For several years now, the last ‘show’ of the year for me has been the Houston Quilt Market and Festival. This year was no different. It’s quite a trek from central Illinois to Houston and back – especially in my trusty vehicle, ‘Barney’, who turned over 188,000 miles on this trip! Associate/helper/friend par excellence’ Carol was a super helper and ‘list maker’ every step of the way… Pat Q. and a new helper found in my class on Monday, Carol T. made all the work such fun. Thanks to them ALL!
Market: This is the wholesale portion of the event – for shop owners, designers, and offering great networking opportunities. Normally, the big companies pull out all the stops to create absolutely amazing booths – but it was obvious that the economy nixed that effort/expense this year…kinda disappointing, but not unexpected. Chairs around the fabric booths were rarely all taken…and the mood over all was very quiet IMHO. Fabrics offered are mainly those handled by quilt shops – and quilt fabric has come a long way to new, fresh, bright, and a retro feel – FAR from tea-dyed classics of years ago.
There are so many new fabric lines and designers – it’s hard to set oneself apart from the others. I suppose Amy Butler is the most well-known of these designers. Since I’m not ‘into’ quilts and quilt-making, I’m not ‘in the know’ about all this – but I CAN tell you that one designer that I found last year was there again – and I absolutely LOVE her stuff! Here are Carol and myself with Marcia Derse. Obviously, we both utilized some of her fabrics in our Creative Sweatshirt Jackets – Carol using my Worthy™ Talking Pattern™, and I used Transformed™ Talking Pattern, coming up with the option you see me wearing, which is now an addition to this printed pattern through a Picasa Web album.
Be sure to visit Marcia’s website – www.marciaderse.com where you can purchase her wonderful fabrics – which have a great ‘hand’ as well. And…tell her Londa sent you!
Carol, Marcia and Londa at Marcia’s booth.
The other direction I saw was Minkee, Minkee, Minkee – in prints, different textures – EVERYWHERE! It seems they are trying to give polar fleece a replacement. Personally, having stitched on Minkee, I don’t think it is that EZ, so I have my own reservations about this direction. Gee – I’m glad I’m no longer a fabric shop owner!!!! Here are just a couple shots of ALL the minkee type fabric that was being shown..
To me, it’s alot like stitching on velvet – so I’d ‘stick’ seams together with 505 temporary Spray.
FESTIVAL is the retail portion that starts after set-up on Wed. Get this: you ‘load in’ (which means unloading your stuff from your vehicle from 4-8 onTuesday, and 8-4 on Wed. Then you set up your booth – no small task – and then have selling hours for those who have registered to take classes from 4-10 pm Wed. night! THAT’s a killer!!!!!!! Imagine MORE than a football field full of vendors and equal size of amazing quilts on display from around the world. THAT’s Houston every Fall.
Trim ideas galore…were flooding my brain for myupcoming design work for embellishing T-Shirts.
Shopping for fabric at the retail Festival portion of the show is like being in a HUGE candy store! Here are my ‘finds’ to transform and update my dear daughter’s 1950 Sears House Kitchen to ‘shabby chic’. Don’t you love that ‘Dr. Seuss’ type tree panel?
Mary B. FINISHED her Jacket! She was the motivated student who used the Brother sewing room to finish her jacket from my class on Monday with her and 14 others.
Customer creativity! Judy from TX wears this fisherman’s vest that she embellished with silk ribbon embroidery. She adds a bug each year from that vendor. A fisherman’s vest for shopping without a purse – ingenious!
Ruffle Scarves. 2 cross grain panels of Ruffle Fabric create a GREAT scarf. I have the taupe and grey ‘flat’ ruffle fabric on its way to me. GREAT gifts!!!
Nancy Zieman showing off the brand new Clover I-Pad, Kindle, Notebook cover. Not yet available – but I’m taking pre-orders at my website. GREAT gift idea – absolutely ingenious. Leave it to Nancy!Quilted Car! Created by Shiner Heritage Quilters to advertise their March 2009 Quilt Show. Great in many parades…..
Pat Q. helper in a great ‘Chosen’ sweatshirt jacket. More on this wonderful jacket and her creative ideas in another post coming soon.