Home again, Home again, Jiggety jig!

…and I’m so glad and so exhausted!

There’s a lot of physical labor required for attending market, both as a vendor & shopper.

I was fortunate enough to have my daughter, Chloe help me out again.

This shows our booth after everything was moved in and the drapes were hung.

Since we drove a short 4 hours to Kansas City this year, we could bring along some fun props.

This is a photo of the booth almost set-up, Chloe filing a broken nail?  Lots of that happening!

You would not believe all the compliments we got on the hanging chairs!!!

Market was great, with lots of shop owners walking the floor & shopping!

We handed out over 600 brochures.

Here are some of our first shoppers.

I’ve said it many times before, but I’ll say it again. There are so many nice people in the quilting industry!!!

We had many compliments on our booth and the quilts.

Of course my favorite part is taking orders and sharing the weekend with friends that I’ve met over the years while attending market.

More photos of market neighbors & friends to come.

Until next time,

Susan

 

Sulky Thread Love…

I ordered some thread last week because it had been a while and I was running low on several of my favorites.

Just a few days later and here they are!

The spools with orange labels are the 12 wt. threads and the spools with the brown labels are the 30 wt. threads.

I put my favorite at the top.

It’s my most-used, Sulky 12 wt. Black!  It’s what makes my applique “pop!”  I didn’t know my applique didn’t pop until a couple of Sulky reps wandered by my booth one year at market and introduced me to their threads. They knew my applique didn’t “pop”, but they didn’t tell me that, they just said, “Oh you do a lot of applique. Would you like to try our 12 wt. thread?”

Little did I know that thread would totally change the look of my applique!

I took that thread home with me and eventually tested it on my next applique project.

Oh, my goodness!

It’s like taking a big black crayon and outlining my applique shapes.

I guess I’m still a kindergartener at heart!

Notice how I just showed you what I’ve been working on without showing you what I’m working on?

I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned.

Until next time,

Susan

 

New Pattern #8 for Market

Wow, time flies when I’m having fun!

I enjoy the entire process of making quilt patterns.

I love buying the fabric, making the samples, writing the directions, working with my photographer getting the photos just right and then taking them to be printed.  It’s almost fun folding and stuffing them into their zip top bags, almost.  I find that I spend a fair amount of time in front of the TV waiting on my college-age kids to get home from school, work and play, so that’s when I usually take care of that task.

When all that is finally done, I can’t wait to see the finished product in its crystal clear bag, ahh!  That shiny clear bag with my pattern inside just makes me smile.

The next step is debuting them at market.  It’s a bitter-sweet task in itself.  There is always travel involved, either to Houston each fall for fall market or to a different city each spring for spring market.  After working my bootie off for several months getting new patterns and samples ready then traveling to get them to market where it’s three days of standing all day after a day of set-up and Schoolhouse lectures the day before that, it’s very exhausting as well as exhilarating.

It’s fun seeing quilting friends, but it’s very tiring getting “it” all together!

For all those traveling to quilt market, safe travels, and come see me in booth #1902!

For those of you that cannot attend, stay tuned for photos when I return.

I will leave you with new pattern #8,

A Pretty Garden,

This is a lap size quilt, made with my Quilt-as-you-go method that I’ve chatted about here.

Bright & cheery for spring don’t you think?  It’s been in the works since BEFORE I got back from Salt Lake City’s spring market in May.  I love the way it turned out with the Amelia fabrics by Me & My Sister for Moda. The fence posts and the “grassy” area between the fence posts are sewn into strips then the strips are sewn onto the foundation.  Next make and fuse the applique.  I love the cricket, how ’bout you?

Until next time,

Susan

 

Now this is a new Package

I know it seems like a long time since I posted, but to me it seems like just last week!  This time of year (market prep time) flies by because I’m so busy designing, sewing, writing patterns, scheduling photo shoots, meetings with printers, and all this in conjunction with keeping up with my family.  You know what I mean, grocery and Wal-Mart shopping, food prep, laundry, and the list goes on and on.  Even though everyone is back in school, my life just gets crazy busy.  This is why I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted that I had a “new Package” made with the new Amelia fabric collection.

As I stated in the previous post, I knew my photographer would do a much better job than I could ever to, hence the reason I hire him!!!  Know what else?  After I posted that photo in my last blog I realized I didn’t like a portion of the quilt, so I “fixed” it!

Can you see what’s better and different?

I like it much better!

I have a total of 8 new patterns just about ready for market, in addition to this re-color of an existing pattern plus two more sample re-colors going.  I hope to be totally done with this part the end of the week so I can get assembling new patterns.  It sure would be nice to get a few good nights of sleep before heading off to market where there is no rest for the weary.

Until next time,

Susan