International Quilt Market, Houston 2014: Overview

This year I decided that CraftTestDummies needed to branch out a little and attend more trade shows. After all, I started off quilting the year I turned thirty. I still love to sew and do art quilting, and I know a lot of our readers here also sew or quilt. That was all the justification I needed to head down to Houston to the International Quilt Market to take it all in.

In this installment, I just wanted to give you an overview of some of what I saw over three days of classes, networking, and visiting booths. Grab a cuppa and settle in! (PS- there will be a video slideshow at the end, too, for those of you who like that kind of thing.)

On the first day, I went to the SchoolHouse- dizzying day of mini classes, demo-nars and seminars all back-to-back. Some were product releases, others were techniques, and others were business classes for shop owners.

Here are some of the memorable ones (or rather, ones I remembered to take pictures!)

Tim Holtz, well-known in the crafting industry, released fabrics based on his popular paper lines. Called Eclectic Elements, these fabrics evoke yesteryear with vintage graphics and a muted color palette. I wasn’t really convinced initially that this would translate to sewing and quilts- but the samples he shared were lovely. I think I like the fabrics even better than the papers!

Tim Holtz shows samples made with his fabric and die lines. Yes, those mini cathedral windows are die-cut!

IMG_3836International Quilt Market- Tim Holtz

The muted color palette and vintage images evoke yesteryear.

Basket Block; l liked the fussy-cut piecing!

There were so many 15- and 30-minute classes to choose from, and I ran like a crazed chicken from one room to the next. But I did manage to take a few notes on these products and techniques!

This crafty class demonstrated how you could use older bolts of fabric- but of course I got excited by the technique and came up with a new project already!

This quilt was made by die-cutting fabric with the Silhouette. It’s not just for paper anymore!

This faux-cathedral window quilt was made using an acrylic template. I can’t wait to try it out- it’s perfect for recycling and upcycling fabrics. The tool is from June Tailor.

These three-dimensional flowers were make using a fabric stiffener called Terial Magic. Yes, a review is forthcoming!

Now here’s some of the delicious Eye Candy!

So… at this point I realized I just have too many photos to go in this post… so here’s that slide show!

It’s about 3 minutes and safe for work, AND I added some captions to give you the highlights! I’ll be doing some more posts digging deeper into trends and tools, so stay tuned!