melimba AND beccabury: May 2011

Okay, so I'm not liking the blogging trend I've been keeping for the past SEVERAL months. I don't like living life, waiting for months, and then posting it so as not to keep things in chronological order. You know, if I keep this up, I won't be reporting about the Quilt Market's happenings until---let's see---projected blog time---Ah! October 2045. Crazy.

So, let's talk about what's been up RECENTLY. As in, just two weeks ago? Quilt Market, Salt Lake City, 2011. It was a super fast trip to Utah. Friday morning arrival, Sunday afternoon departure. It was fun. I'm so glad that Becca is in on this little adventure of design with me. She is the bomb. Let's see what happened those few days...

Wide eyed and bushy tailed. Becca and I had EARLY mornings! I left to the airport at 4:45 a.m. (that's 3:45a.m. UTAH time) and Becca woke up pretty early too (don't know why). After she picked me up at the airport, we ran over to McDonald's to fuel up with egg mcmuffins and yogurt parfaits. Lovely. THEN! Off we sped to the Quilt Market! Don't we look excited? hA!

Here are a bunch of different scenes we saw. These first ones are all from the Japanese company called KOKKA. They have a TON of fun prints. This was, by far, my favorite booth.

gotta love Heather Ross. She is brilliant.

is this not the CUTEST little anchor print ever? I love the pattern of the shirt too.

I'm thinking this whale print was a new Robert Kaufman fabric? Pretty fun.

we introduced ourselves to fellow BYU alumni, Joel Dewberry. His stuff is great.

another favorite Joel Dewberry new print. Love the orange and white.

cool quilt in the C&T publishing booth (I think that was the name)

love this quilt too. DARLING.

becca liked this one too, so I made her stand in front of it. :)

gotta love a good use for a YO-YO in the middle. kind of cool. don't know where this was from. SORRY!

Fun pattern from Busy Bee Quilt Designs.

She's the same one who created the quilt pattern, "Hip to Be Square" (same designer as the circle one above). And that quilt pattern was Becca's first quilt she ever made. So, I made them take a picture. SO funny. They were both SUPER comfortable in this picture.

Our mother, Denise, is such a gem. She packed this amazing little cooler full of delights for our lunch. Oh, that every girl could have a mom as lovely as ours...

oranges, frozen capri suns to keep the food cold, mini ranch dip for our carrot sticks, chicken salad, bread, lettuce, oranges (already half peeled, so it was be easy for us). PLUS there were cheetos, cookies and other delights in the "non-cold" bag. Amazing!!!

The gals at Riley Blake were lovely. And, their husbands were so great to us too! Thanks, friends!

Let's talk about the Riley Blake booth for a minute. Now, we are probably a little biased, b/c we work with them, but seriously, they had the best booth layout in the whole place! It's no wonder they received BEST MULTIPLE BOOTH award again this year.

Let me explain, most of the big fabric distributor's booths you see are one big "room" where they have their quilts and patterns displayed on the back wall, and then a ton of tables and chairs set up in front of them. It's very "NON-inviting". The whole game is to get you to sit down and look at the sample books with them, but really, it's pretty intimidating.

That's the beauty of the Riley Blake Booth setup. They have these little panels where you are SUPPOSED to stroll around through to take a good look at the upcoming prints they will be offering, and THEN you can decide, "Do I want to take the time to sit down and order from here?"

Make sense? Anyway, that was cool. Props to them for paying attention to those little details. Here's what I mean. These next ones are from Riley Blake.

Love Lori Holt's new line Sew Cherry

This one's pretty cute too from Cydi Walker.

Anyway, let's go over to some more Designer's booths. This was Sandi Henderson's booth. She designs for Michael Miller and has some awesome designs. Great colors too. I think she ended up winning "best double booth" or something like that. It was darling.

Next up is Sarah Jane's new line for Michael Miller, "Let's Play"---and this was probably my favorite. She's new in the fabric world, but I've been following her blog for a few years. She does stationery and just published a children's book. She's kind of a triple threat. And, hello, her stuff is darling. Look at her website to get a better feel for her work. Oh, and she's friends with Sandi Henderson (above) who helped her get into the business. For the record, I'm pretty sure both Sandi and Sarah Jane are both LDS too. Little interesting tidbit.

Next up was Birch's booth. They have a great simple design style and I was a fan of this year's new stuff. I think they're an organic company too, which is cool to see.

love that whale one, especially. sheesh, looks like whale's might be the next big thing?

Next up is is a mother daughter team who designs for Moda. And, I think they are LDS too? So many Mormons in this industry, no? Anyway, they've got some darling fabric and Camille's quilt patterns are pretty cute too. I read her blog from time to time and enjoy it.

Next up is Sandi Klop who's fabric I've been buying for YEARS! It was funny, b/c we noticed their sign that said they were from "Walnut Creek" and commented on how lovely their quilt patterns were---and said that I love a bunch of the fabrics she used in them too. What do you know? She's the designer of them. So, I was pretty thrilled to meet the woman who's fabric I've been buying for a long time. She designs for Moda too. She and her husband were very kind. So, I had Becca take a picture.

