Quilters from Mars?

Have you ever been out-of-your-skin excited about something in a room full of grumpy people?

That's the way I felt traveling home from Quilt Market last evening as Debby and I sat in the Houston airport discussing all of the wonderful items we had purchased for our store. Market was filled with great new product, wonderful new patterns, exciting ideas and color and excitement everywhere you looked. The airport was filled with grumpy people flying home to nasty weather, political polls and dire stock market reports. Looking around at the reaction to our excited chatter I think they were wondering exactly what planet we were from.

The world could use more quilters.

I took a quick photo of the Timeless Treasures display of my new fabric, projects, patterns and accessories before the festivities began. My fabric line is only about one tenth of their booth space but I was thrilled with the look and the "feel" of the display. Thankfully so were several other "important" people in the industry.

You can tell everyone that you "saw it here first" when the fabrics and patterns start showing up in catalogs and magazines!

I will be sending out a "News Flash" when the bolts of fabric arrive and are ready for sale both in the store and on the website. If you want to keep up with the news, log on to our website and sign-up for the E-Updates. http://www.thequiltcompany.com

One of the absolute BEST parts of Quilt Market is having the chance to meet in person with a wonderful group of shop owners that I am thrilled to call friends. We jokingly refer to ourselves as the "Village People" - maybe you have seen our page in McCalls Quilting? We also have a website http://myquiltvillage.com where we have created a virtual "town" of 8 wonderful quilt shops. To be honest, the best part of the site right now is the blog. Although we sat down together and planned some great new additions that will be added in the coming weeks, so there is LOTS more instore for the site, including free pattern downloads. The group includes fabric designers, pattern designers, top selling machine stores (assorted brands) and we stretch from California to New Jersey and Minnesota to Texas and our ideas and opinions are almost as varied! You won't find a better group of caring, sharing individuals with more deversified tastes.

You have heard the saying "Two heads are better than one" - just imagine the amazing things that happen when the 8 of us get together! It is exciting to be able to bring that energy and enthusiasm to our site, my store, my customers and my own blog!

Karen