Finally after 20 hours of travelling I arrived here in Houston on Wednesday and haven’t stop since.
On Thursday something that I like to do is to hire a car for the day and go and check out the local shops. This time I headed east of Houston and went to several stores including Sew Contempo, Fabric Etectera, Painted Pony, Pinwheel and Posies and Quakertown quilts. I did pick up a few things, it is so hard to go into a quilt shop and not buy something.
The picture above is the welcoming party at the Painted Pony N Quilts Shop (Sunday is Halloween). And the photo above, the car on the right was the car I had for the day. It was massive!
After a full day it was time to party. Berrima Patchwork is a member of the Fab Shop Network and as a member we get to attend the pre-show dinner. This is a great opportunity to network with other shop owners from around the world. It gives you also the opportunity to have a preview of new products the opportunity to win lots of goods and to have a good time.
The picture to the right is of the centre piece for the table which Michael Miller created, oh how I wish I had won that.
The day before the Quilt Market starts is an event called Schoolhouse series. The Schoolhouse series was created by Marti and Richard Michell and occurs before every Quilt Market. There are over 200 different classes offered which cover a wide range of topics. The emphasis is on introducing new product or techniques to shop owners with the aim of providing educational communication between suppliers and retailers. There are a total of 15 sessions - 11 which last for 30 minutes and 4 which last for 15 minutes, each session you have the option of about 16 different classes. It is an extremely informative event and you need to have a pen and paper at the ready. At the end of each session everyone runs out into the hallway rushing to get to their next selected session. During Schoolhouse I had the opportunity to see a presentation and new collections from Andover fabrics (there is a new hungry caterpillar collection coming our - stay tuned for more information) and Timeless Treasures. Introduction to new books from Gail Garber - Flying colours (next week I am taking two of Gail’s classes), Heri Walner’s new book Continuous Line Quilting Designs and Sharon Pederson‘s book - Rose of Sharon. There were several other lectures I attending including a very interesting presentation from Ghee’s which specialise in zippers, I could not believe what items they made using these zippers and how they used the zippers to embellish items of clothing, bags and accessories - lots of good ideas and projects for Bernina Club! During my lunch break I took a look from the second floor down onto the show floor - in one day this will all be set up ready for the show.
Setting up for the Show
Heri Walner’s new book Continuous Line Quilting Designs
Ghee's Zippers
The crowd in one of the lectures
Karen Montgomery and Timeless Treasures
Lonni Rossi and Andover Fabrics
Andover Fabrics Schoolhouse
Rose of Sharon with Sharon Pederson
Flying Colours with Gail Garber
Tonight is Sample Spree more later....
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