Thursday afternoon could not come quickly enough for me!

Houston bound for Quilt Market! I had heard about it for a couple of years. It had been canceled in 2020 and 2021. I had heard rumors that it might be canceled in 2022, but when the end of September came around and it was still “on,” I decided to spring for it, and submit my registration for three of us from Quilted Twins to attend.

I had heard all kinds of things about it, and envisioned it like a large Teacher’s Convention. In reality, it was VERY similar to that. In fact, there were even fewer “attendees” than the teacher’s conventions I had been to early in my teaching career. But, this wasn’t learning disabilities, legal ramifications of working with children, books and bulletin board ideas. This was FABRIC! OH, OH, OH, so much more fun!

Traffic was awful due to the collision on the interstate which had shut it down. We had to take “the long way around.”

Despite a horrific wreck that completely closed I-75, and that was our standard approach to the airport, we did manage to get there and to the gate in plenty of time, even with a quick stop at the CFA inside the airport.

We picked out our car, and loaded up after we caught up with our son, Steven!

When we landed in Houston, our son, Steven Woodard, had just landed about 3 minutes before we did, and we met each other and headed to the rental cars. Steven has just recently joined our team as Digital Marketing Coordinator. He was there to absorb as much as he could about websites, FB, IG, TikTok, and how to make them all work better and more efficiently.

We had reserved an AirBnB just eight tenths of a mile as the crow flies from the Convention Center, so we knew we could walk there each day. But that was all we knew. We had never been there, and had no idea what to expect.

By using Google, we could tell there weren’t a ton of places within walking distance of our AirBnB, so we decided to find an interesting place to eat before we got there. We ended up Luby’s, a place we’d never been to before.

Then we headed into our place to stay. It’s always fun to walk into a new place to stay, because someone else did all the cleaning and arranging and making it perfect. I think the idea of the unknown sometimes is nicer than the known!

It was just as beautiful as the images and just as small as I had figured, but still a lot, lot larger than getting a motel/hotel room, and certainly more comfortable.

We had to eat our McDonald’s back at the airbnb. Ken wasn’t impressed with his breakfast. He said he found these breakfast burritos to be even worse than the ones from the Dade City McDonald’s. However, since COVID he doesn’t taste anything correctly. It’s been over 1.5 years now.

Early on Friday morning we went out in search of breakfast. We found a McDonald’s that was close by, but was drive through only, so we ended up eating back in the Airbnb, and then walking to the first day of Schoolhouse.

We found out where to sign in and we were walking to the big “welcome” when I spotted Kaffe and Brandon. I asked Ken to snap my picture. They willingly obliged.

We were sitting way up near the top of the hall where the opening session was going on. Annie of By Annie fame is down in the red.

Annie of BYANNIE fame was the keynote speaker, welcoming us to the first day. Once she was done, on Friday morning, it was a mad dash to begin our Schoolhouse – our chance to go to class. Only these classes were strictly for our edification with no tests or quizzes. In fact, most of the time, they gave away prizes and gifts at the end of each!

By the way, the only reference to how many people attended was that Annie said that she had made up 500 gift bags, and the first 500 people who came in the keynote session had been given a coupon to exchange for a gift bag. We had all done that, but we were near the end of the recipients. So, we’re guessing that no more than 600 actual attendees were there. But counting quilters is a lot like herding cats. At no time was everyone sitting still. Plus, this was on Friday, and no exhibits were open at that point, so perhaps more people came in for just the actual Quilt Market on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

For the training sessions, Steven, Ken and I split up. Throughout the day we’d find each other, sit through a session together and/or share what we’d learned and/or won. When I had signed us up, I had just signed up for ‘Schoolhouse.” You did NOT pick specific sessions to attend, though there were up to a dozen going on simultaneously in various halls and rooms throughout the center.

Donna Robertson and her daughter, Fran, do beautiful work. Their session was fraught with power outages throughout it. We all kept a smile on our faces, and they were amazingly upbeat throughout the lights going on and off during the seminar.

We were thrilled to find a fabulous Mexican restaurant within walking distance of the convention center. They were quick efficient and delicious!

