Friday at Fall Market means School House. This is an entire day of classes. At 9:30 am they pass out a booklet listing all the various classes being offered each session. Note that there are 15 sessions AND a 30 min. introduction and a lunch period. Here is my friend, Sandi Brawner (she owns an awesome shop, Quilt Country in Lewiston, TX. Sandi was explaining how to run a block of the month program and showing off one of their new patterns. Don't you love her lime green tie-dye shirt? Sandi always says that lime 
green is a neutral! Then in another class about how to use big prints effectively my good friend (and Mexican Cruise cabin-mate) Karen Snyder shows off one of the quilts in her new book: Big Print Quilts.Each of these classes is only 15 minutes to 30 minutes long and there may be 300 or 30 in a class depending on the subject. I took classes on 8 Essential Things a Shop Owner Should Do, Jo Morton and her new fabric line, How to use Cut Goods (like Jelly rolls, charm packs, etc) and so many more. At lunch we (Bill, Liz & I) found a table and over our bagels shared our class 
experiences. Liz took a class on publishing. Bill took a class on rulers.
At 6 pm we were done and we were tired! My feet hurt and I was hungry. There weren't any food vendors open in the convention center so we schlepped out stuff out to the car and began to walk through downtown. We needed to find a place we could walk to. Liz asked a street cop if there was anywhere we could get a good, quick meal and he directed us to a Chinese place. It was serene, quiet and cool. Perfect! Sitting down to a table with white tablecloth and glasses of iced water was heaven!
experiences. Liz took a class on publishing. Bill took a class on rulers.At 6 pm we were done and we were tired! My feet hurt and I was hungry. There weren't any food vendors open in the convention center so we schlepped out stuff out to the car and began to walk through downtown. We needed to find a place we could walk to. Liz asked a street cop if there was anywhere we could get a good, quick meal and he directed us to a Chinese place. It was serene, quiet and cool. Perfect! Sitting down to a table with white tablecloth and glasses of iced water was heaven!
Then it was back to the convention center for Sample Spree. Note the sign: No Rolling Luggage allowed! This event is a madhouse. You have never seen so many people (mostly women) 
grabbing, tugging, elbowing their way to the tables to buy Fat Quarter towers, jelly rolls, patterns, sample aprons and more. We didn't plan to buy very much. But we'll be carrying at least a 50 lbs. suitcase full of stuff and probably shipping boxes too!
Here's a picture of the BEGINNING of the line to get in. Behind the glass partition in the back of the picture the line divides and goes on for at least 100 yards in each direction 6 or 8 deep. This line is probably 30 people wide. Well, off to be again. Tomorrow I'll report on Sat.....where we met Heather Bailey and ordered her new fabric and surprise, surprise for those of you who are Project Runway fans.....2nd Season Jay McCarrol now designs fabric for Westminster. Lots more to share and lots and lots of pictures.
Here's a picture of the BEGINNING of the line to get in. Behind the glass partition in the back of the picture the line divides and goes on for at least 100 yards in each direction 6 or 8 deep. This line is probably 30 people wide. Well, off to be again. Tomorrow I'll report on Sat.....where we met Heather Bailey and ordered her new fabric and surprise, surprise for those of you who are Project Runway fans.....2nd Season Jay McCarrol now designs fabric for Westminster. Lots more to share and lots and lots of pictures.
2 comments:
Oh Brenda!! Thank you for including us--if only via the internet. :-) I hope someday to go in person...gotta see that sample spree!! Have fun, and see ya on the return.
I loved hearing about this. You will not be able to post too many pictures or too much description. This is the first time I've ever felt like I would like to go someday. Was the Sample Spree worth it?
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