Quilt Market, Round 2: Upcoming BOMs, Growing, and Oh Yes – Bees

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 starters, this time around – not only did Sophie join me, but once we boarded the plane, I discovered her little mouse friend, Meg, had stowed away as well.

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

turtlegreencorduroys — Meg Mouse used to be a pair of corduroys and her ears were just a couple of fabric scraps I loved for a long time.

She’s often the subject of my drawings with Sophie:

And she very much likes to be wherever Sophie is.

Meg has buttons on her seat and often requests that her macrame’d tail be secured to Sophie’s clothes so she doesn’t get lost, since she doesn’t have arms to hold on herself.

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).

mosaic-bloom-ella-blue — Mosaic Bloom, Rosalie Dekker for Ella Blue Fabrics.

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!

Houston Quilt Market 2016, Schoolhouse with Jen Kingwell. Her blocks look hard, but you know – if we take one block at a time, I think we. could. do it.

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!

Long Time Gone, by Jen Kingwell, a fabulously fresh sampler quilt I’ll be testing as our next Serendipity Woods BOM project once the pattern arrives.

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!

sarah-maxwell-meeting — Sophie, Meg and I had the most fantastic opportunity to meet Sarah Maxwell, an actual sweet and gracious member of our current Serendipity Woods BOM project, and a fabric designer for Marcus fabrics. Behind us is Sarah’s gorgeous upcoming collection called Dandy Days, in the form of an associated BOM project we’re hoping to also pull in as a second BOM for 2017! Sarah also helped to connect me with Pati, a Marcus rep, so I could learn more about Marcus’ new modern collections I think will fit right into our serendipitous little world.

We then zipped over to the Moda booths.

We met Robin Pickens, whom Sophie especially adored because she gave her pages to color. Robin’s Poppy Mae collection arrives in Serendipity Woods Shop in just about 2 weeks!

Arriving in March, Sophie’s favorite time of the year (because it’s bunny season, of course), Kate Spain introduces Early Bird – fresh, modern and downright springy!

The ‘Merrily’ by Gingiber booth was our next stop, and Sophie was in earthy, wintry heaven! This collection arrives to us in April 2017.

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:

heather-givans-sophie — Heather Givan’s Literary. First of all – books. Secondly – library cards. and oh, oh, OH! Letters for actually mailing like the olden days. And I mustn’t forget to mention – Heather loves Anne with an ‘E’ perhaps as much as I do. That equals book quotes, friends. BOOK QUOTES.

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.

Dreamer, by Carrie Bloomston is, in a word – magical. Indeed it’s the most colorful of nature – triangles, leaves, with a side of whimsical text that just somehow flows together like a river. But most importantly – it’s bees and the learning about them, how much they matter, and how much they need our help. Dreamer arrives to Serendipity Woods Shop in March 2017, and you’d better believe we’ll be taking an opportunity to share more about Carrie’s and Windham’s support of the Xerces Society for Pollinator Conservation, and finding our own ways to help too.

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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