Quilt Market Friday

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!

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.

We're Baaack!

Liz and I are back from Quilt Market in Portland, OR. We left bright and early last Wednesday morning, met our friend Marie Duncan in Grant's Pass. Marie is opening a new quilt shop next month in Citrus Heights called Runs with Scissors. Then we drove together to Portland. Big thanks go to my brother and sister-in-law, Pat & Debbie McNally, who graciously let us stay in their home. The view is incredible from their home so many snow-capped mountains.

We had to leave for a meeting Thursday morning at 6 am! What a long and exhausting day we had. My meeting was with several shop owners I chat with daily by email and we share marketing ideas. Many of them are famous authors, fabric designers, pattern designers and all are successful shop owners---all very talented and savvy women. I am proud of all of us.

Then we rushed to School House...from 10 am till 6 pm we ran from class to class, some 10 minutes long, some 30 minutes. By lunch my head was spinning, my notebook was full and we shared what we'd learned and ran back to our next class. I had classes in folding fat quarters, decorating tips, introduction to new fabric lines, all about new books, programs and patterns. I learned ways to manage inventory, bookkeeping tips and new quilting techniques.

At 6 pm Liz, Marie & I met up and prepared to go to dinner. We were excited to see Kim Speath from Fortuna Fabrics & Sally Frey of Kenmar Farms registering and then Susie Burkhart from Ocean Waves and Susie Freese showed up to register too! We walked to Red Robin and had teryakki chicken burgers and back to the Convention Center for Sample Spree. There was still a half hour to go and the line was 4-6 wide and wound around the center, down two staircases (the escalators were off for some reason) and around again. It took 10 minutes for the line to allow us to enter the front doors to the exhibit hall. You must show your ticket at the door...yes, it costs to go to Sample Spree and you must register early to get a coveted ticket. Imagine a Bazaar with 1200 frantic women trying to get the best of the best. The prices are wholesale and about 200 of the vendors of Quilt Market offer single items...fat quarter packs, jelly rolls, patterns, books, AND already made samples of quilts, vests, wall hangings, skirts, aprons, stuffed animals and more. Most vendors only take cash so I'm always nervous about holding all that cash. Come in to see the cute apron we got for Sydney.....oh yes, you can also get a pattern for children AND adults.

Tomorrow: Market begins and Liz and I rub shoulders with the best of the best!