Rambling Thoughts

I have so much going on in my head that I thought I would share some of the rambling thoughts of a quilt shop owner...normally I talk to myself but there's so much in my head that my other voices are confused so I thought I'd let y'all join in on all the madness.

In two weeks we'll be heading to the International Fall Quilt Market held in Houston TX. Now this is a big deal, lots of new vendors, lots of old vendors, lots of new fabric some good some not so good, lots of notions, books and patterns to look through. I'll be spending the whole time trying to figure out what the hottest new book/pattern/notion is going to be and then to have to look at all the fabric and figure out what my customer will want. I don't think I could count on one hand or both hands and both feet the number of people that "volunteer" to go to market with me. While we do get to see some really cool stuff we are doing this for some very long days, leaving the hotel some days by 7:30 and not getting back into our rooms until 9:30, lots of walking and more walking.

I've been thinking on what I really want to concentrate on while there, I'm lucky that Jackie the Wonder Manager is going because she helps keep me on track and focused. Do ya wanna guess how many times she hears me squeal..."we've got to have that, o'wait didn't we already buy that".
We're both really looking forward to seeing the new Thimbleberries Club Quilt while there because there are a ton of people already signed up so we can come back and give them a first hand opinion of the quilt. I know we'll be booking some more trunk shows and hopefully by then I'll have decided which embroidery thread we'll be carrying.

I'm also wondering what the color trend will be at market, what do y'all think...we've seen the blue & brown, the green & brown, even the pink & brown..do you think someone will come up with another color to go with brown? Do ya think we'll see more pastel fabrics this year or are we still on the bold and big print roller coaster.

Here's another thought, has anyone noticed their taste in fabric colors/patterns changing over the last couple of years. I was never a real scrappy kind of girl but I have started doing more scrappy projects, mostly for gifts but I'm enjoying them. Now don't get me wrong I have a growing collection (who doesn't have a growing collection) of Kaffe Fassett fabric and my friends at Quilting Adventures and The Artful Quilter are happy about that. I've yet to pull any of my quilting bee friends over to the dark side but I'm working on them. I'm really interested to hear where y'alls fabric taste are...drop me a note, you never know I might see a trend and you might be seeing those choices show up in the shop.

Well that's enough rambling for now...and yes there's more but it's almost time to feed the girls, Zele is giving me the look, y'all know the look, sad puppy dog eyes...pleading for one morsel of food because dang she's starving to death she hasn't had anything for an hour...

until next time...put on some music and dance...
Kelly Ann