A Visit to Wholesale Quilt Market in Houston

I have been attending wholesale quilt market off and on for a number of years.

In the early '90's I had a home based manufacturing business and I purchased fabrics at market for the items many gals sewed for me in their homes.

Ane then I had a small fabric business for seven years beginning in early 2000.

So the changes I saw and did not see at market were very interesting.

Overall, the show is much smaller.  Most fabric companies have really downsized their booth displays.  This is always a slower paced market, but I thought it was REALLY slow.  Many sales reps were just twiddling their thumbs - there just weren't buyers writing orders at their tables.  It was , though, the first day of a three day show.

The displays are always so fun and creative as you will see in the photos.

I thought this was a clever way to display a fabric line - 

and this is designed by Marcia Derse.

She has just overlapped 1/4 yards of the fabrics and sew across the top.

If you did away with the selvage edges, I think you could have any interesting texture piece for your wall.  She talked about how she does this when she gets new fabrics - just so she can look at it for a few days before starting to sew.

There are always so many totes, but I thought this one was fun!

This creative display really drew me into the booth.

The pattern is to set up a Burrito Baby Bar.

This looked like it would be so fun!!

Sew up the babies, wrap 'em up, add toppings and add a little spice!

I just had to have the pattern.

Burrito Babies, anyone??

Clever display with lots of fun things, including a checkerboard quilt on the floor.

I have always been a fan of Ardvark Quilts.  Her quilts and patterns always make the fabrics that so many of us do not know what to do with - just go together.  Very inspired by this one!

Another Ardvark Quilt -a real twist on the zig zag quilt.

And I will end on this one for today - 

as I said - some fabric displays get a little crazy!

This was the feature in the Timeless Treasures booth!!

More from quilt market in my next post.