As we were leaving quilt market yesterday, we realized we hadn’t taken a single photo of ourselves during the trip. But really, aren’t we just interested in the fabric?  A lot of great things are happening in the fabric world. Here is just a bit of upcoming awesomeness we saw at market.

More and more patterns are becoming available from Australia, including designs from Don’t Look Now! This is a close-up of the Lilly Pilly quilt. We’ll have this pattern and more available soon.

Some of the best fabric we saw at market was City Weekend, the upcoming line from Oliver+S for Moda, available in September. The prints are on the softest cotton, and there will be some lovely interlock knits in the collection too! Here, Oliver+S have their children’s clothing patterns made up in the new collection. Plus, new patterns coming this fall, including some great designs for knits. Boy oh boy.

Here’s a closer look at the prints, in a sweet quilt that we will have available in kits.

The new Ice Cream Dress pattern made up in the new fabric.  Don’t you want one in your size?

There was a lot of talk at market about Liberty of London. Lots of fabric coming out made to have a similar hand to Liberty’s smooth & drapey Tana Lawn. Like Alexander Henry’s cotton lawns, of which we can hardly wait for the arrival.  And of course, there are the classic Liberty prints in new colors by Kaffe Fasset, on quilting weight cotton.  Always love Kaffe’s edgy color combinations made up in classic quilt patterns.  We’ll have these prints in soon!

And of course, we are always excited to see what Anna Maria Horner’s been up to. Her new book, Handmade Beginnings, is just out and it has so many fun things to make!

Here Anna Maria shows of lots of fun projects in the book, and some upcoming patterns–stay tuned for news on that.

This one makes me want to get embroidering.  And another exciting thing to look forward to: new fabric from Anna Maria later this year! (No sneak peeks yet. Can’t hardly stand it.)

That was just a tiny smidgen of what we saw, but don’t worry, there’s always more to come.

It’s that time of year again: International Quilt Market and its frenzy of fabric where we choose the coolest, most super duper stuff to bring into Suppose for the rest of the year.  This time around we’re here in Minneapolis.  But before all that work starts, we have to have just a little time for shopping, right?

During our explorations we found this amazing antique shop, Hunt & Gather,  that we got lost in forever.  We ran into Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts there, scouting for her booth (hers are always amazingly put together).  We later regretted not getting a photo of me with her (Joanna & Joanna!).

I could have stayed in the vintage toy room forever.  And just when we thought we were done, there was a basement. With secret treasures like a fish tank full of dolly bits. (Did you know Kathy once made a lovely bouquet of old doll arms? It was amazing.)

Coming up, more Quilt Market goodness.

One change we noticed at market this year was the increased prevalence of Japanese fabric companies and we give a big woo! for that.  It wouldn’t be right without the talent and aesthetic of the master Japanese quilters.  We saw some exquisite taupe quilts.  (The Japanese taupe movement, associated with Daiwabo and Kinkame fabrics, among others, is a look of muted color saturation with hues and motifs from nature.  )  Just a corner of this quilt was breathtaking.  This is “Nantucket Basket” by Yoko Saito, a Lecien fabric designer.

Check out the detail of the intricate hand quilting, hand applique, and hand embroidery.  All those french knots! Amazing and delicious.  We are looking forward to getting Yoko Saito’s new prints into the shop but whatever we make with it will never compare to this.

Speaking of applique, Piece O’ Cake’s new book Applique Outside the Lines is an inspiration and seeing their quilts close up is a treat.

But which quilt to make first?

By the last hour of market, we forced ourselves to quit working and wander the exhibits.  Among the antique quilts on display, I mostly ended up with photos of intricate log cabin quilts.  I must want to make one.

This one is particularly lovely in silk.

I am my mother’s daughter, I love the bitty pieces and the detail.

I mean really, where does the seam allowance go?

Well Market, you’ve overloaded our brains and filled up our project queues. Until next time. (7 months and counting…)

Ah the quilts!  I could stare at fabric all day. I mean, I do stare at fabric all day.  And I love it, but when they are put into a quilt they take on a whole new life.  The quilt I kept coming back to every day of market is this Denyse Schmidt quilt featuring her new fabric line, Hope Valley.  These colors are more muted than her previous collections, which is part of why I’m so drawn to this quilt.

I also love that askew cream diamond between the print and the off-white background.

This will probably end up being a free pattern from Free Spirit and there’s a good chance I’ll be making it as soon as the entire Hope Valley collection arrives here in a month or so.

Speaking of muted colors, one of the directions that fabric is going that I’m liking is the trend towards less saturated colors.  We love the brights at Suppose, but I also like the sophisticated look you can get with grayed down colors, like in the Japanese Taupe movement.  And in this Jean Wells quilt seen in her schoolhouse series presentation.  I wouldn’t call them pastels, but low-intensity hues.  Gorgey.

More quilts of new fabric lines… Here we have Amy Butler’s “Sexy Hexy” quilt showing off her new Love collection.  A free download of the pattern can be found here.  There are some gorgeous prints in this collection including laminates (like oilcloth) that we’re looking forward to.

This photo is unfortunate because it doesn’t give the true effect of the colors in this quilt.  The salmon and greens are so bright.  This quilt features the Botany fabric collection by Lauren and Jessi Jung, new fabric designers for Moda. They have a great website where you can get project ideas and preview the fabric, which will release this March. (And yes, we will carry every single print in the collection too!)

Getting excited about all these quilts is exhausting.  I’ll save the last few for next time…

There is so much to see at market it can be a bit overwhelming. With all the appointments and to-do’s there’s not a whole lot of time for leisurely checking things out, but we try.  How could you not stop when you see all these pretty trims sorted by color?

