• 2010 Fall Quilt Market
• Favorite Finds

2010 Fall Quilt Market

It's officially fall and that means one very important annual event for the quilting industry -- Fall Quilt Market.

I've hardly had time to process all of the beautiful upcoming fabric lines and products I saw at the show, but I wanted to share with you some of the highlights. I'll be sure to provide a more comprehensive breakdown in an upcoming newsletter.

Thousands of shop owners and vendors gathered to see the latest and greatest fabrics, gadgets and patterns at this biannual trade show. Quilter's World had a booth promoting the magazine and some of the latest pattern books published by House of White Birches.

Happy customers filled the aisles to get a free signed copy of Pearl Louise Krush's latest House of White Birches title Redwork Winter Twitterings.	Only a small section of the Market floor (rows 600-900) can be seen. Booths were numbered up through 2,500. The floor is relatively empty of customers during the lunch hour.

One of the biggest events at the show was the attendance of Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. As editor, I attended a special meet and greet with Ty where he debuted his newest line, Ty Pennington Impressions With Westminster Fibers Lifestyle Fabrics.

Ty Pennington giving a presentation.	Ty stamps drop cloths using woodblocks and paint as the first phase of his design process.
December Quilter's World "cover girl" quilt designer Bev Getschel joined me in our booth for a group photo.

There was, of course, a fabulous quilt show hosted by the International Quilt Association that accompanied Market and continued through Quilt Festival (the consumer show). I'll show pictures of some of my favorite quilts in upcoming newsletters, but I wanted to share two of my favorites with you. I like to think of them as quilting in extremes.

My Wedding Ring by Keiko Goke from Miyagi, Japan.	Keiko Goke's artist statement.

The smallest log cabin miniature I have ever seen (with my camera lens cap for scale) was the second-place winner in the Miniature category of the International Quilt Association show.

Finally, all good things must come to an end, and the beautiful Market was torn down at the end of three days. We were fortunate enough to have our Quilter's World booth across the aisle from Alexander Henry Fabrics, one of my favorite fabric companies. Nicole from AHF jokingly said to me, "This is the story that never gets written -- the story of the tear down of Market." So, for Nicole and Phillip, here's proof that I documented the Market disassembly by sharing it with my readers.

Designers from Alexander Henry Fabrics break down their Market display booth.	Fabric designer Phillip De Leon carefully packs the Alexander Henry crates for return shipping.