Quilt Market Report

Random building – great windows!

Quilt Market was amazing as always!  I loved Portland.  They have such a great public transportation system that we were able to go anywhere we wanted to.  Big thanks to Quilts Inc for giving us all free passes too.  I love being in cities.  I have a fantasy that one day I’ll live a downtown lifestyle.  It will be interesting to see if a) that ever happens and b) if I like it as much as I think I will.

Being at Quilt Market was so different this time.  Instead of attending all the Schoolhouse sessions to find out what is new this year, I was giving one.  Instead of spending three days looking at all the booths full of new patterns, fabrics and notions, I had my own booth.  This had the interesting effect of narrowing (focusing?) my overall Quilt Market experience.

On Thursday, I spent the day getting the booth set up and doing my Schoolhouse presentation.  I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in my booth talking with people about quilts and quilting and my quilts in particular.  I just loved this part!  I’m usually a pretty shy and quiet person, but quilts are something I can talk about for hours! (Just ask my long-suffering family).

The drama of my Traffic Pattern quilt really drew people into the booth.  I had two versions of both Traffic Pattern and my new pattern, Chain Link, in the booth.  It is such fun to see which one people like best.  In general, people seemed to prefer the grey background quilts to the white and rainbow ones, which surprised me a bit.

Another thing that surprised me a bit, although it seems obvious in retrospect, was how much having done retail booths at local quilt shows prepared me for Quilt Market.  The difference between a local quilt show and QUILT MARKET seemed huge leading up to it, but it really wasn’t.  The people coming into the booth are mostly shop owners as opposed to individual buyers, but the idea is the same.

A big THANK YOU to Lynn Harris, Rossie Hutchinson, Brenda Ratliff and Jason Elliott for all their help with Schoolhouse and the booth – I couldn’t have done it without you!  Lynn has some great pictures from Portland on her blog.  She is a fantastic photographer.  Thank you also to my dear friend Susan Greenlee and her family for letting me borrow their projector.  Susan is the kind of friend who is just balm to your soul.

I haven’t made a final decision about whether I’ll have a booth at Fall Quilt Market in Houston, but I’m leaning that way.  I’ll be back soon to show you my two new patterns – Think Positive and Chain Link.

6 Comments
  • Lynn Harris
    Posted at 03:45h, 29 May Reply

    Thanks for letting me room with you! It was a great time and your booth looked great! I'd be happy to help you again in Houston. We should book our room NOW!!! You KNOW you want to!

  • MariQuilts
    Posted at 02:37h, 29 May Reply

    The booth looks great….sounds like a wonderful time.

  • Svetlana
    Posted at 20:05h, 28 May Reply

    your booth looked wonderful. How awesome that you had such a nice experience.

  • Robin
    Posted at 17:59h, 28 May Reply

    Debbie, so glad you had a good time at Market. I am sorry that I was unable to get to your booth for a face to face meet. I so love your design sense. Your booth looked great.

  • Beth at Quilting Hottie Haven
    Posted at 17:46h, 28 May Reply

    I do a lot of retail shows too and it definitely helped with set up! Your booth looked great and it was lovely to meet you!

  • Charlotte
    Posted at 17:05h, 28 May Reply

    so glad you had a successful market! I wish I could have been there to hang out in your booth 🙂

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