Next up was Liesl from Oliver + S. She was such a charming woman and was so nice to Becca and I. I'm kicking myself that we didn't get a picture with her. I love how CLEAN and SIMPLE her booth was. And, she just came out with a new book that I've heard from MANY sources is very user friendly---especially for beginner sewers (aka ME). So, I'd better pick up a copy---especially since Liesl and I are such great friends now. hA!

she designed the fabric and the patterns. amazing.

all of the projects shown are featured in her new book. Do you love that little Red Riding Hood coat in the corner? I know a certain 3 year old that would LOVE that.

I'm in love with that backpack and little bear hat.

Next up are mostly individual shots. I'll do an explanation under the photo.

Julie from Cosmo Cricket. Big scrapbook paper designer but just recently got into fabric. Was with Andover Fabrics for a bit, and now is with Moda. She was great and so nice to talk with.

Me and My Sister Designs! Huge inspiration for us! Melissa follows their blog and loves them, but we got to meet them in real life. They are so fun. We told them about our situation and shared how fun it is to work with your sister. We were talking about how easy it is because you can really be honest with them and not worry about offending or ruining the relationship. Then one of them was telling me, "It's like, she'll say 'hey you look fat in those pants...' and I'll think, wow I didn't even ask for her opinion." Too funny. They said they mostly work with men for the same reason. They can be honest and not worry about everyone's feelings. They have been designing with Moda for years and we just think they're great! We went to their book signing, but you had to have a business card to get a book and since we only have one business card with both of our names, we are going to get one book and share it.

Biggest regret at market: not getting a picture of all 4 of us. Too bad. It is just a little awkward to be having a nice small talk conversation and then at the end to say... well I want to document the fact that I met you, so could you forget about all your other visitors right now, and just take a picture with me... thanks. Ha, maybe next time!

yes that is indeed Amy Butler. Such a gem. She was so nice. We chatted it up for a second and told her about our fabric (she hadn't seen it... too bad). We were talking about her booth and she said that her husband does all her design work and photography. Super awesome. (Melissa and I have both looked up her apartment and studio on flickr now and you can see that they share an office space... it is so beautiful! Plus the studio is across the street from the post office- talk about convenient.) Her latest work is influenced by her recent travels to India. Once again, we told her we were big fans but didn't ask for a picture with her... but maybe it is more creeperish to be taking a picture from the side.

Anna Maria Horner! She just might be my ultimate favorite. I made Melissa a skirt completely out of her fabrics and I think her work is just so fun and bold and crazy! Every time we went to her booth, she was gone. But we had a lovely chat with one of her daughter's who is studying at Pratt and wants to design shoes. Their booth was so fun. She had two of her daughters there and every time we passed, they were all sewing on the couch. Too cute.

more Anna Maria

Tula Pink! I recognized her stuff but again, Melissa is a huge fan. She puts a lot of secret little illustrations into her patterns where you would least expect. She was there with her brother (who is her assistant). We didn't get to talk to her long because someone else came in but we were able to tell her what an inspiration she is.

Since there wasn't a ton of room inside the booth, we came on the outside and took a few pictures. I loved their colorful columns, so I made Melissa pose.

We were pretty excited to run into some dear friends in the same aisle in a 15 minute period. This is Lisa Dunn who was helping her friend at a booth. Super fun apron!

Then we got to see our favorite Michele Brummer Everett. She is a friend of Jesse's that we have had the pleasure of becoming friends with. She is an illustrator and was just picked up by Cloud 9. She will have a new monster line coming out with them fairly soon. It is adorable! And all organic!

We had to visit Kokka booth again with Michele and show her all the wonderful things coming from that company. They had hangers and hangers of samples and we couldn't get to the next print without showing everyone how cute it was!

Now I have never done applique, but I have seen my mom work on it and I know how long it takes. Which is why we could somewhat appreciate these crazy awesome quilts from a company out of Australia. Ah, just found my little postcard from her. The designer's name is Kellie Wulfsohn and her company is Don't Look Now. I thought of Sarah Partridge and Adele Matthews and thought they would appreciate these photos!

Kneader's lunch break in the car.

This is a new Lila Tueller pattern. She is a fellow Riley Blake designer so we stopped by and said hello. We loved these scalloped edges on the bed!

We're big fans of simplicity, so we were really excited to see Penguin & Fish. They do fun embroidery and they have a new fabric line that just came out. They are a husband and wife duo and they were so nice! We loved this quilt below that has an animal embroidery for each letter of the alphabet. And then that is their new fabric used in between the blocks.

You probably can't see. But this lady has a bag made out of Rainy Days and Mondays! We got really excited everytime we had a Rainy Day sighting.

Now before you get super confused. This is not at quilt market. Don't worry, we didn't make fools of ourselves. Riley Blake had an after-market party that was 80s themed. We knew that most people would be wearing puffed sleeves, leggings, side pony-tails, etc. But we just didn't have those costumes. So don't worry- we found these MC Hammer pants of our dad's and grabbed some over-sized shirts. It was awesome. Most people didn't dress up... so luckily we had each other. And a quick photo shoot before the festivities.