Quilt Market Fall 2009 – Westminster/Free Spirit

Anna Maria Horner’s new collection Little Folks is drop dead gorgeous. It features an amazing variety of textiles that has my creative brain whirling. The main collection is printed on Cotton Voile at 54″ wide. There was a lot of discussion all weekend about exactly what Voile (pronounced like Toile) is and why it’s different than the sheer silky voile my mother and many of her contemporaries remember (they also remember pronouncing that as ‘voil’ like ‘foil’). After seeing and touching it in person I would describe it as being very similar to cotton lawn, ala Liberty print quality cotton lawn. It is spectacular!

Another component of the collection, Folksy Flannels, features different yet coordinating designs on flannel. There are also new laminated cottons. The Cotton Voile collection includes solids in yummy colors to be used as underlinings and accents as shown in this zig zag dress (a new pattern). Anna Maria said the gathering on that dress was 3 times the width. Look at that drape!

This Schoolhouse photo shows everyone in clothing made from the Voile. Her daughter designed and made her own skirt (it also features a solid as an underskirt). Anna Maria shared that the back and forth process to find the ‘perfect’ base cloth involved over 40 samples. I think she landed on the ideal choice. It’s so incredibly fabulous that we have dedicated designers like this taking an active role in ensuring the final product meets their vision!

The curtain hanging over the bassinet is made from yet another textile in the collection, Cotton Dobby. The panel can be used as-is or cut into pieces for quilt blocks and other projects. The receiving blankets feature voile on one side and flannel on the second with a simple binding.

And yes, Roman (her new baby) most definitely stole the show!

Amy Butler’s booth featured endless inspiration for using her new collection Love. The quilting cottons arrived a couple of days before I left for market, still to come is home decor, laminated cottons and flannel! One trend I noticed was putting different designs into each of the base cloths. Amy’s home decor designs are bigger and bolder, something you wouldn’t necessarily want on a quilting cotton but work perfectly on the home decor weight cloth. A wide palette of materials that still coordinate as a collection is truly exciting.

Denyse Schmidt’s new collection Hope Valley is simple and stunning! I enjoyed seeing Denyse’s signature quilting pattern on the sample quilt.

Tanya Whelan’s new collection Dolce is absolutely beautiful. Delicious tangerine, candy pink, sky blue, grey and chartreuse. Lovely colors, lovely designs.

Heather Bailey’s booth was extremely cute, I loved the life sized photo backdrop. A laminated cotton creates a simple table cover.

I attended the Kaffe Fassett Schoolhouse. The quilt samples were spectacular. I’ve shared before that I purchased Glorious Color many years before I ever learned to quilt. Each book by Kaffe and Liza Prior Lucy is inspiration in its purest form. They announced a new title called ‘Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts, 23 Original Quilt Designs’, scheduled for a March, 2010 delivery. This will be their first book published by STC Craft/Melanie Falick Books. A fact that both Kaffe and Liza were extremely excited about. I can’t wait!!!

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A note on the Quilt Market schedule. ‘Schoolhouse’ takes place the day before Quilt Market begins. The sessions run between 15 and 30 minutes each. They are presented by the Quilt Market vendors. It includes a wide range of topics. For each time slot there are at least 15 sessions to choose from. It runs the gamut from designers presenting a new line to a website developer talking about SEO for quilt shops.

Quilt Market then runs for 3 days from 9 am to 6 pm. I stayed for Day 1 and 2. I definitely could have used a Day 3!

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OK, the swag. The prizes. The blog giveaway. This one is all about quality vs. quantity. Wait till you see the bag from Alexander Henry, definitely a ‘hmmmm, maybe I need to be keeping that one for myself’. Leave a comment on any of these Quilt Market posts and you’ll have an entry into the random drawing.

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I created a Quilt Market Fall 2009 set on Flickr to round up all the photos. Be sure to click over to see more detail. I tried to take a lot of up close photos of projects in the booths for inspiration. I’ll be adding to the set as I go along this week.

pink chalk fabrics ~*~ new arrivals ~*~ free patterns ~*~ on sale