Of course we make time to visit the booths of our favorite designers and stroke all the pretty things like the little dresses in Little Folks at Anna Maria Horner’s booth.  The entire fabric collection will be arriving at Suppose in December and we’re nearly peeing our pants with anticipation.

Heather Bailey’s booth was homey and oh so happy.

This adorable dress she made shows fabric from her new line, Nicey Jane.   I couldn’t help but harass her to start making clothing patterns.  (It’s pretty hard to find cool, well-fitting adult clothing patterns for quilt shops. In the mean time, at least there’s Built by Wendy’s patterns.)  The Nicey Jane fabric will start arriving in the shop within weeks!

Whenever I was near the Moda booth and caught a glimpse of this homemade mannequin, I got a little freaked out.  The photo would have been better but I didn’t want to get any closer.  I can only imagine what my mannequin-phobic cousin would have done had she been there.

At least there was the Moda home booth to distract us with it’s giganto learn to sew cards.  Watch out for that sword-sized needle, Mom.

More to come about market including a certain quilt I’m now obsessed with.

Whether or not we have recovered from market yet is questionable, but we are ready to show you the awesomeness.

I love these patchwork looking installations in the park across from the convention center.  Quilt Market had it’s 35th anniversary this year, and is in Houston each fall along with International Quilt Festival, so we like to think they are in honor of quilting, but I have no actual knowledge of artist Margo Sawyer’s inspiration for creating them.

The day before the exhibition floor opens is Schoolhouse Series where we shuffle around crowded halls from mini-class to mini-presentation like 7th graders. Except with way cooler teachers.

Anna Maria Horner debuted her new fabric collection, Little Folks, which is printed on luscious voile and will make the softest quilts and cutest blouses and dresses. It will come in flannel too, which will make for the most sophisticated baby quilts ever. We still can’t stop freaking out about Little Folks.

Heather Bailey also debuted her new fabric line called Nicey Jane, after her husband’s grandma. It’s gorgeous stuff. You can see one print used in her Daily Spice apron here and we’ve some shots from her booth for later.  I also learned that Heather is a fellow BYU graduate. Go cougars!

One of our most anticipated schoolhouses is always from the Kaffe Fassett Collective. Westminster is putting out prints from the Liberty Art Fabric archives done in new colorways by Kaffe. Last market we heard rumors that Liberty of London would be putting out quilting weight cottons and now we know the details. There couldn’t be a better collaboration than Liberty and Kaffe. Here Kaffe shows a quilt made with his Liberty prints.

We got to see some glorious Kaffe quilts from Australian designer and applique queen Kim McLean.

And Brandon Mabley demonstrated what, as he said, he looks like in bed. Kaffe explained that for this quilt he chose fabrics that had circular motifs in them and kept the circle theme going with snowball blocks.

We left schoolhouse pretty anxious to get to the Westminster booth to do a bunch of ordering of all our fave designers. Stay tuned for more photos from market and details on when we’ll be getting in all these pretties.  If you want to cheat you can see all of our market photos on Flickr.

with lots to tell, very soon!

Final day! By Sunday we were exhausted but ecstatic because we bought this:

Our very own long-arm quilting machine! After tons of research on Kathy’s part, we chose the APQS Millenium. It will be here soon and in due time we’ll be quilting up a storm. We’ll update soon with our rates and details on how you can have your quilts quilted by Suppose.

We are happy to be home and back to our haven at Suppose, and anxious to get to work on all the goodies we found at market.

The days start to blend together during market as we hustle to see and do everything we can. Today we had a minute to stop and visit with Julie Popa at her booth for Sunflower Hill Designs.  Her debut fabric collection Sunshine Serenade arrived in the shop Thursday and we can’t wait to get home to see it. She’ll have a bunch of new patterns available soon too.  Oh we are so proud of our local talent!

Plus, how exciting to see hanging in her booth, the quilt she made with fabric she picked up at Suppose. I love her mix of colors and prints here.

We are big geeks at market when we run into our idols. At the American Jane booth we oohed and ahhed over Sandy Klop’s new quilts with her new fabric colleciton Happy Campers, which we will carry in it’s entirety.  For her booth display, Sandy got her hands on a vintage viewmaster with family vacation type photos, which we all had to try out.

And I totally geeked out with Liesl Gibson of Oliver + S. But how can I help it when she is so talented and so kind? As always their booth looks like perfection.

I wish we had photos of all our favorite booths, but there just wasn’t time. The big news today is that… drumroll… Suppose will now carry Liberty of London prints! We’ll be getting select Tana cotton lawn prints, and word is Liberty will start producing quilting cottons. You have no idea how excited I am about all of this!

Tomorrow: Market winds down and we make a huuuuge purchase.

Sometimes when people ask what on earth Quilt Market is, I like to say it is the Fashion Week of the independent sewing and quilting industry.  Basically, fabric designers debut their new collections in big, colorful fanfare. All day long we meet with our favorite fabric companies to choose the most exciting things to bring into the shop. Along the way there are so many new notions, patterns, doodads, and hoohaws to see that we can only stop if something really spectacular catches our eye. In the middle of the exhibit hall stands a quilt show where I had to stop and admire this quilt from Japan by Haruki Asada. I almost couldn’t get close enough.

The highlight of the day was the Moda boat party. We cruised up and down the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, catching views of the Heinz ketchup factory, a coal barge (remember how I am easily entertained?), a Pirates vs. Rockies game, and the convention center where we’ve been spending our long days. We enjoyed meeting shop owners from all over, including here in Pennsylvania and nearby Virginia. And we serendipitously sat next to the most darling ladies who, as it turned out, are from Seasons of Home in Midway, Utah, not so far from Suppose Preston!  We were so happy for their company.

There is just something about passing under a bridge on a boat. Am I the only one?

More exciting fabric related news tomorrow!