Sew L.A.: Fall Quilt Market 2011

Twice a year, people who stock fabric stores gather in droves to attend the largest fabric industry trade show in this country, the International Quilt Market. Now, you may be saying "But Shaerie, Sew L.A. has like one quilt class" - and of course you'd have a point there - Quilt Market is pretty overwhelmingly quilty.

BUT (I love a big but) this is also where the fantabulous independent fabric designers that we carry and you all know and love debut their new collections! So you can imagine that everyone is pretty excited to see all the new designs. I know I am... so let's get started!

The fall market is always in Houston, while the spring one travels around - you have seen me report from Minneapolis and Salt Lake City so far, and next spring will see us in Kansas City - which confusingly enough is not in Kansas but in Missouri. The things you learn.

Here's a picture of the HUNDREDS of booths, and the ones I will visit are circled. Someday, I'll do a photo essay for you all about the rest of the booths:

I flew in Friday night and headed out for the first day on Saturday. I like to take the first day to wander around, look at everything, say hi to people and see what's what. I'm still a little loopy from flying and time change, so it's a good day to be distracted.

First on the list - the wonderful ladies at Cloud9 Fabric! We have been carrying their beautiful organic cotton prints for a few years now, and couldn't be happier with what is being produced. There is a whole range - cute kids fabric, sophisticated prints for dresses, and a lot of fun!

The first new collection is called "Monsterz" and will be shipping pretty quickly at the end of November. SO cute! I especially like the little sleeping monsterz.

The second collection is called "Alegria" and there are some really beautiful prints coming our way:

We were lucky enough to see some sneak previews of the next few collections as well - here's a print from the "Happy Drawing" collection based on the drawings of Ed Emberley. Can't help it - this print totally reminds me of TROGDOR. And look - little bats!

And here's Gina and Michelle, the brains behind the beauty - and two people you want to have with you when you head for a (bar) to have some (drinks). Ahem.

This is so new it's not even on their site yet, so I'll just whisper... narwhal...

This is an ironing board cover that I spotted whilst wandering. A heat activated ironing board cover:

And here's the lovely Sarai from Colette Patterns in her first Quilt Market booth! It was so nice to meet her in person, along with her cool husband Kenn. The booth looked fantastic and really showed off her sense of style. I was luckily passing through when she was doing a signing for her new book (which we have in stock) and she signed & gave us a copy for Sew L.A. Can't wait to get started on the projects!

Next stop - Yuwa Shoten to see what they had in store for us this year. I wasn't expecting another knock-my-socks-off collection like the Jinzenji fabric, but I was pleasantly surprised by many of the prints - some really cool ombres and totally rad modular prints. Did I mention I was a little loopy? Well, I left my camera at their booth - just sitting there on the table - and they kept it safe & sound for me till I realized it was missing, panicked and ran back across the whole floor of the show. Thanks Etsuko!

The last stop for the day was goggling at all the beautiful Lotta Jansdotter fabric. I have always loved her design sensibility - we carry her books in the shop - so I wasn't surprised at all that her first collection of fabric was so clean with such great colors. This should be arriving in the shop pretty quickly!