Reporting in from Quilt Market in Houston

I'm in Houston for the next ten days for International Quilt Market (wholesale only) and Quilt Festival (retail!) Last night was the C&T Publishing Authors' Dinner and it was great. I gave a little talk about using the internet to market your books and promote yourself and I hung out with a lot of other authors and some of the wonderful people at C&T. I took this picture while I was waiting for the bus to take me to the hotel where the dinner was held. The architecture of the buildings in downtown Houston is interesting. I didn't realize that the other hotel was only about a block from my hotel until after the dinner when I walked back with a couple of other authors. Could have saved myself a thirty minute bus ride on the way there if I had but known. Oh brother!



We have a booth at both shows, but with completely different stuff at each. At Market we show the books and patterns that we publish through our shop, The Country Quilter. We have four new patterns for this Market and we're also running around the show looking for wonderful new things to carry in our store. Tomorrow I'll be in C&T's booth for a little while signing books and chatting with customers. Next Tuesday we disassemble this booth and reassemble as Flourish! with all of our art quilting goodies and supplies.



I have a new pattern out, Market Bag, that's a really generous size for shopping. It's completely lined and has a medium to heavy interfacing inside to make it strong and give it some body. I'm going to make a slew of these when I get home for my own grocery shopping and to give as gifts. So much prettier than the bags with store logos that I'm currently using!



The highlight of my day today was meeting Jay McCarroll, the winner of the first season of Project Runway, who has two new lines of fabric out with Free Spirit Fabrics. He's completely adorable and his fabric line is fresh and funky.



My least favorite part of today was the two hours I spent in the ER waiting for a tetanus shot after a staple gun accident at the show. Oof. The medics at the show told me I was the fourth (!) person that day who had stapled themselves and the hospital people told me I was the fifth (!) quilter in to see them today. The other quilters were at the hospital for less exotic reasons, mostly falls, at least mine was more creative, though hardly unique, lol.