Okay, so the majority of my trip to Quilt Market was actually spent wandering around in a bit of a daze surrounded by ridiculous amounts of fabric and more quilts that you can ever imagine. Whoa. For someone who loves textiles, it’s definitely sensory overload.

Let me start by explaining exactly what Quilt Market is. It’s a huge trade show for the quilting industry that happens twice a year. The fall show is in Houston Texas, while the spring show moves around from city to city. The spring 2010 show will be in Minneapolis. The first part of quilt market is to the ‘trade only’ and all the fabric manufacturers, designers and distributers have booths where they show off all their new collections. The booths are usually filled with quilts, accessories and clothing made up from the fabrics and you can sit down and look through all the collections and place orders for your shop. Sewing machines, notions, quilt patterns, books and magazines are also represented. You would not believe all the sewing gadgets, accessories, and even lotions and potions that are represented. I was surprised to see several vintage dealers who sold fabrics, quilts and even buttons and jewellry. I treated myself to a sweet pink vintage feedsack and a few yards of an old orange floral fabric.

There is also a Quilt Festival that happens right after Quilt Market and this is open to the public. There is a huge exhibit of vintage quilts, along with quilts that have been entered into competition. The lighting was pretty awful in the convention centre and especially in the exhibit, but I tried to get photos of my favourites. It’s fascinating to see all the different types of techniques that are used in these modern quilts, including all kinds of hand painting, beading and photo transfers.

Since I was hanging out with the Soak gals, I got to tag along to their meetings with some of the designers. I got to meet (and secretly gawk at) Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Heather Bailey, Joanne Figuerora, and Sandi Henderson. Each of these talented ladies were so incredibly sweet and I was just blown away with the new amazing collections and patterns they have come up with. You can be sure to find lots of their new stuff coming to the workroom a.s.a.p. I was especially charmed by Anna Maria Horner’s new line of flannels for kids – FINALLY, flannel prints that are modern and not too cutesy. Heather Bailey won for best booth design at the show and it was well deserved. I loved her wallpaper, clothes line and she even had real sod laid out. Check out her cute new patterns – Henrietta turtle and Claira & Clancy pig dolls. I can’t wait to get them in the shop.

There were so many independent quilt pattern designers at the show, but the one that stood out for me was Carolina Patchworks. In particular her Another Brick in the Wall and Golden Waves seemed like super fun quilts to make. I picked up four of her patterns for the shop and can’t wait to try them out.

I told you before I left that I had two missions – Japanese fabric and felt. Sadly I didn’t discover a good source for felt, but I hit many home runs on Japanese fabrics! I made great new contacts and ordered some unbelievably awesome Japanese prints. I was so excited about them that I completely forgot to take photographs of them, but this way you’ll be surprised and delighted when they arrive.

I do have a sneak peak for you of my favourite find – Puti de Pome. I ordered quite a few of these prints including this sweet map fabric, these cars and this border print. Of course, I also ordered some of the new echino line. I tried not to go overboard, but it was really hard.

To sum up all that – great food (not counting the convention centre food), quilt mania, inspiring designers and new fabrics and lots of J-A-P-A-N-E-S-E cuteness on the way!!

Check out part two of my slide show…

I was super lucky last weekend to tag along to Quilt Market in Houston Texas with Jacqueline and Chris from Soak. (Guess which cute bunny tagged along with me!) I’ve been curious to check out this huge trade show and quilt festival since I opened the workroom.

Funny thing is, this first post has nothing to do with the fabric or the quilts!

We left insanely early on Friday morning to catch a 6am flight. We had a stop over in Cincinnati and then got detoured to Austin because of bad weather. I actually really wanted to go to Austin, but all I got to see this time was the rainy tarmac from the open door of our tiny aircraft as we got extra fuel to make it to Houston.

I’ve never been to Texas and I was hoping for warm weather, but it was cold and rainy the whole time. I had packed my bathing suit for the trip, but didn’t even make it up to see the rooftop pool at our hotel.

One of the tricky things with traveling is finding good local food. I’ll admit that I didn’t do any research on Houston before the trip, so I certainly wasn’t prepared with any suggestions. By some chance, both Jacqueline and I spotted a cute looking restaurant outside the downtown core on a cab ride back to the hotel Friday night. I had the good sense to write down the name, T’afia, so that we could check it out online later.

Saturday night was the famous Moda dinner party. We had originally planned on going to this free dinner. After a bit of thought we made the best decision of the trip and made a reservation at T’afia instead.

If you ever go to Houston, you must visit T’afia. T’Afia is owned by Monica Pope and the focus is all local. Every Saturday morning they host a farmers market in their parking lot and develop their menus based on what’s available. It was one of the best meals that I can ever remember having. Absolutely everything we had from start to finish was delightful, including the service. It was so good that we wanted to return on Sunday night so that we could keep eating through the menu. I wanted to try EVERYTHING. Sadly, they are closed both Sundays and Mondays.

I’m listing what I had for dinner because I really don’t want to forget it.

• Medjool dates stuffed with chorizo, wrapped in bacon
• Butter lettuce, radicchio & cucumbers, pinenut, goat cheese, sherry walnut vinaigrette
• Yaokum Co. flat iron steak, roasted sweet potatoes, miso sauce
• Texas cheese selection: veldhuizen bosque blue & gruyere and paula’s hoja santa with house crackers and panforte
• Beet brownie with honeycomb and blue cheese
• Inwood Estates Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon

Before we left, we coerced our kind waiter at T’afia to give us a list of his recommended restaurants for our Sunday night dinner. We picked a Texas BBQ joint, Beaver’s. When we met up with Heather Bailey and her husband Isaac during the day, we invited them to have dinner with us. They brought along their friends Joey and Jona of Fabritopia. My mind is a blur of what we talked about during dinner but it was super fun and filled with laughs. Heather and I both tackled the ‘Pit boss Chickwhich’ sandwich for dinner (All-natural smoked shredded chicken made sloppy with “Ring of Fire” BBQ sauce, a fried egg, crispy cornmeal onions, cole slaw and pickle) and for dessert we all shared Candied Bacon Ice Cream, Brown Butter Ice Cream and Brownie Balls (Fried brownies, peanut butter and vanilla ice cream).

I have to tell you, I would go back to Quilt Market again just for all this delicious food. That’s not to say the fabrics were not amazing. They were! The next post is all about the fabric. Check out the first slide show of my trip…

Happy Homemade Vol. 3
ISBN 9784579112470
purchased from Pomadour’s Craft Cafe

I went to Quilt Market in Houston, Texas over the weekend. It was both fun and exhausting looking at fabric and quilts for two days straight. I have lots to tell, but I haven’t even downloaded the photos off my camera yet. Soon.

In the meantime, I wanted to share my latest etsy purchase. I didn’t realize there were more volumes in the Happy Homemade series until Marilou brought her copy to the Japanese Dress Book class at the workroom. Of course, I had to have it for my collection. They’ve broken the book down into sections, showing variations on a basic style for each one. More and more, I’m wanting to customize parts of these patterns, so this layout is very helpful for mix and matching different pieces. ‘C-1′ basic is my favourite.

p.s. Today is the workroom‘s two year anniversary! Hooray! It’s also my birthday, my parents’ anniversary and Liz, Ashley & Esther’s birthday!