If you’ve never heard of Quilt Market – it’s because it’s a trade show targeted to quilt shop owners, pattern designers, and other quilting industry professionals. All the folks that design and manufacture the fabrics, tools, notions, books, patterns, and all the other goodies that you love to find in your local quilt shops.
Quilt Market is held the week before the International Quilt Festival in Houston. I’m certain you’ve heard of that show ; )
I traveled to the show with Kristi Villani – owner of My Quilting Loft in Troutdale. If you’ve not been to her shop – you are missing out. It’s adorable and located on a street that looks like a picture postcard. Our adventure started with the (absolutely required) picture of our feet on the carpet at the Portland airport.
Hitting the classroom – our day on Friday was filled with a series of classes, demos, trunk shows, and more. The show floor opened on Friday and I spent the next three days meeting with vendors, learning about all the new products that are shipping to stores soon. We were treated to previews of all the gorgeous fabrics that have been made up into samples – it was visual stimulation overload.
One of my missions was to research the (MANY) needle threader suggestions you gave me so I could try them out for myself. So many options. I am purchasing several of those that I thought could be promising and will be doing some testing to see how they work for me and a small group of testers. Once I’m done – I’ll share the results with you.
I’ve found several new products that I’m pretty excited about and can’t wait to share them with you. In the meantime, I thought you might like to see a few pictures from the trade show – and a bunch of pictures from the quilt display at the International Quilt Festival. I took as many pictures of the quilts as I could – but there were hundreds that I did not get pictures of. You’ll notice that I take a picture of the quilt – and then a picture of the writeup about that quilt. I always love to know the story behind the quilt and thought you might enjoy that too.
These pictures don’t do the show justice. It was an incredible display of artistry, skill, technique, and thought-provoking images. I hope you find some inspiration in them : )