Christine and I traveled to Houston recently to attend the Fall Quilt Market, where we purchase most of our fabric for the upcoming season. As usual, it was a whirlwind of fantastic fabric, good friends and lots and lots of walking! We love looking at all the gorgeous fabric and picking the very best for the Sew L.A. shelves.
There's the big convention center full of the fabric designers, and there's also a huge exhibit of award winning quilts - this one was one of my favorites! It's nice to see what people are sewing even if they are not garments - there is so much artistry involved.
On to the fabric! The first stop was Westminster Fibers. Christine really loved this Joel Dewberry print!
Some vintage reprints from the Victoria & Albert collection:
Tula Pink always has the coolest stuff, and Ty Pennington did not disappoint:
At Cloud9 Organic Fabrics, we saw some lovely new collections, but I forgot to take a picture of the CUTEST Goodnight Moon fabric EVER, which you can see slightly in this picture of their booth:
Getting to see our friends that live all over the country is a big part of Market! I got to meet Alexia Abegg's mom Michele, who was helping her out in the Green Bee Patterns booth. They won an award at the show for their fantastic booth! Yay Green Bee!
Alexia and Christine:
Of course, a huge part of the excitement is seeing the latest Japanese fabrics, which were awesome as usual. Etsuko from Echino had some prints that really had a different feel from what she usually does, and some prints that fit right in with her overall look:
Ellen Baker has a snazzy new collection:
And there were some random prints we just loved!
Hey, more friends! Here's Lizzy House and Christine, both wearing different versions of Christine's latest pattern, the Emery Dress. Lizzy's dress is made out of her fabric (which we should be getting any day now) - mousies on the body and kitties on the collar!
One of the biggest bits-o-news at market this year was Melody Miller announcing the creation of a new group within RJR Fabrics called Cotton and Steel. It's a fabric designing supergroup! Melody is joined by Kim Kight (who writes True Up), Alexia Abegg from Green Bee, Sarah Watts (who designed 'Timber & Leaf' for Blend Fabrics) and Rashida Coleman Hale (we have her 'Koi' collection in the shop right now!)
The actual fabric from these ladies won't be making an appearance till next July, and you can bet your booties we are going to have a big old PAR-TAY to celebrate. Just look at how cute they are:
Here's a teaser - the names of the new collections!
At Andover, we spotted this beauty made from Alison Glass fabric that we can't wait to get!
At Alexander Henry, we were strangely drawn to the sexy founding fathers fabric:
And who can resist food with names and piles of cassette tapes? Not me.
Their booth was beautiful, as always!
There was SO much good stuff at Robert Kaufman... we started with the 'Botanics' collection be Carolyn Friedlander - so pretty!
Some chambrays and some METALLIC chambrays!
Double-sided ginghams:
Some crazy prints!
We always get stuck in the denims...
And here's Christine's Emery Dress again! So cool!
Heading over to Monaluna Organic Fabrics, we are psyched that they are doing knits now. Take a look at these!
David and Jennifer are the nicest people and it's a pleasure to do business with them.
At Art Gallery, we were blown away by the latest from Leah Duncan, who also had a pretty little booth:
This print from Art Gallery was too cool to pass up:
And last but certainly not least, we come to Yuwa and their latest from my all time favorite designer EVER - Yoshiko Jinzenji. It was hard to pick the ones to get and not just wave my hand and say 'we'll take them all.'
And that wraps it up till next May, when we head out to Pittsburg for the Spring Market!
