Quilt Market Sample Spree

Quilt Market is in full swing and what an event it is! I spent the day there yesterday working in the ADORNit booth with Carolee, Georgana, Alison (pictured above) and Janet and trying to suppress my excitement as I met lots of "famous" quilt shop owners and buyers. I kind of lost my cool when I realized I was talking to the girls from Purl Soho in New York City. I think I squealed and then had to have my picture taken with them. I also loved meeting people from Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia. Sewing is alive and well all over the world!

But the most fun was...

SAMPLE SPREE! It was Thursday night - a pre-market frenzy for shop owners to buy samples and extras from the manufacturers. It takes place in a huge hall (the areas you see are not the fabric company's Quilt Market booths, just tables for Sample Spree) with a line outside that starts forming hours before. Since Janet and I were inside with ADORNit, we were able to wander around the hall before the event started and take photos as the crowd ran (yes, literally ran) in. Never seen so many grandma quilter ladies move so fast!

Stacks and stacks at the Robert Kaufman tables.

The sprint for the Moda tables (about sixteen long tables placed in a big square).

Janet (sitting on far right) watches the action at the Moda tables. The shopping strategy is to run the the table, grab all the fabric stacks you can - I mean armfuls - and then take them to the side to sort through them and decide what you want to keep.

Pictured above is one of my favorite Moda designers Joanna Figueroa (Fig Tree Quilts) watching the goings on at Moda.

And here is the ADORNit table - we had fun introducing our company to quilters and showing off our cute fat quarter packs of the Life's a Hoot, Buckaroo, and Vintage Groove lines.