To Market . . . To Market

Yay!  Friday was Schoolhouse at the Houston Quilt Market.  Donna from DonnasLavenderNest and I headed out early to the George R. Brown Convention Center.  Since we live here, it's super convenient.  We gathered lots of information and there was lots of laughter.  Can you say "Tula Pink"?  That girl is funny!!  And so, so nice.  Her fabrics, etc. are beautiful.

There were lots of freebies, and really that's why I go.  Maybe my agenda will change when I'm a serious marketeer!  But for now, I'm all about the goodies.  (Pics to come later.)

Actually, I was on an information mission and in my quest to figure out how to buy fabric, labels, specialized zippers, etc., I met a man whose company prints fabric.  I was super excited and I can't wait to design my fabric and have it printed.  Almost all conversations had the sentence "what's your minimum order?" in there somewhere.  And therein lies the rub.  In this business, it's go big or go home.  A 2-color cotton printing is only $4.50/yard, but the catch is the minimum order is $750; 3-color is $1,200.  That's a boatload of fabric, my friends.

So after Schoolhouse on Friday, Donna and I headed over to Pappasito's for some Mexican food ... and maybe there was a beverage or two in the mix.  Then we headed back to the GRB to wait in line for Sample Spree to begin.  This is a big deal.  I think the ticket price to this shindig is $15.  The doors opened at 8 p.m. and the Moda tables were swarmed immediately so I had to stay away.  Too many people.  I walked the room and just couldn't bring myself to get excited about fighting the crowd to try and get a bargain.  It was either that or the fact that I already had two bags hanging from my shoulder that were packed with goodies and the thought of adding more weight to the mix just "weighed" me down!

 

 

 

While we were waiting in line, I started talking to the girl behind me.  Donna and I chatted her up for quite awhile seeing as how we had 1.5 hours to kill.  We found out she was a fabric and pattern designer and she had a booth at market.  We were both super excited to pick her brain on how the process works and she was kind enough to give us lots of information.  She gave us her booth number and we told her we'd visit her on Saturday.

Saturday, Donna and I trot off to the GRB again, only this time not quite as early.  We were exhausted from the night before.  Our plan was to walk each aisle and in the process, we stopped and talked to numerous people.  On Friday we went to the Lakehouse Dry Goods presentation given by Holly Holderman.  On Saturday, we met Holly and Pam from Pam Kitty Morning.  What nice ladies.  Holly and Pam both gave us a lot of their time and answered all of our questions about designing and selling fabric and patterns. 

As we continued walking the aisles, I spied some gorgeous fabrics in the Blend booth.  I was drawn to fabrics designed by Jessica Swift, Amada Murphy and Josephine Kimberling.  I ended up ordering 2 bolts of fabric from each of these designers.  I got the added bonus of meeting "Joe" (the owner of Blend). 

Walking Market took all day and around 5:15 p.m. we realized we hadn't seen our designer friend from the night before.  We looked up her booth number and off we went.  Plus I wanted to get another glimpse of the fabric I had ordered early in the morning.  Imagine my surprise when I saw the Blend displays again and realized I bought fabric from Amanda Murphy who happened to be the girl we were looking for.  She was the designer from the night before.  Wow!  Full circle amazement!  We popped over to her booth and said hello.  I'm sure I was gushing from my recent realization that I bought fabric from the girl I spent an hour talking to the night before.  What a way to end my day.

There were many amazing "famous" people there.  Well, famous in the quilt world.  They're mostly just regular people and most were totally approachable.  It wasn't my first Schoolhouse and Sample Spree, but it was my first "market" day and it was simply glorious.    

Late Night Musings

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and have ideas on things to make.  Then I realize I have to go to work.  Ugh!  Does anyone else hate (in my case) the 8-6 drudgery?  Don't they realize that's peak creating time.  Yikes! 

But, a girl does what a girl's gotta do and so it is at night that I attempt to put my ideas into motion.  The other day I was thinking I should make a wallet with a zippered compartment.  So last night I sat down and whipped out this little gem.  I'm using the leftover quilted material I have from my yoga and "etc" bags.  I like the way it turned out so I think I'll make some more.  Anyone need a special quilted wallet?

 I also made a couple little wristlets out of material from Donna's Lavender Nest

Wallet has a zippered pocket and 2 other pockets. 

 

Lots of babies were born this past year and I'm behind in giving gifts.  Uh, oh.  So, this morning I quilted up this little gem.  Now I need to make some binding, sew it on the quilt and put it in the pile for Thanksgiving delivery.  Yay!

 

 front - Creative Thursday prints

 back

I love trying to use up all the scraps when I piece the back and also when making binding.

 

Well, the afternoon is here and I guess it's as good a time as any to go make that binding.  Or . . . maybe a nap??!!  Hmm . . .



Blast From the Past

A year ago this week my Mom passed away.  It's still hard to believe that she is gone.  I wish it weren't so. . .

All but two of my siblings gathered at her farm this past weekend to help clean out the basement.  It was a group effort and much progress was made.  There was mostly laughter.  We found things Mom had collected and we had to shake our heads in wonderment.  How many used bread bags and twist ties does a person need?  I'm sure a lot of it had to do with growing up on a farm in the Great Depression.  Everything was recycled.  My parents' generation was the original generation of recyclers.  I found a few gems:

 I guess we ate a lot of cherry pies???!!!

 50 lbs of onions - whoa!

powdered milk - do they still make this brand?

 

We were a family of 10 so everything was bought in bulk and even milk was stretched for a 50/50 mix of milk and powdered milk.  Um . . . yum!! . . . she says facetiously!!

It was a good weekend with lots of time for visiting family and meeting the new little ones.

The cycle of life continues . . . we miss you Mom.

Time Passes

and life goes on.  It's been a busy year this year.  But mainly, the "real" job just sucked the life out of my creative spirit!!  "No more", I say in protest!!

Luckily I still managed to find snippets of time to produce some sewing projects.  Lots of babies were born in the past year and I'm behind in making quilts.  The goal is to have most of them completed by Thanksgiving when I will hand deliver them.  I have 5 or 6 quilt tops ready to be quilted so I think I can achieve this objective.  Cross your fingers.

I finished this little jewel for one of my nieces.  Shh . . . it's a Christmas present.

 

The binding has been hand sewn to the backside and is now ready for gifting.  Yay!  I love its vibrant colors and hopefully she will too.

As most of you know, I opened "Ogmo Designs" this year where I featured my yoga bags and various other quilted bags.  Again, my "real" job has impeded progress on the website, but rest assured, yoga bags are being sold.  Recently I had a request to make a chair bag.  I know, I had to ask also, but yes, she wanted a bag for a folding chair.  So, I put the fabric on the longarm and produced this beauty for the client.

The goal for the rest of the year is to spend less time stressing about a job that isn't fun anymore and spending more time on the beautiful fabrics and paints and other fun goodies that are in my studio.  Yes, it's time to focus on the FUN!!  That's the plan.