My obsession with fabric continues to grow everyday. I went for the first time to the Fall 2010 International Quilt Market in Houston. This fabric trade show is INSANE. “Like SXSW for the fabric industry” is my short version. No one is actually buying quilts at Quilt Market, but quilts are indeed hanging and spread across every available surface. Pattern makers & publishers, Sewing machines & notions and most importantly fabric designers & manufacturers from all over the world meet up twice a year to show off all of their latest and greatest stuff to quilt shop owners hungry for new fabric.

Yes, this is a meeting for people to buy bolts and bolts of fabric and have them printed and/or shipped to their stores. For a fabric junkie such as me, this place is actually a little dangerous. It is like trying a harder drug completely. Could I live with 1 yard of each print from the new Tula Pink, Parisville line? No.. 1 yard? Please. That’s breakfast. I need bolts! Bolts and more bolts!

view of Quilt Market floor from above. Two of my favorites are center - Tula Pink & Anna Maria Horner

Half of the show is carefully designed and curated booths highlighting and accentuating the specific designer or pattern makers style, the other half is hangers full of fabric swatches and desks with chairs for meeting and ordering bolts and of course quilts are hanging everywhere. The whole thing lasts for almost a week, but I only had one whole day to run around like a mad woman and try to soak everything in.

Quilt Market is huge, the rows continued to 2300 or so

Thanks to great fabric blogs like True Up I had been following along with Spring and Fall Quilt Market recaps on the internet for a couple years now and finally decided I HAD to go check it out for myself. I think I may start looking forward to Quilt Market more than Christmas from now on! It really was that amazing. It was a little intimidating walking around trying to figure out what exactly was going on. As much as I had read about it online the entire process is still a little vague and elusive. It seems that if you own a quilt shop you can walk up or arrange a meeting with manufacturers at one of their tables and they will pull out all of their fabric swatches for you and tally up which ones you would like to order for your shop. Most people were really patient with me and took time to talk about minimum order requirements and prices, etc  but seeing as how I am merely placing my toes in the water and not currently placing any major orders I didn’t want to waste too much of the sales peoples times and instead spent all day poking and prodding the displays and flipping through the free standing fabric swatch racks and swooning with designers over how much I love their fabric and displays.

Bunnies! I loved all the swatches at Seven Islands!

On the other hand some of the bigger companies definitely didn’t want to even entertain the thought of me buying only a few bolts. I don’t want to name names of course.. but one company would not even let me have a paper catalog of the new lines, another company when asked about minimum bolt orders said that they don’t actually have a minimum order, but that they only talk to people who are able to meet the minimum..? Another giant said the minimum order was $2000. Whoa there, buddy! ‘That explains a lot, actually’ is what I was thinking. Some companies actually did not have paper catalogs at all and preferred if you would just sit down and go through the fabric swatches there on the spot to decide what you would like to order.

On yet another hand my favorites became even bigger favorites by being total sweet hearts to me and having awesome policies and staff along with plenty of paper material and samples for me to pore over. All of the Japanese companies that I love generally had a 1 bolt minimum! By allowing me to order only 1 bolt they must know that I am unable to resist and will of course order even more than that. I also am totally a Free Spirit lover! Their booths were my favorite, the sales staff really sweet, the designers are all amazing and their fabric was the most delicious.

standing amazed with Amy Butler in her Soul Blossom booth

Look how insanely happy I am when I stumble upon Amy Butler! We were just walking around and boom! There is Amy Butler chatting with Brett Bara. On top of designing some of the most popular fabric around Amy also designs really great useful bags that she sells the patterns for. All of her bags were done up in her new Soul Blossom fabric and they looked incredible. We chatted about sewing, of all things, and she was really happy that it was my first show and that I was having a blast.

It was great for me to be in a room with so many other people that love fabric as much and even more than I do. It is endlessly inspiring to see what all of these talented people are doing with fabric and of course it is fun to dream about what can be done with the yet to be printed fabric!

I met Tula Pink!!

Truly, I was most excited this trip by getting to meet Jen aka Tula Pink who is the artist behind some of the best fabric prints I have ever had the pleasure to sew with. Her new line Parisville was so amazing that I couldn’t wait til December to see it in person (that is when it will be hitting stores). She always hides tiny details in all of her prints, which means that every single square inch is beautiful no matter how you cut it and her color palettes are magical. She was so cool to talk to and her booth was so beautiful that it was hard to not sit down and stay there all day. I got to meet her Mom too and she was also so damn cool! I only wish I could have bought a sample stack of Parisville to bring back with me because I really can not wait to get my hands on it. I have a hundred more photos of her booth and others that I will get posted.. for now, I must go vote and then back to the sewing room.

A huge thanks goes out to my sister for tagging along with me to squeal at fabric and help me carry stuff around. I also could not have made the trip if not for the totally awesome DBC (Death by Chocolate – Houston Roller derby) letting us crash at her place for the night. She is a cool chick and I look forward to seeing her again in Chicago at the Rollerderby championship this weekend!