Blooms quilt show in Houston

One of the quilt shows was called Blooms, and it was comprised of the quilts made by Kaffe Fassett and Lisa Prior Lucy featured in the book of the same name.

These are some of the featured quilts...

many of them featured fussy cut flowers from his glorious fabrics

although this one featured beautiful applique by some sewing elfs,

I eally liked the frames that gave structure to this garden, 

I love flowers, especially Kaffe flowers!

Your Houston Correspondent Reports....

well I have been here in Houston for a few days now and have spent a little bit of time over at market.  For the past two daysI have Started both mornings by looking at show quilts. 

  I did take an amazing video which shows you the vast areas it shows cover and the startling emptiness of the Aisles. however I don't seem able to embed that in this post. You'll just have to take my word for it.

fortunately I have lots of photos of beautiful quilts to show.  descriptions of the quilt and who made it will be in an accompanying photograph of the information posted with the quilt. 

I first wanderedby some Japanese quilts, and was taken by the lovely quilting on some of the pieces, 

the hexagon piece above, had an interesting fill on the top and bottom edges, 

there was a great show by the Modern Quilt Guild, 

here are some closeups of some of them...

I really loved this one, and the more I looked at it, the more details stood out, 

the quilting, 

the quilting, 

and the quilting ! 

also, those black and white parts were pieced and very cool.

as you might have noticed, I am very focussed on the quilting part of quilts right now! 

 Having our longarm Lucey around has really opened up a world of possibilities to explore.

but here is something pretty cool, a life sized crocodile! 

In the next post I will report on the Carolyn Friedlander exhibit,

(by the way, I apologize if some of the photos are blurry) 

Houston 2015 Part Two

this post is about what thw show is like on the floor of the wholesale vendor area.  I think I need to split it into two parts because there are lots! of photos.  So this is actually part one of part two...

the vendors make some very imaginative and eye catching displays to create excitement 

and there are many of the fabric designers there to interact with people

I was very impressed with Bari J, she is so talented and so warm and friendly,

and I loved the way that Alison Glass was adding embroidery to a black and white print--- another form of coloring books ( I think we have this fabric on order )

and there are also many authors there for book signings or to demo things from their books, 

these block prints were from a great upcoming book about ways to print on fabric, 

some of the booths are so beautiful!

I loved the colors in this booth by Patty Sloniger ( sorry if I got the name spelled wrong)

the pattern designers usually display the quilts of their most recent book or patterns, the photo below shows projects from Sew Kind of Wonderfuls new book, One Wonderful Curve, 

many patterns are now being made as full size or mini versions, as in the Carolyn Friedlander photo below, 

there are also mmany demos for notions and tools, such as in the photos below where Missie Carpenter showed me another method for English Paper Piecing and applique, using starch to baste, ( of course I bought lots of her product)

next post will continue soon, 

Houston 2014, on the sales floor

The Quilt Market show in Houston has three main components: the amazing quilt show displays, the class and lecture area on the upper floors, and the sales floor. 
Today I have some photos of the sales floor so you can get a bit of an idea of how the vendors set up their booths in order to attract our orders....
I took my real camera with me to attempt to get better quality photos than my cell phone!

 the large fabric companies have tables where the reps meet with the store buyers to look over the samples and write the orders: 

.

 Of course they display enticing samples to show the new collections and draw attention to the fabrics and how they look sewn up,

 This year I noticed a lot of emphasis on other substrates that have supplemented the flat cottons,, such as voile, knits, Double gauze, canvas, linen,

 The individual designers always present lovely single booths to show their new collections,

 I love to see the displays that they come up with to catch your attention!

Westminster booth

westminster booth

Tim Holtz, tweaking his display

 There are a few vendors mixed in who sell antique quilts, and stacks of individual blocks waiting to be rescued,

 I'm sorry that I forgot to photograph booths of the other vendors, such as thread companies, longarm machines, pattern designers, notions companies, batting manufacturers, button companies, book publishers, and others.... I guess you can tell what my eyes are drawn to!

Michael Miller booth

Alison Glass fabrics for Andover,