Spring Quilt Market 2016 report

I've finally been going through all of my pictures from International Quilt Market in Salt Lake City last week where the sewing and quilting industry comes together to introduce their upcoming products. SO MUCH to see and take in. A week later and I'm still too tired to adequately synthesize it all, so to give you the full Quilt Market experience, I'll just barrage and overwhelm you with lots of pictures!

Just in case you were worrying that the world was going to run out of pretty fabric and new quilt patterns, rest assured, we're all in good hands. At least for the next 6 months. 😉

Here are Emma Jansen and Jodie Carlton from Ella Blue Fabrics with their latest collections Matilda and Bunny Trails (+ lots of fun times) all the way from Australia. The beautiful quilt on the top left is from Emma's new book By the Bundle, coming out through Lucky Spool.

Lots of home-town Salt Lake girls representing for Riley Blake including Liz and Elizabeth from Simple Simon, Amanda Herring and Shari Butler with her sweet new Wishes collection. Also, check out her cute little Binding Babies that will be available soon.

It was so fun to see another hometown girl Lori Holt and all of her amazing quilts. LOADS of them. Lori just blows me away. And I was fun to see so many people who were so excited to see her!

Also for Riley Blake, Tasha Noel's new collection Pixie Noel. Her booth was darling. Love that snow-globe quilt! And Melissa Mortenson's Wonderland fabric - for all you bunny lovers, there will be a Wonderland 2 coming next winter!

Another sweet new collection coming out this summer for Riley Blake is Sedef Imer's Sweet Orchard. So darling. And it was so fun to finally meet Sedef! You can see more close-up pictures of all of the cute projects on her blog (as well as some truly gorgeous pictures capturing Market). 

Another hit at Market was Carina Gardner's restored 1960's Glamper that featured her new collection Posy Garden. I got to make a little mini-quilt for Carina (see above my head.)

Some gorgeous eye-candy in the Andover booth. I always love the saturated color in Alison Glass's booth (bottom right) and check out the gorgeous Medallion quilt made by Kimberly Bourne (pattern available!) as well as the teeny-tiny flying geese in the pillow made by Erika with Lizzy House's fabric (and Lizzy).

One of the biggest hits of Market was the new fabric collection designed by Rifle Paper Co for Cotton +  Steel. Great colors and prints (as you would expect from Rifle). I love their travel pictures so I'm most excited about these cute city images.

Other darling details in the Cotton + Steel booth. Left Kim Kight's Rotary Club and Sarah Watt's From Porto With Love.

Gorgeous new Lepidoptera butterfly quilt from Elizabeth Hartman was a show stopper. Also Heather Jones' new Color Dash collection for Robert Kaufman.

Free Spirit both including Joel Dewberry, Amy Butler (always gorgeous) and giant flowers.   (Giant flowers were a popular theme this year.)

Beautiful quilts in the Lecien booth including the beauty above created by Holly LeSue (pattern to come) using Flower Sugar and Jera Brandvig's new collection High Tea.

Always beautiful eye-candy in the Art Gallery Fabric booths. Loved this colorful pillow display. And here is Pat Bravo with her newest line, Heartland.

Two more gorgeous booths - Maureen Cracknell's new collection Nightfall and Bonnie Christine's Hello Ollie. So many gorgeous details in both of them! (Also, I think it is the year of the Swan, although Cats and Bunnies also are predominantly popular.)

Other new collections for Art Gallery: Amy Sinibaldi's Playground (Amy is as sweet and darling in real life as you'd imagine her to be), Sharon Holland's Tapestry, and Bari J's Joie de Vivre. Each booth was full of gorgeous details. Check their sites for more pictures.

Fun stuff as always from Michael Miller. Sandi Henderson has her first new collection in a few years, Strawberry Moon. Sunny colors and the return of her uber-popular Henna Garden print! Hooray! Emily Herrick's latest Up and Away - two cute coordinating colorways with airplanes and balloons - really fun.

And then Sarah Jane's newest collection Magic. I got to make the fun panel quilt that she's holding. This collection is full of unicorns and castles and dragons. So cheerful and charming. The craziest part is that Sarah and her husband had packed a trailer containing all of the pieces for her booth and it was stolen the day before set-up for market. My heart lurched when I heard, because I knew all the effort they'd put in to prepare early. Fortunately, they hadn't yet packed the quilts or dresses in the trailer, but all of the pillows, walls, photos, house frame, dress forms, etc had to be re-created in a day! So many people stepped into help. You can read more about it - and see more pictures - on Sarah Jane's Instagram account. It was quite inspiring.

Now on to Moda Land: starting top left and going clockwise: Vaneessa Goertzen's Olive's Flower Market, Cute Sherri and Chelsi with their latest collection Desert Bloom (love this one!), Joanna Figuroa, perennial favorite Sandy Klop (I'm still a top contender for Sandy's favorite stalker), and Corey Yoder.

Bonnie and Camille's newest collection is darling and true to their recognizable aesthetic. The collection is called Handmade. So many cute details in their booth (that turquoise sewing machine!) and of course, gorgeous quilts.

More from Amy Ellis, Hazelwood from 1 Canoe 2, April Rosenthal and the delightful new duo, Franny and Jane. aka Frances Newcombe and Jane Davidson. Such a great due with gorgeous, fresh colors and quilt patterns.

And one of my all-time-favorites, sweet Jen Kingwell. Always so much to be inspired by plus her new collection Moving On is so soft- all printed on lawn!

Finally some fun new things from Latifah Saafir for Hoffman, and brand new designers Holly De Groot for Cloud 9 and Regina Felice with her adorable bunnies in her Luna Sol collection for Windham.

Let's finish with a fun story about Regina. I met Regina in person for the first time at Quilt Market in Houston a year and a half ago. She was so sweet and found me to tell me that she had first learned to quilt using my Beginning Quilting Tutorials! It is one of my absolute favorite things when people tell me that! She is now an amazing quilter/sewer and now fabric designer. I felt so proud! Not that I can take credit for more than teaching her how to cut and sew some squares together - she did the rest on her own - but it does make me happy to shown someone the path to start their own quilting adventure. 🙂

And now, are you feeling totally blown away and overwhelmed by all there is to see at Quilt Market? Just think - this is the tip of the iceberg. (It's kind of like drinking from a firehose.) Then I have done my job of giving you an authentic QM experience. Now feel free to eat some ice cream and take a nap. Or an Advil. That's always what I need to do.

And then start plotting my next project!