Market Days

For those of you that are not familiar, Quilt Market is a vendor show where the Quilt Shop Owners attend to learn new techniques and products to bring back and share with their customers. I had a booth to share my new designs with the shops. The spring show travels around the country. The fall show is always in Houston. This spring we were in Pittsburgh, Pa. For me, Pittsburgh is a two hour drive.

We arrived on Thursday to set up our booth. It took us several loops around the convention center to find a place to park. The garage was full. After much grumbling, we realized it had worked out better than being in the garage. We were parked right by the elevator. We unloaded the car and got everything up and looking great in a few short hours. We even met some of our booth neighbors.

Friday morning we arrived at the convention center early. I wasn't sure how long it would take to drive in. The show opened at 9:30, we arrived around 8:30. It gave us a chance to walk around and see some of the other booths and make notes about where I needed to get back to. There are classes offered all weekend and the shop owners will come down tot he convention floor in between. On Friday, they typically walk the floor and decide where to spend their time and who they need to get back to. They shop for all the wonderful things they bring back to you, Fabric, patterns, rulers, templates...everything.

I talked to so many shops in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. There were quite a few Canadians there as well. We talked about quilts and teaching classes and what cool new things we saw. It didn't take long for my head to start spinning. I made many new friends and have many new ideas. While 3 days of standing and talking and walking and standing and talking and walking can wear you out. The excitement and flow of ideas is amazing. I will bring you some of the cool new toys I found as I go through all of the things that followed me home.

Make sure you check out http://www.quiltinggallery.com/ also. Michele has a great site with loads of information to share. I was lucky enough to have a booth across from her.

I picked up this pattern while at Market. It's by Purse-O-Nalities of Palm Harbor. I used Kona Bay fabric and am thrilled with the results. The front of the bag is pleated and it's huge! I did change the handles slightly. The directions were easy to follow. I did make a cutting mistake right off the bat. It was my own fault for not reading the directions thoroughly. The pattern fort he back comes in 3 pieces because it won't fit on one piece of paper. Silly me, I put two of the three pieces together. It was easily fixed. I cut other pieces out of the bad cut. Now I'm looking for something to put in the bottom. I could use cardboard, but I'll look around a little first.