Here is how the last few hours of quilt market are spent: rush to the Westminster booth to make sure we have ordered the new Joel Dewberry, Kaffe Fassett, Anna Maria Horner, & Tula Pink; rush to Michael Miller to make sure we get Sarah Jane’s first collection in it’s entirety, rush to Joel Dewberry’s booth to say hi, rush to Andover to make sure we get to see the future future Lizzy House collection and order it even though it’s only printed on paper and it won’t be out until Fall but we just looove it, rush to C&T to order the newest Stash books because oh em gee the Block Party book is out, forget to rush to the Threaded Pear booth to say hi to Gina (why is everyone always out of their booth when we remember to visit!) and then hurry over to reverently walk through the quilt exhibits and appreciate them while your heart is still pounding, until you can exit the market doors for the very last time this season, an actual half-an-hour before the show closes because you are just too hungry to stay till the very end. Phew!  The rest of the day is spent anxious to get back to the shop to show you everything we found. For now you’ll have to live with the 2-D version of our findings…

In the middle of the trade show floor is a small exhibit of quilts. I’d passed this a few times before I finally noticed it today. This quilt is called Circular Momentum and is made by Becky Goldsmith, half of Piece O’ Cake Designs, whose quilts always give me such an urge to applique.

Dummy me, I just now realized that the circular theme in this quilt is not only found in the pieced design and appliqued shapes, but also repeated in the various polka dots print fabrics used.

Not only is Anna Maria Horner debuting her new fabric collection this market, but she’s launching a range of hand-stitching supplies. Her Aida cloth, embroidery floss packs, and perle cotton boxes are arriving this September, which is not soon enough for me! I’m so happy to see such a resurgence in hand-stitching. I love it!

Tula Pink is no slacker. She has four quilt patterns coming out with her new collection, Prince Charming. This one is Crown Jewels and features the star of the collection, the frog prince. The best part of the frog is the fly hidden in his tummy! (Take a peek at the coral colorway. )

I’m loving this new bag design from Joel Dewberry, especially with that piping detail and made up in the laminates.

In the final moments of quilt market I was drawn into this thread-painted quilt, and just wanted to stare at these clouds created in the negative space of the stitched sky.

And with that, market is over!

We are exhausted and yet we can’t really contain ourselves what with all the inspiration (and fabric!) we’re getting here at quilt market.  Just you wait, you have no idea what is in store for you. For now, we’ve just got a quick update because, well,  I’d like to get some sleep this week.

Today we got to preview upcoming Alexander Henry lines.  These guys consistently set trends. Whether it’s being the first to do owl prints, or the first to use grey as a central colors in collections, we can count on AH to do it early and do it right. They’ve got an Asian-influenced indigo color story happening now that has got the wheels turning in our heads.

Jillily Studios pattern & notion company had probably the cutest booth at market, set up to look like a gelato shop, but with fabric on display in the gelato tins!  The sweet surprise was that they actually served us up mini sorbet cones. You’ll be seeing their new sticky finger-tip thimbles, Poke-a-Dots, in the shop soon.

Sarah Jane’s booth was calling to us again today. We cannot get her new line, Children at Play, out of our heads! Classic, retro, and simply adorable prints to watch for coming soon.

Sweet fabric dreams…

Friday is the first day that the show floor is open and we get to see the amazingly constructed booths of our favorite fabric & pattern designers, plus every new notion inventor and whatsit promoter. A few highlights…

Seeing Annela Hoey’s embroidery in person! Her  newest line for Moda, Little Apples, will be in the store this September.

Quilt from new Michael Miller designer Sara Jane, who also does the most adorable embroidery and has some sweet children’s prints coming soon.

Ok, so not fabric related, but I caught Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head in a tiff at the deli where we had lunch.

In a small exhibit we found this small quilt with the smallest of paper pieced compass points. I am in complete awe!

New patterns, fabrics, and stichery patterns from Anna Maria Horner.  Yummm.

Got to chat with the lady herself for a bit.

And of course I geeked out at Tula Pink’s booth.

Solids are really getting their due and are featured in this cute display from Kona Cottons.

More with solids. Always love a good rainbow quilt! If you want to be more sophis you can call it a color wheel quilt. Yet more quilting by the genius Angela Walters, who also has done market quilts for Tula Pink & Lizzy House (among many more).

What? This is pieced and appliqued entirely with minky/cuddle fabric!

Local pattern designer Jen Giddens had a booth at market for the first time and it looks so good!  Not only does she have new bag patterns out soon, but she designed all the fabrics in these bags as well.

Kaffe Fassett has a new book coming out of his quilts in Sweden! (If you know me, you might be able to imagine the squeal elicited by the Sweden part.) And I’m dying to make this new design using his shot cottons and stripes.

Phew!  2 more days… more to come!

It is SO nice to have quilt market in our own backyard in Salt Lake City!  Being able to drive our own cars instead of rentals and eat at our favorite local restaurants and have the entire Suppose staff come is making this market one of the best yet.  Not to mention all of the amazing quilty things we’re finding. I’m telling you, the bar keeps getting higher and higher in this industry. Rather than tell you, I’ll just show you. Here’s just a bit of what we’ve been seeing…

Tula Pink reveals her new fabric line, Prince Charming, in some new quilt patterns.  Look closely at the quilting, it’s pretty amazing and really accentuates the quilt design.

This quilt shows off all the prints in the Prince Charming collection.

Lizzy House tells the stories behind the stories of her new fabric line, 1001 Peeps, which will be arriving at Suppose in a matter of days.

Anna Maria Horner is releasing a new fabric collection called Loulouthi, as well as a range of embroidery & cross-stitch patterns & threads. This pillow shows off a big-stitch quilted panel from the collection. We’re a bit ga-ga over Loulouthi!

Those are just a fraction of the highlights from Schoolhouse Series, which we attended Thursday. Stay tuned for more from the show floor!

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.