Saturday Snapshots; Halloween, Quilts & Markets

If you’re new here, Saturday Snapshots are posts that are a bit more personal in nature. Just a small peek into our lives.  If you just like the “crafty stuff” no worries, it will be back on Monday!

Someone told me once “one blog post, one topic”. It’s actually pretty good advice as it helps your readers to find what they need when they need it. However today I’m going to break that “rule.” I have a few things that I have been so excited to talk to you about and I just want to talk about all of them at once LOL! (also, is LOL still cool?? I wish there was such a thing as blog emojis – I’d be using the laughing/crying one all the time).

So, “what have I been up to?” Well, a lot and a lot of nothing. Do you ever feel like that? It seems like I’m balancing so many spinning plates, but at the same time when I’m asked: “what’s new”? I usually respond with “not much, I don’t even think I put on makeup today”.

ONE:

Let’s start with the main thing that has been occupying most of my thoughts this month, Fall Quilt Market.

Twice a year Quilts, Inc holds a market for those that are involved in the “business” side of the quilting industry. Stores and vendors from all over the world visit to see what is coming, and to make decisions on which products that they’d like to carry in their stores.

I have a new fabric line coming out in February 2018, Derby Day (more on that in a bit) and had a booth to display the line and show stores some of the things that can be made using it.

This was my third time with a booth and the first time with my own booth space. I previously shared with others.  Just to give you a bit of “behind the scenes” of how things work. Our fabric company sends us initial prints of the fabrics in the line, then we stitch up samples with the fabric.  The goal of the booth is to not only show off the prints the line but also to convey to the customer the “feel and mood” of the line.

(Medallion Quilt by Erin Harris from her upcoming book, Make your Own Medallion)

Quilt based on this free tutorial 

Derby Sampler Quilt Pattern coming in January

At the beginning of October, I got my advanced yardage. I left for Quilt Market on October 23rd. Do I need to say much more ?!? LOL!

I had a little over 3 weeks to make quilts, send them to be quilted, create a booth, and samples for the booth then figure out how to get all of that stuff to Houston… on an airplane (this is where I need the eye roll emoji).

Slowly over the month, I put together a plan, that I was actually really excited about. I knew that yardage of the fabric would be limited, so I ordered wrapping paper with the prints and used it to create many of the displays in my booth. 

March Bag Pattern – available HERE.

I won’t go into all of the gory details, but I had poles and drapes to work with, so there was no way to lean anything up against a wall and everything had to be attached to the pole or firmly planted on the ground.

I came up with the idea of creating mini “displays” of some of the things you could make with the line, I got the idea from a display I saw at  Disney World. Each of the boards tells a little “story”.

Since the line was Derby inspired I knew that I HAD to have a Derby dress, so I created one using a Cynthia Rowley pattern, and displayed it with a big hat and fancy necklace.  My husband helped me to cover what seemed like a million hat boxes with paper and I scattered them through the booth. I wanted it to feel like you were in a shop, looking for items to take with you to the Derby.

In all, I’m really happy with how the booth turned out. As I look at the photos there are things that I wish I had done differently, or that turned out not “quite” like I had them in my head.

The new line, I mentioned before is called Derby Day and is inspired by the Kentucky Derby. It’s a follow-up line to my first line Derby Style, and can be found in stores starting February 2018- so you’ve got lots of time to make all kinds of fun stuff for Derby with it!

I’ll share a proper Quilt Market only recap with more info next week. 

TWO:

Okay, so I know it’s after Halloween but I really wanted to pop in and share some photos I took of my finished Halloween Haberdashery Quilt. Last year I made the top and wrote the pattern, and this year I finally quilted it, and it sat on my couch all month.  I was so happy to have it!

My daughter and I took it out for a few glamour shots earlier in the month. I just never got the chance to share them with all of the Quilt Market prep going on.

 

Staring mid-September people started sharing photos of their completed quilts on Instagram and I could not have been more excited! I absolutely LOVEd seeing everyone’s creations!

If you search #HalloweenHaberdashery on Insta you can see many of the photos. However, Instagram is being weird (BIG SURPRISE..  not)  so it’s not showing all of the photos in the hashtag.

Three:

Halloween was this week! I’m a little bit excited that my 16 yr olds still wanted me to make them Halloween costumes. My son got a special “guys trip” to Disney with Dad this month and they hit the Halloween Party, which is always one of our favorites. My oldest daughter was even able to “crash” the trip for a few days and go as well.

They wanted to go as skeletons so I easily made them some costumes using sweatpants and some iron on that I cut out with my Cricut.

My younger daughter (I have 3 kids, a college-age daughter and boy/girl twins that are 16) had reconstructive jaw surgery at the beginning of the month. Thankfully she came through it like a champ, but it was quite the ordeal.

While they were gone we spent lots of time curled up in bed watching Stranger Things. We also managed re-watch almost ALL of the Gilmore Girls. I would sew and she would lay on the couch in my sewing room with it playing in the background.  I loved having the quiet time with her. I’m just sad that it had to come because of a surgery.

Here we have Rory Gilmore and a Skeleton on Halloween night– brought to you by H&M, Target, and the Cricut EasyPress

This year the reality that the twins will most likely be leaving me in a year and a half is starting to sink in. I waffle back and forth between “hey, we are going on vacation in September” and “AUGHHHH, I’m going to be an empty nester.” It’s a strange feeling. I keep thinking to myself “well, that was it, our life with small children is almost over”. Almost like closing a book. I know there is a new book to open, but it just feels different. 

I think things like “but we’ve never been to the grand canyon” and “why didn’t we just stay home all the time?” I think when you get to this point in your life it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do, you’ll second guess it all.

It makes me fully appreciate the meaning of the word “bittersweet”.

That’s enough for today’s Saturday Snapshots. I hope you like reading them because I really like writing them. I don’t want this “space” to ever lose its personal touch and I love being able to share some of the personal things going on in my life with you all.