To Market to Market……

Part of being a shop owner is the purchasing for the shop. Fabric vendors (Moda, Hoffman, Andover, Art Gallery, etc) will come to us. They bring multiple stuffed suitcases and show us “strike offs” of fabrics that will be available in the coming months. We  order fabrics that we will not see for three to four months.

Market is different. We have the option of fall market in Houston every October, or spring market in varying locations (last year Portland, this year Pittsburg). Market is filled with pattern designers, book authors, new notions and more. It is four days of shopping, shopping, shopping. We take classes and look at EVERYTHING trying to pick the things that our customers will find interesting. We have to choose our upcoming BOM patterns and sift through all of the new ideas to see what is smart… and what is not….

This year we started by visiting some of our favorite people…

 

Terri Atkinson has the distinction of authoring three patterns on the top twenty in the U.S.   We love all of her stuff.  Super smart designer.

Tula Pink is showing her new fabric line. Beyond fabulous!! We ordered every piece… every color…. can’t wait for it to arrive!!

And of course we had to see what Sue Spargo has been up to. We are working on a workshop with her – she said she would love to come to our shop (her son went to college in Ellensburg!).

We are going to start a “Bird of the Month” Stitchery class in October… but for now that is a secret! I have to get started on the sample first…

We are also going to do a “Towel of the Month” club. I think that sounds like a lot of fun. We are going to laser cut the fusible appliques with our newest purchase… the Silhouette!

Here is a close up:

In addition to the applique, each towel has a cute little sewing technique lesson, this one features the folded ridge.

At the moment, we are crazy with at least 10 boxes coming in every day. It will be a challenge to display everything well enough to see what is new, interesting and intriguing. This means it is “clearance time”!! 24 new bolts in clearance yesterday, 14 so far today.