Wow. Where do I start?
I’ve had two incredibly full days in Houston and have spent lots of money. 
Yesterday was “Schoolhouse”, which is 8 straight hours of 15- and 30-minute sessions that can best be described as infomercials. Fabric companies, pattern designers, gadget sellers put together brief presentations about why you should buy their fabric, pattern, whatever. And after so many minutes, everyone gets up and switches rooms for the next session. During each period (I think there were 14?) you have about 18 sessions to choose from. Of course, some are much better than others, some aren’t what you expected them to be. By the end of the day, it’s hard to know what you’re listening to anymore.
But I sat through some awesome sessions yesterday. Two of them were with Kaffe Fassett, Liza Prior Lucy, and Pauline Smith. It was wonderful to hear Kaffe talk about his design process, how he uses his fabric, the thought process that goes into designing his fabric. I took some pictures, but they’re terrible; I’m still getting used to my new digital camera. But here they are anyway. These two pictures are of the same quilt, two different colorways:
Today I stopped by the Rowan booth to get them to sign a copy of “Quilt Road” for me. Since another designer in a different Schoolhouse session explicity said, “I don’t want to see any of these pictures on your shop websites!” I wanted to be sure to ask permission. They all agreed without hesitation (Liza asked that I please spell their names right!). Really nice people.
At the opening session, Karey Bresenhan shared with us an update on Quilters Comfort America, the Quilts Inc. project that we first sent our Quilts for Katrina too. She said that they distributed over 12,000 (yes, twelve THOUSAND) quilts to refugees. All but 30 quilts had been distributed as of Monday, and those were still in the Quilts Inc. offices only because they had just come in. It’s wonderful to know that we are a part of that.
Today was the first official day of Quilt Market. There are 1131 booths, over 500 exhibitors. Think about that for a minute, and you’ll probably understand why I’m so tired. This is my third Quilt Market. The first time, I was doing research and not spending money. The second time, I was spending money hand over fist, ordering things to fill a shop, buying for my imaginary customers. This time, I have *real* customers that I’m shopping for, and I’m on a budget.
I found a distributor for dyes and ordered a rack that will hold 36 different colors of MX dye powders. I ordered Setacolors. And a rack of King Tut varigated machine quilting thread – my favorite, and from what I hear, the favorite of some of you, too. I ordered books and patterns and fabric, and found all kinds of inspiration.
I’m going to need more sample sewers when I get home. If you’re interested, please let me know. I need people who can give me a quick turnaround.
