Headed to Spring Quilt Market

Today Josh and I dropped James off at school, then Josh dropped me off at the airport so I could fly to Minneapolis, MN for Spring Quilt Market!

Quilt Market is a special show held for quilt shop owners, manufacturers, and designers. The shows are held twice a year in the spring and fall, and the spring show moves from city to city each year. Last year we attended our first spring market in Pittsburgh, PA which I wrote about here.

Josh and I learned a lot while attending that first market and we achieved our goals – to get our books, DVDs, and patterns carried by distributors who help connect us with quilt shops around the world.  Within just a few months, our products were showing up more readily in quilt shops and in many catalogs as well.

This spring I’m heading back to spring market with new goals in mind. I’m working with Island Batik to launch the Dancing Butterfly Quilt Pattern, and the beautiful collection of fabrics in this quilt!

I’m sharing this quilt as a new block-of-the-month program where quilters can come to their local quilt shop and learn how to applique the blocks and free motion quilt together. This quilt pattern has worked wonderfully for our online quilt along, and I think it will also be a big hit for quilt shops as well.

Working with Island Batik has been a fun and exciting adventure. Thanks to this business relationship, I’m sharing a Schoolhouse presentation on Thursday before the quilt market show opens and demoing at the Island Batik booth during the show.

For the longest time I tried to do everything by myself, but working with other companies is one of the great keys to being a successful professional quilter in my opinion. Being open to try new things, like designing fabric, is a fun challenge and opens up many possibilities for beautiful quilts, patterns, and awesome teaching opportunities.

I know I’ll have a lot to share in the coming days about quilt market, so I’ll leave this here with a few quick details:

Schoolhouse presentation – 2:50 – 3:05 in room 203AB – I’m presenting a short talk on “Teaching Your Students What They Want to Learn”

Demo – I’ll be in Island Batik’s booth #2100 on Friday and Saturday at 11, 1, and 3, and Sunday at 11 and 1 to demonstrate quilting and answer any questions about using the Dancing Butterfly Quilt Pattern as a block-of-the-month project.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day