Saturday, May 23, 2009

International Quilt Market Update




I returned recently from my very first International Spsring Quilt market, held this year in Pittsburgh. What an incredible experience and WHAT A BLAST!! I was there at the invitation of Nancy Dill, my publisher at QuiltWoman.com to introduce my new book "Moon Dance" to the professional quilting world.

There is so much to tell about those five jam packed days that I will only mention a few of the highlights. My purpose, in addition to promoting my book, was to network, and network I did! I took a workshop with Jennifer Chiaverini, the authour of so many wonderful Elm Creek Quilt novels, met Mark Lipinski (who gave me a big hug), fabric designer Amy Butler, the president of Kona Bay fabrics Douglas Eagleson, Vicki Dar, editor of Asian Fabrics magazine (a division of Kona Bay and Seattle Bay), The editor of McCalls Quilting magazines, and dozens of designers, distributors, fabric company representatives - the list goes on. The show was so enormous it began to feel pretty overwhelming at times., but the connections I made were wonderful and I could never have made them without being invited to take part in this biannual Market.

Two fabric companies have asked me to make projects for them and have each given me very generous amounts of fabric in return (Kona Bay for Asian Fabrics Magazine and In The Beginning fabrics, using a brand new line: Folklorica); I have an "in" at McCalls and possibly Quilters' Home for submitting future articles or designs; made a number of new friends AND, best of all, my book "Moon Dance" is selling very nicely!

As you can imagine, it was a pretty intense few days but SO worth it! And it was fun to go out after Market closed in the evenings to try out different restaurants with Nancy Dill and her staff and designers. What a great group of women. In spite of being totally exhausted every night I have not giggled like I did with them in a long time. I took a lot of photos at the show and around downtown Pittsburgh and will post some of them soon.

Cary Flanagan, Designer

Something Sew Fine Quilt Design

http://www.somethingsewfine.com/

http://www.quiltwoman.com/