Yesterday marks a whole week that I’ve been back from Quilt Market. My, how time flies when you’re playing catch up – but now that the dust has settled…
Some of you may recall that my previous trip to Market last spring resulted in a delayed, rather underwhelming post about Market itself, and more about the resulting BOM project that’s still underway in Serendipity Woods. Here’s the thing – I’m not even kidding when I say that Quilt Market is so amazing that I sometimes find it a little hard to decide what to share because GOOD GRIEF – I could write a novel about everything I learn –
Yet I have to say – it’s not just in the learning that happens at Quilt Market; it’s also the growing.
So what it really amounts to is that I have to just NOT obsess about it, and just share. I’ll try to let the pictures speak as much as possible, but captions, friends – captions!

For those that are unfamiliar with her, Meggie has been around the Woods for almost as long as Sophie. She started out like this:

She’s often the subject of my drawings with Sophie:
And she very much likes to be wherever Sophie is.

As for Quilt Market, for those that wish to participate, Quilt Market always begins with something called Schoolhouse, which occurs on the day before Market. In essence, it’s a day full of classes hosted by designers, vendors, and various other people within the industry. As was the case last Schoolhouse, I coincidentally started my day with Australians, which I think I ought to just make a tradition from now on. There has simply been such an incredible, down-to-Earth warmth to every Australian I’ve met (including my neighbor across the street), that it’s just plain worth planning to start every market learning from an Aussie woman or two, or six (as it were).
Though I missed snapping a photo, my first class was taught by six lovely designers from Ella Blue Fabrics. I fell in love with Eureka by Emma Jean Jansen , and also Mosaic Bloom by Rosalie Dekker pictured below (from their market booth).

After the Ella Blue girls finished sharing their gorgeous upcoming fabrics, I was off to my next class, hosted by another friendly (and most helpful!) Aussie – fabric/pattern designer and fellow shop owner, Jen Kingwell. Now, though I’ve been familiar with Jen’s work, there’s only so much input one girl can take as she’s learning all the fabulous ins and outs of new shop ownership over the last year and a half! Suffice to say, BOOM. All it took was one class from this bright, lovely lady with an array of her eye candy in front of me, and I was hooked!


The last image of Jen’s class I want to share is a quilt that completely stopped me in my tracks. The long and short of my most pressing task this quilt market was to discover patterns and ideas for our next Serendipity Woods BOM, since our current one runs through April 2017. Planning ahead must happen!

As I move on to sharing a few images from ACTUAL Quilt Market the next day, but before I move past the topic of upcoming BOMs in the ‘Woods, I have to share Sarah!

We then zipped over to the Moda booths.



After departing the Moda corner of Quilt Market world, we made our way to the Windham corridor. I literally almost fainted when I came upon this next booth:

WAIT. Did someone say Anne with an ‘E’ ? How about Anne and Marilla?
(but lest I digress to my favorite literary quotes of all time, direct from my IG page)
Our last stop through the Windham Corridor at Quilt Market was to meet the dear, soulful girl below. Suffice to say, I almost didn’t get Sophie back on the plane that last day – I think we both could have pulled up a cot and stayed right in the Dreamer booth until they had to carry us out.

So when I talk about all I see and learn at Quilt Market every time I go, that’s important. But what’s really becoming evident to me is that there is so much growing left for me to do in the quilt world, but also in the world of humanity, nature, and the preservation of what matters. I like it when I meet people that remind me of that.
Here is where I’m accustomed to wishing you happy quilting, but today I feel like I want to wish you more too – like Happy reading and letter writing. Happy coloring. Happy nature caring. Happy friend making. Happy YOU growing.
And yes – happy quilting too.
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