Quilt Market Summary – Fall 2015

As Jason and I head back home from Quilt Market today (the semi-annual trade show), I’ll share a quick summary of our weekend. As you know, there are two main parts of our business – the precut side which Jason is in charge of, and the designer side, which is the fun stuff I get to do.

My “schoolhouse” presentation was a success – I spoke to a packed room about my new book Machine Quilting With Style. I shared all of the quilts from the book, plus tips and tricks on how shop owners could successfully sell the book in their stores, and how to build workshops and demos around it. I even had a couple of excited shop owners come up to me after the fact, inviting me out to their stores to teach. Sounds fun to me!

While I was presenting additional demos in my publisher‘s booth and networking with other quilting professionals throughout the weekend, Jason was meeting with our vendors to purchase luscious new precuts for our store.

I really fell in love with these new Modern batiks from Hoffman. That’s right – MODERN batiks. I’m so excited for these!! It’s called ME & YOU and the line features modern geometrics plus solid batiks that are really solid – no mottled designs here! These will be available in the spring.

I also had a chance to check in with a couple of distributors that are now carrying my patterns and books. Hanging some of the quilts on display entices shop owners to come in and hopefully purchase those patterns for their stores!

It was thrilling to see my Modern X quilt hanging in the Brewer sales booth, right next to Violet Craft’s amazing Lion pattern.

And I was pleased to see my book prominently on display in both the Checker Distributors booth as well as at United Notions (the notions/patterns/book arm of Moda).

One of the fun parts of going to market is getting to check out all of the new products and equipment on display. I’ve recently been invited to become a BERNINA ambassador (more about that later), so I got to play around on their new Q 20 sit-down machine for a bit.

I instantly fell in love with the sit-down long-arm and started thinking about whether or not I’d have room for one of these in my home!

It was a great weekend getting to connect with other industry friends that I only see at events like these. Now I’m ready to get home and get back to work!