Houston 2015 part two continued...

This post is about more things that I noticed in the vendor area of Quilt Market,

Many fabric companies have branched into other types of cloth such as double gauze, voile/lawn, cotton-linen blends and other sub-strates.  So there were many garment samples,

jackets for little people,

or for big people

there were lots of bags

and even a couple of sofas covered in fabric

there are countless quilt samples, I like the rainbow trend that is continuing, and the beautiful machine quilting,

some of the upcoming fabrics from Cotton and Steel,

and it was great to see this quilt up close:   I just got out my Millefiore quilt again in order to finish it, and I had been pretty curious about how other people were going to approach the quilting on it,

Tomorrow I will post some of the quilts from the show area,

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 Quilt market 2015 part one

One of the best things of my job is the annual trek to Houston every October.  I think this is the 11th time I have attended.  Each time, there is some part of the city under major construction.  This year it is the convention center street entry.

and while it is usually pretty warm and sunny, this year it is raining cats and dogs, so it is pretty muddy construction.

However, once inside the convention center you forget all about what's outside. 

The first full day was taken up with Schoolhouse-- a fast paced succession of short presentations.  There are about 12-15 choices for each time slot.  

these are a few that I attended:

This is Sue Daley, talking about English PAper Piecing.  

Another one I went to was about a new fabric line inspired by paper, and she had a couple quilts with paper pieced airplanes , very cute 

then, I had to see about Katja, from Katja's Quilt Shop in Kamloops,

you might recall that I blogged quite a bit about this project earlier this spring, it was great to see these quilts all put together, the last one is Katja's

and, she has a new project coming up, also based on her book, The New Hexagon:

Next, I saw a parade of String quilts from an upcoming book on that subject, 

I had a definite sideways list by this time, 

Oh well, coffee break, 

Another show and tell from another upcoming books on Using Your Stash!

oops

I hope these photos give you an idea of what Schoolhouse was like 

In the next post, I will focus on some displays on the show floor, 

but, the best part of being here is the quilt show area, where there are dozens of shows...

including a very curious display of small animals

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