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.

Ikea Adventures - new craft show displays

I visited one of my favorite stores yesterday... Ikea! I could honestly spend days wandering through that place and never get tired of it. I was on a mission to find some new shelves to use for display in my craft show booths. I haven't gotten them out of the boxes yet so all I have to show is the stock photo from the Ikea website.

I got two of these:

And one of these:

They are simple, easy to assemble and I think I will really like them for my shows. I have about 2 weeks until my first show of the season, once I get my display staged I will try to post some pics. But first, I have to take a one week break because I am headed off to Quilt Market in Houston, I can't wait!

Spending time outside

I will be the first to admit that my posts haven't been exactly regular around here. I will admit that the summer has gotten the best of me and I haven't been around the computer too much. I have a good excuse though, I promise!

Here are a few of my excuses -

Smokey Mountain National Park - hiking and waterfalls

Buckeye Lake - weekend trips

Springfield Flea Market - searching for treasures

Inniswoods Metro Gardens - I could spend hours wandering through this park

Stores I want to visit

More and more shop owners are starting blogs to support their stores. Since I am slightly addicted to blogs (reading others that is, not so much posting to my own lately unfortunately) I come across tons of stores that I wish were just down the street. Usually they are in a far away land like Australia or London but I lust after walking through their doors each time I open up their blogs. Here are a few stores that I have found through their blogs that I have added to my traveling wish list.

Lark - Daylesford, Australia - The Lark BlogYummy Goods - West Barnstable, MA - Yummy Goods Blog

Curious Sofa - Kansas City - Curious Sofa Blog - I found this one in this months issue of Where Women Create - beautiful store!

These are just a few of the small shops I have discovered recently. I could go on and on about the places I want to shop around the world, my list is always growing. Are there any of your favorite shops you have found through a blog?

TNNA

I was lucky enough to get to go to another wonderful trade show last weekend. TNNA (The National Needle Arts Association) was in Columbus so I got to go and take a peek around. I am not very into the needle arts...yet. I was very inspired walking around the show and seeing all of the beautiful samples so I think I might need to pick up my knitting needles and crochet hooks and get started again with these crafts.

Not many people let you take booth photos at this show so I only snapped a few shots of some nice looking booths.

The one and only Rowan:

Noni Designs:

Amy Butler, again. This lady is everywhere, now with yarn!

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 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.

The Traveling Crafter: Charlotte, NC

Last weekend I was down in Charlotte, NC visiting my sister and her family. We had a great time hanging out, talking and not doing anything else. It was a great weekend. One thing I love to do when I am in new cities is to check out one or two quilt shops. They are never the same and they never have exactly the same fabric. I love walking through them and looking at all the fabric, I have been to dozens of shops and quilt market many times but every time I walk into a new quilt store I see some new fabrics that I have never seen before. I might only buy a fat quarter or, like this past weekend, I might buy 15 yards of fabric.

This past weekend outside of Charlotte we stopped at Mary Jo's Cloth Shop in Gastonia, NC. This is a HUGE store filled with any type of fabric you could imagine. Half the store is regular weight cotton fabrics for quilting and crafting. Another area of the store is all heavyweight and upholstery weight fabrics. There is also a huge section for just trims, ric rac and ribbon and anything else you could want.

The possibilities are endless and I think I spent the first half hour just walking around and looking at everything. The fabric was broken down into sections in some areas, batiks, polka dots, stripes, animals, and tons of other categories. It was a lot of fun just looking at everything and touching everything, then I came back to reality and noticed that my sister and her 8 and 9 year old kids were getting a little bored.

So I had to get a mission in my mind so I could concentrate on picking a few things out of the massive selection of fabrics. I concentrated on picking out a few fabrics that I could make some purses with for Bazaar Bizarre. The show is getting closer and closer. So I picked out a few fabrics and got a few remnant pieces as well and headed for check out. It was an amazing store and I had a great time walking the aisles. If you are ever in that area of the country you should make it your first stop. Where are your favorite quilt shops?