Houston International Quilt Market 2013

A week ago I was in Houston, Texas, finishing up 3 days of introducing my new collection of quilting weight fabrics, Lush Harvest, with Troy Corporation’s Riverwoods International brand.    A year ago I went down to the legendary trade show to spend time with Renaissance Ribbons, who manufacture and distribute my LFN Textiles Artist’s Ribbons line, and strolled around shopping for someone who could produce quilt weight fabrics with my designs.  Dorothy Troy stepped up to the job and was delighted to take on the new vegetable designs and text-based towels I had been working on, and now here they are!

That isn’t the real story here, though.  In order to gear up for this new market I have had to take a steep learning curve.  Being a textile and ribbon designer is not the same thing as being a designer of fabrics intended to be cut up and made into pieced items!  Some crossover is there, of course, but there is always the context of how the fabric to be used to be grappled with.  So instead of waiting demurely in my booth to speak with potential new customers, I kept venturing out to try to get a feel of what goes on here.

I took away a fantastic impression of intensive activity.  What a complex network of creativity goes into this business!  You have the people like me, who design repeat pattern.  You have the fabric companies who get that fabric manufactured and distributed to the retail shops (who come from all over the WORLD to buy).  You have the professional pattern designers who delight in contriving new ways to cut up and piece these various fabrics into sometimes traditional, sometimes modern, compositions.  You have the publishers, selling books and patterns to showcase the work of the pattern makers.  And you have to have very deep pockets and a genius for display to catch anyone’s eye in this hugely kaleidoscopic arena.

Herein I will simply post photos of some of the marvels I saw, starting with my own humble first effort.

Aardvark quilt patterns

Andover Fabrics

Blue Underground, quilt patterns and fabric line for Troy

Kaffe Fassett art quilt

Kaffe Fassett art quilt

Kaffe Fassett for Westminster

Kaffe Fassett for Westminster

Kaffe Fassett

Modern Quilt Studio patterns and books

Aardvark quilt patterns

Weeks Dye Works, hand dyed fibers & fabrics

Aardvark Quilt Patterns

Andover Fabrics

Add caption

Starry Night Hollow for Troy

Weeks Dye Works hand dyed threads

now girls can have the same quilt their baby sisters have!

This spring, Land of Nod brought out my "How does your Garden Grow" (gotta love their copywriter!) quilt design in "kid" sizes, twin and full.  It has been available up until now as crib bedding.  Yay!

Ribbon crazy quilt

Today I was sent a link to a delightful blog by Allison Aller, Allie's in Stitches, by my partner ribbon company, Renaissance Ribbons.  They commissioned Allie to make a crazy quilt using a variety of their ribbons and I spotted a great number of my own, along with their Kaffe Fassett ribbons and several other RR exclusives.  I wrote to Allie and asked her permission to link to her blog and use her photos, and she wrote a charming acceptance which I just had to quote here:

"Hi Laura!
How that great that you found this....
I've been a fan and user of your designs for years.  When I walked by RR's booth at Quilt Market I was stopped in my tracks...there were my beloved ribbons!  So I contacted Edith and begged her to let me use some of them in a quilt for her.  We settled on an orange/pink scheme, and I was in heaven working on it.
So yes indeed, you may link to this and use whatever photos you like.  I am attaching a pic of the quilt after I added a few more touches, though.  Take your pick!
And keep up your great work; you make many, many crazy quilters very happy.
My best,
Allie

p.s. I loved your ribbon dress... ;-)"

Oh gee!  so flattering.  You know, often when I pick up the phone and identify myself to someone calling about something on my website, I get this surprised and happy reaction that I answer my own phone.  "You mean this is THE Laura?"  Folks, this is a tiny world here.  I am not a corporation or even really a company, it is just me!  And Renaissance is around half a dozen lovely and knowable people too.  These connections between creative people are so meaningful and inspiring.  I am always so delighted to know that out in that great big world there, someone is familiar with -- and likes! and uses! -- something I have designed. 

And I like what Allie has done.  Here are some teaser photos, to see the whole project go to her blog, Allie's in Stitches. 

ribbons, coutesy Allison Aller

tutorial shot, courtesy Allison Aller

finished quilt, Renaissance 9 Patch by Allison Aller

Textile Society of America

Last week, I took my ribbons out to Lincoln, Nebraska to offer them for sale in the Marketplace at the Textile Society of America symposium.  Although, because I sat in the market, I was not able to attend the many fascinating seminars, many friends & colleagues were in attendance and I was able to socialize and network at night and when people visited my booth.  The other vendors had fascinating goods: beyond the usual expected shibori and hand woven scarves, there were dealers of South Asian quilts, (Thomas Mond of Maine) and moroccan and central Asian textiles (Ethnofacts from Lawrence, KS); high end handmade clothing dealers such as Santa Fe Weaving Gallery and Carol Lee Shanks; artist cooperatives representatives such as Creative Bee from India and Quilts for Kids, Nepal.   Natural dyeing was a major theme of the symposium and Carol Leigh's Hillcreek Studio brought masses of natural dye substances and mordants.  ( I was able to resist most of the textiles, but indulged my curiosity about natural dying by purchasing madder root, logwood and mordants -- watch my art blog for what happens with that!).

Ethnofacts

Carol Leigh's Hillcreek Fiber Studio

Quilts for Kids, Nepal

Carol Lee Shanks clothing

I got to the International Quilt Study Museum to see a fantastic exhibition of quilts from India, Pakistan & Bangladesh, and made connections with their museum store and several others for selling LFN Ribbons. 

At my booth I was delighted to have conversations with dozens of fascinating conferees about all sorts of textile subjects, and was gratified to hear from many of them that they had previously purchased LFN Ribbons at diverse stores all across the country.

John Marshall Japanese Textiles

Thomas Mond Quilts

LFN Display

LFN ribbon belts

The drive home yesterday in the October sunshine was sparkling and sunny, and today I am soooooooo happy to return to my studio.