Quilt Market

Some of you know that the week before Quilt Festival at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston an event occurs called "Fall Quilt Market". For those of you who don't know, "Market"  is a great educational and business building opportunity for quilt shop owners, quilt teachers, and designers.

Above: Valori Wells, Tula Pink and Amy Butler are discussing the benefits of selling Cotton Voile, Corduroy and Velveteen in Quilt ShopsOn Friday there is a whole day of mini classes and seminars called "Schoolhouse".  You move from room to room throughout the day every 15 or 30 minutes learning about a multitude of subjects.  Some were educating their audience about new products on the market and how to use them, some were about sparking your customers interest through creative displays, classes or demos at your shop.

Kelly McCants talks about the uses of oilcloth and cotton Laminate
It is a rigorous day and you leave feeling tired but all inspired to try some of the new ideas you have gleaned from the instructors.
The next day "Market" officially begins.

BJ Designs' Booth

It is where all the major fabric vendors, designs, publishers and Quilt tool makers have booths up for Quilt shop owners to go around and order things for their store.
There are lots of famous quilters and designers milling around and the booths are really beautiful and fun. There is even a friendly contest for the best booths amongst the vendors.
Here are some of the cooler things we saw and hope to bring to our customers in the near future:


A vendor was making these beautiful tiles with Shiva Paintsticks and stamps.
She even mixed the Starbuilder stamps into some of her pieces.
Very beautiful.

There is a new Zentangle quilting book out! Look at the adorable owls!

This pattern uses the Hometown fabric line we carry from Moda

Come Fly with Me (black and white and solids!) So cute!
Creative Grids has some new patterns to go with their unique rulers. This pattern is called Maddy Bees and it uses a ruler called Sweet and Sassy!

Preview night is on Wednesday. We still have tickets available at the shop until then so stop in and avoid the lines at the show!
At Market we also drew names for our region for the winners of the Texas Wide Shop Hop. Though none of our regular customers won the grand prize we did have
two lucky winners from our store ( one winner of a $100 gift card for Quilters Crossing and one who won a $100 quilt kit!) which made it all the more exciting for us!
Hopefully the winners will give us permission to post pictures of them once they are notified!

Crazy Daisy

You know we at Quilters Crossing kind of have a "thing" about black and white fabrics? We saw these black and whites with splashes of color and knew we had to get them!

Larger Scale prints: 

 Blenders and color wall:

Accessories: 

The Whole Group together: 

 

Can't wait to see what our customers come up with for this fabric!

The Big Reveal and Terrain Kits!

So Linda wasn't able to comment on the blog but she did text in the answer and due to her diligence in getting us the answer we declare her winner, thus she wins a yard of one of these fabrics of her chosing!

And now presenting Amy Butler's newest line "Lark"

 Cobalt Blue is "in" this season!

 Persimmon too!

 All together now!

We also now have kits available for Terrain seen below:

 Kits include a layer cake of the fabric-which really cuts down on your cutting time allowing you to start sewing more quickly and see your project come together sooner!

The pattern (which is a free download from www.modafabrics.com) uses a little over a yard of a border around the patchwork blocks.  I altered this-- using the leftover 2.5 inch strips of layer cake. I pieced them together side by side ( 28 for the top and the same on the bottom) to create a piano key border on the top and bottom, then went around that with more white to complete the quilt as you see it here:

The kits have enough white to complete it either way but you'll have to buy a border of your chosing if you would like to complete the quilt as the pattern indicates.  Either way you'll have a gorgeous quilt!

Boys at Work and a hint!

Boys at Work arrived from Northcott fabrics-- super cute with a pattern on the way!

 Tone on tone coordinates

Bright bold colors for little boys!

 Love the stripe!

 Trucks, diggers, mixers etc... 

Sneak Peek Hint: We got new fabric in from a line called "Lark" by a certain designer that we have never had before! Very excited. It arrived today so pictures will post tomorrow! First person to comment with the correct designer wins a yard of fabric from that line of her ( or his) choice!

More New Fabrics!

Northcott fabric company has really come out with some beautiful designs revolving around their Stonehenge designs. Most recent is this line Magnolia which is seen below and followed by the coordinates:

 

 We received new Ginny Beyer border prints and coordinates in Turquoise:

And reds! Maybe some potential Northern Lights fabrics for Carolyn's popular paper piecing class?

And last but now least Kathi (who has a class on "binding your quilt" coming up!) made this beautiful sample out of the Radiance fabric line as a shop sample:

Love the modern fabrics done in the traditional blocks.

Needle Knowledge!

Superior Bob has a bunch of great videos on "youtube" which are really informative! The one above discusses the importance of your needle and which needle to choose.  
Go to www.youtube.com and search for Superior Threads to see other videos on other pertinent subjects like, thread choice, thread features and even really technical stuff like how your tension discs are supposed to work.
Superior Threads also has a really great free newsletter you can sign up for on their site and I could not live without their two charts which tell you which needle, tension level etc... go with each of their threads (Click here for: home sewing machines reference chart and here for: long arm machines reference chart!)  I have these printed out hanging near my machines and often times I even write notes to myself with what adjustment worked specifically for my machine such a timesaver! -- yes I ocassionally have a moment of brilliance!
Things have settled down at the shop since the Quilt Across Texas has ended. I have a mental image of hundreds of people home diligently sewing all the projects they bought when they were shop-hopping! With the holidays around the corner I guess I better get busy too!

New Fabrics and a Finish

The center of this adorable owl quilt is a panel from the shop, made by one of our many talented customers, she also used parts of the panel as cornerstones in the outer border. So cute!

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 New Fabrics:

 Bright, saturated rich colors

 Here is the stripe and focal print

 Dots!