Fall Quilt Market Report – Part 1

As usual, fall Quilt Market in Houston was a colorful visual treat for all the senses and an overload of sewing/quilting and creative inspirations.  Here are just a few of the booths and products that caught my eye when my camera was close in hand.

Fabric, fabric everywhere!  It seems to me that this show, more than ever, featured so many new designer fabric collections.  I sure am glad I am not a fabric buyer because it would be so difficult to narrow down my favorites.  Here’s a peak at what was new:

Laura Foster Nicholson of LFN Textile and designer for Renaissance Ribbons introduces her first fabric line with Troy.  http://lfntextiles.blogspot.com/

Andover Fabric makes a big splash with their Downton Abbey collection – free tote bags at Schoolhouse.  http://bit.ly/1go3SVm

Amy Butler Hapi collection inspired by her travels to Egypt.  http://bit.ly/1bTTbUM

Heather Bailey’s award winning booth.

How nice to meet Denyse Schmidt (no relation!) and see her Ansonia collection and Modern Solids. http://bit.ly/19whitQ

Anna Maria Horner’s beautiful Dowry collection. Anna Maria just had her 6th child…how does she do it all?!

Of course there were lots of other things besides fabric to get excited about.  A couple of my favorite new products:

Nathan Wiedenmann, creator of the Stella EDGE light.  Santa…I need this!  http://stellalighting.com/

Terial magic spray that transforms fabric into paper like sheets. Makes incredible soft flowers that can be molded and formed. Exciting what can be done with it and the Silhouette Cameo. More things to add to Santa’s list.

And of course there are always the quilts!

Love the graphic look of this bicycle quilt. Sorry I didn’t write down the company who featured it in their booth.

How cute is this Dena Designs ruffle chevron quilt?

A happy BOM color therapy quilt program from Westminster Fibers. Inspired by Michele Bernhardt’s book Colorstrology: What Your Birthday Color Says About You. My color is nectarine…what does that say? I like to eat them!  http://amzn.to/18UhKhp

And the booth that I thought was really unique:

Green Bee Design & Patterns. Love how they showed their patterns in muslin with the design lines in black. You can imagine them in just about any fabric.  http://greenbeepatterns.com/

Here I am after my book signing.  Thank you to Fabric Editions for helping me promote Precut Patchwork Party.  I signed 20 books in 20 minutes–whee!  http://amzn.to/HDkxWH

In Part 2, I’ll show you quilts from the exhibitions area.

QuiltCon Fun

QuiltCon, the first conference of the Modern Quilt Guild, was a blast!  Austin, TX is such a cool place and all the conference leaders and volunteers went out of their way to make this a spectacular event.

There were exhibitors…

Andover Fabrics booth and Vickie Anderson and Carol Zentgraf at the Modern Quilting Unlimited booth. MQU was one of the sponsors

There were wonderful lectures and workshops….

I was fortunate to get into a class with Japanese artist Yoshiko Jinzenji – quilting with sheer fabrics

Foundation Piecing with Penny Layton. I learned how to piece curves and Y-seams and I designed a fish with floppy fins.

And then there were the quilts……!!

Including this stunner by Thomas Knauer – In Defence of Hnadmade. It’s a large scale reproduction of the UPC code of a Martha Stewart quilt for Macy’s.

And Best of Show – Double Edged Love by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

I am so happy that I was able to attend QuiltCon.  A big thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make the event happen.  A job well done.  It will be hard to wait those two years until the next QuiltCon, but I understand there will be some regional “Sewdowns” happening around the country next year.