Greetings from Houston, Texas! What a thrill to be in such an exciting state, and to take part in International Quilt Market for the Fall Season. My Sister-In-Law Elizabeth is along with me to assist in recording the event, as well as promote her new quilt pattern called Spring Up found at Patty Young’s mouthwatering booth! Today was more of a warm/prep up day for us, Amelia drove out from Austin to spend the day with us and take us shopping to the Galleria (amazing shopping experience). It was sad to have her leave tonight, but her duties at work this weekend made it only possible for a one day visit (thank you for coming Amelia!). We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the Fabric 2.0 Party hosted at the Hilton SkyBar by Michael Miller Fabrics and JCaroline. - THANK YOU for a wonderful party!

The event was definitely bigger than the previous 2.0 in Portland, with a gorgeous rooftop view of the Houston Skyline at Sunset. I was happy to meet with many friends from last Spring, and many new connections as well. A fun surprise was that in attendance was Jay McCarroll from Project Runway! I was humbled to hear how news of our quilt market coverage had travelled, truly Boutique Cafe is getting out there into the mainstream and people are talking and sharing - what a sweet thing to realize.

Shoutouts to: Christina from Etsy, Melissa Averinos, Patty Young and her husband Jon, Becky Brumley from Upsiedoodle, Jessica Jones, Mary (my twitter peep @flourishes), Sherees Alchemy, Myrinda from Fabric Hound, Deborah Hearn from Craft Magazine and many many MANY more I can’t possibly type them all! It was wonderful to see you, I can’t wait to wander market tomorrow and see all the beautiful booths, we’re hoping to provide great coverage to those who aren’t able to attend. On our way out, I bumped into Heather Bailey in the hallway. She looked gorgeous as always, beautiful in a yellow sweater and her hair had tiny flowers. We had a fun exchange in the hallway of the Hilton, talking about how tomorrow would go, and laughing that if we couldn’t get the LIVE FEED to work tomorrow that we’d record a choppy video piece stating that there was an earthquake! She’s so funny!

Before heading back to the hotel to soak our feet, we stopped in at Sample Spree. This was a new experience for me, and the line up was HUGE! Thankfully as media we were able to rush right in and take a few crowd pictures. It was intense, with loads of activity/selling/chatting going on in all corners. They had some lovely samples for sale, and the bonus was seeing my dear friend Gina from The Threaded Pear and Quilter’s Buzz. We’ll definitely see her tomorrow.

That’s just Day 1 Prep, tomorrow is the opening of Market and the floods of people will be flowing in. I’m off to bed to rest up, but I couldn’t go to bed without sharing an update with all of you. Love from Texas - Daria

tags Connections, Fabric 2.0, Fall Quilt Market, Houston, International Quilt Market, Networking, Sample Spree

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 9:26 pm and is filed under The Market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.