Sharing Some Peeks of Quilt Market/Quilt Festival

I am still catching up after being away for more than two weeks away for the Quilt Market and the International Quilt Festival, in Houston, TX. In order to get a blog post up for the first time in muchtoo long, I am shamelessly stealing from my Printed Fabric Bee buddy Lisa Chin!

I last wrote from Market, the largest “trade show” for fabric and quilting (it’s not open ot the public), which takes place annually several days before the Quilt Festival. Lisa wrote that she “had the opportunity to attend a number of Schoolhouse presentations during market. These very short classes are designed to help store owners learn more about the products available, as well as how to use the products and share them with their customers.”

I taught a Schoolhouse, and Lisa took the photo of me pictured here during it, and wrote a blog posting that included it. My presentation is titled Selling Hand Drawn Batik Artist Panels. Most fabric stores carry commercial batik fabrics, which have long been popular with quilters and seamstresses. My presentation hopes to open shops up to selling one-of-a-kind batik artist panels as well. (Note: while this presentation was to industry, I also have a lecture and trunk show I present to guilds and art groups titled Batik Adventures.) At Artistic Artifacts we sell beautiful panels from ten different Indonesian artists, which are wonderful incorporated into unique quilts, home decor or mixed media art projects.

I’m so fortunate to have a local home to stay in during the duration of my trip to Houston. Several of my quilting buddies gather there too; fiber and mixed media artist Judi Hurwitt generously welcomes us in. (Remember Judi? She used my wooden printing blocks and fabric paint to transform an upholstered chair!

On a “play day” before everything began, I led the group in a fabric dyeing session. My ‘bible’ is Color by Accident by Ann Johnston...I swear by her low-water Immersion method. Here are Lisa’s quart canning jars full of luscious color steeping. I always love photos of this portion of the process! Visit Lisa’s blog for a shot of her finished fabrics, as well as photos of our Cyanotype sun-printing experiments.

I could never get through a long trip like Houston without the help and support of friends and colleagues. Joining me at Judi’s beautiful home were Chis Vinh, Ruth Chandler and Liz Kettle. Chris was a godsend to me; sharing the driving duties to and from Houston, helping me with set-up and take-down (twice! If you exhibit in both shows as I do, you can’t leave your booth from Market up for Festival!) and staffing my booth. And Ruth and Liz had their own extensive schedules with teaching duties.

Click photo for a quick video of me using a wooden printing block to pull a monoprint

We all came together for a “Take & Teach” sponsored by Rockland Industries. Artistic Artifacts sells its Roc-lon® Multi Purpose Cloth, Osnaburg 100% Cotton and Nature’s Way Muslin. Take & Teach sessions are 90-minutes long and take place each morning before the Market opens, led by current Market exhibitors about their product. Like my schoolhouse presentation, these sessions serve to let quilt and fabric shop owners know what can be done with a product. I demonstrated block printing and mono-printing on the various fabrics, using my wooden printing blocks and our new fluid textile paints. Lisa, pictured here, used stencils and found objects to explore additional monoprinting techniques. We hope we made some converts to this creative fun.

I have to say thank you to Lisa, for her lovely testimonial on her blog:

“ used some great new fabric paints from Artistic Artifacts. I bought the complete set to bring home after using them in class. They have a nice long open time, meaning they won't dry too quickly on the gel plate, and they have a soft hand on the fabric! Two ideal attributes for fabric paint in my book!”

Since Lisa has been far more productive writing and taking photos than I have, here are links her blog posts relating to Quilt Market and Quilt Festival:

• Quilt Market/Festival: The Quilts
• Quilt Market/Festival: Classes (Part 1 and Part 2)

P.S. We’ve just finalized plans with Liz to visit Artistic Artifacts early next month: she'll be teaching a Friday evening class on her beautiful Stitch Meditations, and a Sunday class on Magical Stitches. In between, Saturday, December 3, she’ll be joining us for our Annual Open House and Holiday Market. Stay tuned for a big announcement about a new venture then too!