Spring Quilt Market

My friend Tracey Brookshier is having her first booth at Quilt Market, and things are going well! The two friends she brought to help--all three of them are staying with me--are delightful and we have been having a swell time together. I think Tracey has appreciated having a very supportive posse, too.

Tracey and Holly Casey have just begun booth set-up here on Thursday. That is Tracey's famous "Bento Box" pattern directly behind them, along with a new Scotty pattern, the Interweave pattern, and you can just see the LavaLamps quilt on the right.

Less than 24 hours later they are hard at it selling patterns, taking orders, giving out promotional info, answering questions....and doing plenty of schmoozing.

As we were there to work the booth, I haven't been out prowling the aisles like the last time I went to Market....but the river brought nice and interesting people to our little shore there at booth #2304.

Here is Kathy Mack, of PinkbyPost.com and also PinkChalkStudio.
She is holding her "Mail Sack" bag and also her "Note Taker" notebook, which she has developed patterns for and is marketing this week-end. I really like the Note Taker, and wanted to link to the pattern because I'll bet some of you will like it too....so look here. As an independent pattern designer she is at the beginnings of what I know will be a very successful professional career. She and Tracey were comparing notes on the process of getting that ball rolling...


Here is the front of the Note Taker....

And here is the inside. Very slick. Best of luck to Kathy!!!

I was able to just wander our little quadrant of the show and came across two people I've admired for a long time, so I stopped to say hello.

Paul Kreinik, a sharp businessman and funny guy. His company in West Virginia employs 20 people, and they bring us the wonderful Kreinik threads that we CQers (and others) love so much.
He was mostly pushing their new metallic thread designed for longarm machines. Says it does NOT break......Yes, the trend of the year is long arm quilting, no doubt about that....

And here is Penny McMorris, author of the highly collectible Crazy Quilts, long out of print. (The link takes you to Amazon where they have several used copied available!)
I just had to introduce myself, shake her hand, and thank her for her wonderful book...she is a gracious, lovely lady. She was there with her current company, the Electric Quilt, maker of the famous quilt software program.
I asked her to wave to all the crazy quilters out here in Blogland, so here is Penny greeting you and saying hi!

I'll be back at the show tomorrow, working Tracey's booth and helping to tear it down at the end of the afternoon. I hope I'll get to do a little more scouting of the show while I'm there.

There was absolutely no evidence of crazy quilting in any of the booths I saw. This is causing me to growl a bit, I confess. Maybe I'll find some of our select, kindred spirits there tomorrow...