Tidbits from Market

This may have to serve as my official Quilt Market recap since i pretty much stayed in my booth the whole time and didn't roam around to take pictures of everyone! But surely by now you've seen lots and lots of photos of the fun that was had there and next time you'll just have to join us.

When i arrived in Houston, i met up with Joanna and we set off to do a little prop shopping for our booths. We had three places we wanted to go, but only made it to two because i read the wrong directions first. Does that make sense? I'm sure it does to my hubby! It's a recurring theme when i'm in the navigator seat. But it does lead to unexpected adventures and Joanna is certainly a fun person to have an adventure with. So we ended up in Spring, TX which is such an adorable teenie place that is packed with antique-ie gift shops and lots of eye candy. On our way into this one, i just had to take this pic for a certain someone. Joanna obliged my request by jumping into the frame:
Then we were off to unpack all our boxes and start booth setup. Which brings me to a GIANT THANK YOU to Lissa, Joanna, Liesl, and Deb for responding so helpfully to my first-time-with-a-booth S.O.S. and for sharing their Quilt Market how-tos with me. Had it not been for them, none of my boxes would have arrived on time, i would have had bare poles and ugly white curtains, stark tables and nowhere to put all the stuff i brought. So thanks to them and to Heather and Melanie for their expert shelf-assembly, my booth went from this:

to this:

And if it hadn't been for Sherri, i would only have had one quilt to hang! Just look at this beauty she made: It's called "Carousel". You can read more about it on her blog. And, there's some very special news we'll get to share about her quilt...soon (eeek, so exciting!).

I have to say, once the booth was put together and my anxiety about all the logistics had subsided, i loved every minute of it. You know why? Because i got to meet so many creative people from shop owners to blogland friends to fellow designers — people who i admire for all sorts of reasons. And after chatting it up with everyone who stopped by, it was so clear to me that the common thread that ties us all together is that we're doing what we love and willing to take chances on our abilities in order to sustain our creative lives. What could be better?

One of the people i was lucky to meet was Kathy Mack, owner of Pink Chalk Fabrics. It was the first time i had met Kathy in person, though i felt like i had known her forever! In fact, thanks to some pointers i found on her blog, she unknowingly helped me through a sewing-with-laminates-conundrum (you can read her tips here)! On day two, Kathy came back to my booth with her flip video camera and asked me to give her a tour. I can't believe i'm going to share this with you! When i get in front of a camera (of any kind) my brain goes ______________and all i hear in my head is "blahblahblahaablahahablahh". But i managed to get some sentences out and if you weren't able to come to market, you can have a look around:

Kathy, i so enjoyed meeting you. Thank you for including me in your video tour and for making it as painless as possible with your kind and warm spirit.

Here are two other great gals:
Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts and Kim Knight of TrueUp. I adored meeting Kim and always love seeing julie — who, by the way, is toting quite an impressive resume of placements in quilting magazines. Way to go! I seriously think i could have giggled the day away with these two! Once julie took the lense cap off her camera (she's actually trying to hide here), she snapped some pics of my booth and was so nice to include them on her blog in her market recap.

Here's my wonderful booth neighbor Deb Strain:
You only have to meet Deb once to know how incredibly sweet she is. Not to mention unbelievably gifted and prolific!

And i can't believe i captured so much talent in one picture!!
Lynn of Kansas Troubles, Karla of Sweetwater, the Kathy Schmitz, and Sandy of American Jane.
(thank you all for finally looking at the camera! sheesh...i almost had to pay them to pose! but you know i ♥ you all)

And here's one of me and Joanna in her beautiful booth and i mean beautiful! The pictures on her blog do it much more justice than mine.
Hmm...we were moving along so well there, but i've run out of pictures...

So you'll have to just imagine what the Moda party was like, what silly things people were wearing on Halloween, what the booth breakdown looked like (wait, you don't want to do that)— and then what it was like to come home to see my sweet hubby, and to kick up my feet for a whole hour before diving into designing my next line of fabric. The promise of a blank page is always an inspiration to me. What oh what will it be this time..