Today was the first day of Quilt Market! And what a day it was!! Here's a photo of a few of us about 8 PM after we'd been there at least 12 hours!!! I'm in the purple stripe -- kinda known for my purple -- have to do something to be recognized by my friends whom I haven't seen in a while -- some since last year's event. Can you tell we were having a blast!!This is the SHORT VERSION -- Trish (cute little blond at the far left) and I arrived at 7:30 AM to take care of some final registration details and then gathered our things for Schoolhouse. We were actually the first people in the big hall -- I have photo on webshots to prove it (kinda dark but it was early). School house is a full day of 15 to 30 minute classes by the various vendors, designers, and such who are introducing their new books, patterns, notions, fabric line etc. It's jam packed with information on how shop owners can merchandise, teach, etc these new products. We changed classes 15 times today between the hours of 10 and 5:30!! Each session had over 15 classes to choose from. I attended everything from Scrap Therapy (seriously, this was the name of the classs) to how to teach EQ6. One of my favorite speakers is Debbie Caffery -- I always see what she has new.the best trunk show was by Maggie Ball -- you've got to see what she's done with Bargellos!! By far the best speaker was the man from Olfa -- I learned some very interesting facts about the history of the rotary cutter...perhaps another time I'll share (it's already after midnight and I got up at 4 AM this morning). Oh! did I mention the door prizes? Generally each class will have a drawing from the business cards of those present for wonderful give aways. Shirely B will tell you I have the best luck! Every year at schoolhouse I manage to win one or more door prizes -- usually when she's in the same class as me, so I ought to tell her she's my good luck charm -- only I don't believe in luck (smile). Well today was no exception. I won a very nice rotary cutting set from Olfa -- cutter, ruler, and mat -- as well as an addon Stash program for EQ6, so I do feel very blessed.
We had a short time to rest and eat before getting into line for Sample Spree -- the photo above was taken while in line. We were pretty tired and a bit giddy then someone started passing around chocolate...well, we just got hyper then (grin). Finally at 8 PM the doors were open for this two hour feeding frenzy -- this is where shops can purchase samples as well as individual patterns, notions, fat quarter bundles, etc. I totally forgot to make a photo of our surroundings. I'll have to do better next year! Just imagine any major quilt sale and you'll picture the crowd!
Needless to say it was a fun filled day. I was able to run into some longarm friends I haven't seen since last year, bumped into someone who is a reader of my blog (that made my day!) and hope to meet up with others from the online longarm list I belong to. Today was hard to really visit -- remember high school? only 5 minutes between classes? well imagine a group of quilters flooding the halls all trying to get into the same room -- some speakers were so popular that they had to limit attendees. No time to talk, but tomorrow will be different!
okay...this ramble needs to wind down...tomorrow the true shopping begins -- the vendor mall is open! Stay tuned and please check out my webshots album as I will update photos daily...
WISH YOU WERE HERE!!
Oh Karen, I wish I were there too! Quilt shows are one of my very favorite things - and I don't have one to go to until March!! Have fun for all of us and keep up the reports so we can live vicariously!
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