By the end of the day, I had won a set of beautiful fat quarters from Andi Metz of Benartex. Ken had won a bag of goodies from Row by Row Coordinator featuring Timeless Treasures Goodies, Steven had won a pattern book in one of his, and Ken also won a gift bag of goodies from someone else. We had been to more than a dozen different classes, learning everything from how the 3 yard quilt books work, to watching Tula Pink share with excitement her next line called Ever Glow. (Boy is she excited about that line!) Some classes were delightful with interesting speakers, and others were duds.

Friday night was the first game of the World Series, and we hadn’t eaten a single meal since our sad McDonald’s breakfast early the morning, we all skipped out on our 4 p.m. sessions, after rendezvousing via text messaging and found out that hunger had won out over desire to learn any more that day, and the three of us walked around and stumbled upon an amazing Mexican restaurant. We needed to be back by 7 p.m. for the madness called Sample Spree! We had no idea what it was, but we didn’t want to miss out!

The Mexican restaurant was packed out, with orange and black jerseys everywhere, but they were quick, efficient, and we got back to the Convention Center in plenty of time to get in line and wait for our 7 p.m. fun! We hung out with 3 ladies (2 in back of us and 1 in front) who all had stories to tell about previous Sample Sprees. That’s when we realized that there were many “non store owners” there at Quilt Market. I believe all 3 would fit into that category.

When the doors opened, we had no idea what we were doing, looking at or going. I was mainly in for the fun of watching grown ladies dive after fabric! I had mentioned earlier that we often pay $15 or even more for tickets to entertainment that are less fun than that!

Sample Spree was a riot! Ladies running around trying to buy all sorts of stuff. The hot booth was MODA’s booth. Once they sold out, then everything calmed down. This was afterwards.

Steven was carrying two of our bags (loot) from sample spree. It was a mad dash to run around a buy it. He’s holding over $1000 worth of product. Crazy, huh?

After about 1 hour, and most of the people dove into the Moda and the Maywood Studios booths, and after noting that the fabric of my liking was already in someone else’s bags, we stood around and made friends with a couple of store owners from the Pittsburgh, PA, area, before calling it a night, and heading back to our temporary home.

Saturday morning arose bright and relatively early. We tried to find a place for breakfast, but that didn’t work, because our GPS’s all gave us bad information. We ended up with some really awful Starbucks sandwiches, and deciding to snack on the candy and goodies provided by all the merchants throughout the day and take the rental car out of town to find a place to eat, away from the World Series madness after the day was over.

I had arranged for Steven to take several classes and Ken and I wanted to just delve right in and start going to booths.

This is the view from the floor above the market..

We had been advised to go left, instead of right, because “everyone” went right. However, we did NOT find this to be the case. We found that there was NO PLACE where “everyone” was. The aisles were quite wide, and spread out. We had lots of room to walk around people, if they were standing in the aisle, and we could avoid talking to the people whom we just knew we didn’t want to spend time with.

I had made no appointments, because, despite the fact that many companies had been sending me emails asking me to stop and see them or make appointments, I needed to coordinate with the other 2 on my team, to be sure that we were all on the same page. I also did not want to sit down and spend 2 or 3 hours ordering fabric from a company where I regularly saw a rep. Instead, I wanted to use the time to see new and different things.

After all the booths are amazing. (I’m going to put pictures up on a different day’s blog. There are just too many things to show you to do it in one post.

The sites were beautiful, and the designs stunning. Seeing things in person is far better than via computer. It’s the same difference as listening to a cd concert and being in person in a concert. There’s really no comparison, but then again, if all you’ve got is the internet, or a cd, then you’re thrilled with that!

At the end of the day, we found the classic IN AND OUT - a place of great reputation. It was a wonderfully fun and “speedy” eating dinner. After our long, long day at the show, we were grateful to sit down and have good, quick food, so we could, once again, go home and tackle our homework!

And there you - the first 2 days of our first ever Quilt Market!

Thanks for coming along with us on this journey!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Feel free to browse the site.

My First Ever Quilt Market - Part 1