Houston Market and Festival by Gul Laporte
Between October 29th and 31st, I was very happy, once again to be able to attend the Houston International Quilt Market to look for all the new fabric collection, designers and notions.
I feel always very privileged to be able to attend this event which is exclusively for professionals. I am also delighted to talk to you about it a little before commenting the Festival that takes place just 3 days after Market.
2011 Market has been very interesting, as I have been discovering the new Moda, Leicen, Clothworks and many other manufacturers’ forthcoming fabric collections. Can you imagine that they were already showing next year’s Christmas designs!
But Market is not only fabrics, it’s also a wonderful opportunity for us media to meet with other editors, American or foreign and talk about events that take place all around the world.
This how I discovered that there will be a big Quilt Show in Johannesburg between July 26 and 29th. (www.iqcafrica.com)
I met also Brazilian journalists and I can assure you that pretty soon we will hear a lot about Brazilian and other South American quilters. Sewn will most certainly be the first to keep you posted.
Simplicity showed us a quilters’ ruler that can be used both by left or right handers without having to turn the mat and the fabric.
We also found very creative and nice designers such as Olive Ann Designs that makes beautiful children outfits, little girls will be proud to wear these nice looking dresses made by Mummy!
Joyce Weeks has beautiful country style patterns and sometimes we can find them in different quilt magazines, as Joyce kindly authorize them to publish her patterns.
Cindy Rose makes funny children patterns and particularly bags and aprons.
New books by Kaffe Fessett, Edyta Sitar, Pam Lintott and so many things to talk about!
As always, I was very happy to chat with Rachel Pellman and her husband; I am sure that you have already seen her little Sunbonnet designs, or her sheep or her Amish miniature quilts.
Sarah Fielke was demonstrating and walking the floor to meet people in order to introduce them to you on her blog (www.thelastpiece.net) while Damian was staying in their booth welcoming shop owners and presenting Sarah’s new fabrics designed for Leicen, her patterns and books.
Professionals from all over the world know that this Market is something not to be missed if they want to remain updated.
These three days are very busy and tense but also evenings can be a lot of fun, as there are a large number of parties going on the hotels close by.
I was very lucky to be invited at Clothworks dinner – food was excellent as well as the wine and the margaritas! I intended to stay for a very short time, but ended talking to people and enjoying their company for quite a long time. Fortunately I was still on time to join the crowd at Moda’s party and have a lot of fun attending the staff’s show.. Halloween being around the corner, they were all disguised and they danced and sang on stage, before we started dancing.
Even if you cannot attend Market, you still have the possibility to attend the International Festival that takes place just after.
While the organizers need 2 days and believe me, it’s not much, to re organize the booths and get ready, you can already attend different classes and lectures.
The setting of the Handi Quilter and Gammill classes was impressive and a lot of people seemed interested to attend these 3 hours classes to learn more about these qulting machines.
The excitement of the Award ceremony where you will before everybody discover the winners is also part of the fun; one other advantage, if you attend this ceremony you will also be able to talk to the big winners!.
Wear a good pair of shoes to walk the exhibition hall and admire over 1 000 quilts but also to walk the commercial area – each of them occupy one hall the size of an American football field!
If you have never been to Festival, save money and attend it at least once in your lifetime! For Market, you can count on us; we will keep on giving you a review, almost like if you were there!
You can also go to www.quilts.com to learn more about this event and see more quilts.
Also, I would like to mention the opening of the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange (one hour and a half drive from Houston). This brand new Museum has been inaugurated on November 13th and will carry only temporary exhibitions, either traditional or contemporary or both.
We wish them good luck and are already planning to visit the Museum next year.
By Gül Laporte ©