Eeeeeeep!!!

No I am not scared because it is Halloween - I am freaking out because I am so happy and excited right now!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE International Quilt Festival.  I love how quilting fever basically takes over the city.  The shops are in high gear, everyone online seems to be getting ready to come to the city and I feel like everywhere I turn there is more fabric I should by.

I don't know if many of you guys know this but I am president of the Houston Modern Quilt Guild, and to make it an even better week we held a Market Meet Up on Saturday and SO MANY PEOPLE CAME!! Seriously, I was scared everyone would be too tired after a full day of market to come and it would just end up being our guild members hanging out having a beer (which would still have been fantastic!) but seriously like 50 people came!!

I was totally starstruck like 20 times!!!

Some in attendance were Houston's own Cherri House and Lizzy House (omg her new Outfoxed line is to die for), Aneela Hoey, Laurie Wisbrun, Ann Kelle, Kathy Mack of Pink Chalk Fabrics (one of my fave online retailers!), the original Mama herself - Krinstin Link of Sew Mama Sew,  John aka Quilt Dad, Julie of Jaybird Quilts, Pokey Bolton,  Rashida Coleman Hale (whose new Washi line has me near fainting), and so many others.  Plus there were people there from modern quilt guilds all over North America including LA, Philly, Albuquerque, San Antonio, and Calgary just to name a few..

Oh and not exactly quilt related but Bobby King of the Houston Texans was at the bar too!!Although not exactly for Market!

The sad part was that I didn't get any pictures of the night because there were just so many people and I spent the majority of my time talking with people and handing out door prizes.  I was even lucky enough to snag a charm pack of Lizzy House's Outfoxed fabric which I have already made a pillow out of!

Another awesome thing this week was the Cherri House invited me to talk to the Houston Chronicle with her about modern quilting!  This meant I got to go down to market, get a badge, and a sneak peak at the exhibition.

I was so excited and had a lot of fun chatting with her as we walked through the exhibition hall and pointed out modern quilts to the lovely lady from the newspaper.  Plus I loved getting to check out the show before the festival starts, but was pretty bummed the winners of the quilt show hadn't been announced or hung yet.

After we were done talking I went upstairs just to watch people start taking down their market booths.  Y'all may not know this about me either but I work in a very large museum and part of my job includes installing and deinstalling the exhibits so I have a pretty good idea of the time it takes to load and unload a room that size, and the fact that they basically do it between monday and wednesday night BLOWS MY MIND.

 

Sorry the photo came out a bit blurry, the window on the second floor I took this through wasn't the cleanest. 

Either way it is GOODBYE MARKET, HELLO FESTIVAL!!

And if any of you lovely readers are going to festival be sure to join us Saturday night at the Hyatt hotel bar at 8pm for the HMQG Festival meet up.  There will be TONS of prizes, people, and chatting!  And seriously, the prizes are awesome - just take a peak at the sponsers!