maria Horner’s booth. It was so cute, I talked to her for a bit and bought her new book Seams To Me and had her sign it. She is really nice and easy to talk to. She let us know that she is expecting her 6th child this Spring. Congrats to Anna! I don’t know how she does it but she does and the new book is great, lots of inspiring projects and pictures. She also won an award for her booth!

I stopped by Amy Butler’s booth and it looked great, as usual. She was at lunch when I stopped by so I didn’t get to say hi but I saw her later on at the hotel and then we were on the same flight home. She is always great to talk to and super nice. She had great, inspiring projects all over her booth and some great photos.

Kim from True up was at the AH booth and I got to talk to her. She writes a blog that is all about fabric. I haven’t had a chance to really check it out yet but from what I have seen so far it looks pretty cool, I can’t wait to sit down and look through all the pictures. She has some great pics from Quilt Market too.

If you have never seen the patterns and stuffed animals from Melly & Me you need to head over to their website right now because they are some of the cutest things I have ever seen. They are an Australian company and have some really fun stuff. I bought two purse patterns from them and I have a few more patterns that I bought last year.

Another company with tons of great patterns is Indygo Junction. Their booth was really cute with lots of their projects made up. I talked to one of the designers later at AH and helped her pick out some fabrics that they might use in some of their future samples. They have a lot of great stuff, some cute accessories too like this necklace made out of buttons.

I walked around a lot, collected some business cards and saw a lot of great quilts, patterns and project ideas. If nothing else I always leave quilt market very inspired. You see so many people who have followed their dreams and worked their way to Quilt Market. All the people there with their little booths that they have been planning for months to get it just right. It makes me feel like it is not too far away, that maybe within the next five years I could be there with my own booth and my own patterns getting sold to the quilt stores around the country.

This is the aftermath of Quilt Market, after everyone has left for the day. It was a little after 8 when we were all done packing up our booth. It was a great weekend and I hope I can do it again in May!

Live from Quilt Market

Well, it has been a busy day but, of course, I have been having lots of fun. I got into Houston yesterday evening and went to dinner with everyone from the Alexander Henry Studio. It was fun to be able to catch up with them.


The show opened at 9:30 this morning. I was over at the AH booth around 9 to get all the information on their newest line and the sneak peak of next seasons line. It all looks amazing, did anyone really doubt them? I have several new favorites from their line a few of which I want a just to hang on my walls because they are so wonderful. They did a "White Autumn" scene in the wondershop this season and it looks great. This is a fun tree with fabric leaves at the Blank Quilting booth:
At my lunch hour I grabbed a quick snack and walked around for the rest of the time just admiring the booths and picking up brochures and magazines along the way. I talked to a few people here and there but mostly I just walked and looked at booths. I plan to try to talk to everyone tomorrow. I have seen a few people that I recognize from the blogging world walking around which is fun. I think it's funny how some of the fabric designers become kinda like celebrities at these events.

I did discover something very exciting....Timtex is back! A few months back the company announced that they were no longer making the heavyweight interfacing that is great for lots of purses and other crafts. But I was walking by the C&T Publishing booth and noticed a few little samples of it and talked to one of the employees. They have their own blog and you can get the whole Timtex story here.

Cool booth with lots of buttons an trims:

One of my favorite pattern designers, Indygo Junction:
A booth with cool vintage fabric and buttons:

Those are just a few pictures from some of the booths I saw. I will take more pictures tomorrow, I will try to post all my pictures on my picassa site tomorrow so you can see a little bit of Quilt Market for yourself. Let me know if you have any questions or booths you want to see pictures of. Talk to you soon!

Countdown!

I have started my countdown to Quilt Market. One week from today I will be on my way to Houston. Unfortunately I will not have my own booth at market but I will be working for Alexander Henry Fabrics, my favorite fabric company. I have been lucky enough to work these shows with them since I worked in the studio a few years ago. I love going to market each year, I always look forward to it. Like many crafters trying to make it in this industry I have a "day job" to make money until my crafting job can become my full time work. Working as hard as we do can sometimes make it hard to keep up the enthusiasm for my work and the creativity to keep going. Each time I go to market or any other industry show it renews my enthusiasm for what I do. There are so many great people that you meet, not to mention all the most amazing, new fabrics.

I think one of my favorite parts about Quilt Market is the booths. There are over 500 vendors and no two booths are the same. The big companies always do a great job and have beautiful booths but I love to see the small ones the most. You know when you walk by these booths that the owners/designers are there working the whole show to get their patterns and work out there for everybody to see. I can only imagine the work they put into each and every detail of their display to make sure it looks just right. I hope to one day have a booth at market so I love walking around to get inspiration for what my booth will look like.

This is my first market since I have become more serious about my design business so I hope to take LOTS of pictures and meet as many people as I can. I know I still have a lot of work to do before I get to that point but it can't hurt to get started now. I have printed off the list of all the exhibitors and I plan to narrow down the list to all the booths that I want to hit while I am there. This can be tricky since I am technically working while I am there. I have to fit my wandering around into my lunch hour and the little bit of time before and after the show is open. So I am working on a plan to get as much accomplished in the short time that I can.

Here is a pretty dorky picture of me in the Alexander Henry booth two years ago at market, with my cute skirt that I made out of Mocca by AH. Are you going to market? Have you ever been in the past? Let me know!