Quilt Market Update 4

9 A.M. this morning, Saturday

The lines are forming.

Quilt Market opens at 9:30.

I have an exhibitor's badge so I get to go in early.

It's like Christmas before the children wake up.

Everything is ready.

Lissa at Moda/United Notions has time to write a note.

Moctar Yara, an African importer for Yara African Fabrics, is ready for his first order of the day.

Lynn and Robert at Kansas Troubles are going over the schedule.

Wait a minute. Santa's not ready at Blackbird Designs.

Barb and Alma are just a blur of activity.

It's worth it. Their booth is always fabulous.

More later.

Quilt Market Update 3

The aluminum rods!

I mentioned that every booth gets 3 aluminum cross bars. Each also gets 4 aluminum uprights,

UNSIGHTLY aluminum uprights. 

One can hang a drape in front of them---see the right hand booth.

Many of us put scrunchies on them---like hair scrunchies---on the left.

These are fabric tubes made out of the latest stuff. Here American Jane has classic American gingham for her scrunchies to coordinate with her prints in primary colors.

Some people make new scrunchies every market. They are useful after market as you will have a 3-months supply of quilt sleeves for hanging.

Jan Patek has a variety of short scrunchies in red and black tied with a nice stripe anchored to the neighbor's pole. This looks cute but the stripe's real purpose is in preventing her whole booth from falling over. We've been known to hang too many quilts from the taller aluminum cross bars.

You make your scrunchies out of what you are selling.

OR

Sweetwater used a net-like scrim to wrap their poles.

It adds a romantic look to their booth.

And they can re-use it at spring market.

Quilt Market Update 2

The first day of market, while all the exhibitors are unpacking their crates, the quilt shop owners go to a series of presentations on new products. These 15 or 30 minute talks are called Schoolhouses. One of my favorites was the Windham Fabrics session called The Quilters of Gees Bend. 

Windham invited Loretta Bennett and Louisiana Bendolph

from Gees Bend to talk about their own and their family quilts

on which several new kits are based.

It was the last presentation in a long day but the audience was energized.

We enjoyed hearing the story of  the quilts' transition from utility bedcovers to museum art.

Here's Megan Scott of C&T Publishing introducing

Gail Garber to talk about her new book.

Like a good deal of Market, there's a stage and a back stage. 

During the Schoolhouse sessions you may have 15 minutes to present and then a 10 minute break between sessions. While one group is presenting information...

there's another group out in the hall ready

to run in on that 10 minute break and put up an instant display.

And when your 15 minutes are up you

 tote your stuff back to your booth and hang it up.

It's all hectic but fun...

and the retailers love to hear what's new in the words of the author, designer or inventor.

Quilt Market Update 1

The heart of the quilt world this week is Houston at Quilt Market.

Here are pictures from the first day, Friday October 29th.

Quilt shop retailers come from all over the world

to see what's new and buy for the fall and winter seasons.

It's a trade show and a quilt show.

Exhibitors rent booths to display their wares.

When the thread company, pattern designer, ruler wholesaler, etc. arrives on Thursday afternoon or Friday they find each assigned booth ready. The booth contains a white plastic covered table, three horizontal poles to divide them from their neighbors and white nylon drapes. At many trade shows this is the standard for display.

But not for a quilt trade show.

Exhibitors transform their booths into quilt wonderlands.

The big companies ship a lot of stuff. They might rent 20 neighboring booths.

The small companies ship a lot of stuff for their one or two booths.

Penny at Electric Quilt

Silver and crystal for Blackbird Designs

Quiltmania Magazine

And everybody spends Friday transforming their booth.

Returning the white nylon curtains...

Doodle Press

Leaving the table in the aisle so the guys with forklifts can come by and pick it up

Joe and Mary Koval

And arranging stacks of stuff from button cards to antique quilts.

AQS Publishing

By the late afternoon MOST booths are ready for the Saturday morning rush of customers.

Dots and Modernism

Here's another member of the Polka Dot club

Nancy Cunard photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1929.

You may recall this photo of "The Polka Dot Club" in Larned, Kansas about 1900.
See my blog post about a year ago by clicking here:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/11/polka-dot-club.html

Tilly Losch by Beaton

Beaton probably used this photo backdrop in other portraits.

It's so-o-o modern.

This woman may not look like the height of fashion today but she was styling in the 1890s.

Dots were important in the modern age when circles symbolized the ideal of ornament as simple shape.

Bette Davis

All dots and lines

Circles are graphically appealing. They really grab you.

No name for this four patch with a larger circle in the center and smaller circle in the corners (or vice versa).

String quilt wheel, about 1900

These late 19th-century and 20th-century quilts fit right into our modern revival.

String quilt snowball about 1950

String quilt

The string quilts are a combination of nostalgic homespun and modern graphics.

I'm always drawn to these circular designs, most of them variations of a four-patch with a quarter circle. Above are a few sketches from my BlockBase program of the patterns numbered in the 1490s and 1500s.

Names include Full Moon, Snow Ball, Base Ball.

All of which reminds me: I have got to decide where to go with this Fireball top.

Bigger or border? It's about 48" x 60" now.

I've heard that if the circles are white in this string quilt variation it's a Snowball. If the circles are red it's a Fireball.

Quilt Market Virtual Booth 2010

It's Quilt Market time in Houston.

Karla, Deb and I used to have a booth.

Here we are in 2004

But lately we've had to resort to a virtual booth.

This year our plan is genius.

The more people you get into your booth,

the more sales you make.

Right?

Dogs are chick magnets.

Ergo....a booth full of dogs,

including our own, Dottie Barker, the Dachshund in the front of the booth photo, and Barkley in Deb's lap. We also are taking Minnie, Georgann's poodle, who is pictured in the center quilt.

This is probably why there is a market rule against live animals.

Everyone would be competing to have the cutest pettable puppy.

Market IS on Halloween weekend.

This is not Dottie. She will not wear her Hot Dog costume.

Something about her dignity, she says.

Well, we got a virtual dispensation and are planning to bring a virtual wagonload of puppies.

In reality, we'll be hanging out in the Moda booth, the Kansas City Star booth and the lounge.

And will report back about actual happenings at Market.