First off, congratulations to Dorothy, who won the giveaway.  I’ll be in touch with you, Dorothy, to get your mailing info and get that off to you next week. Thank you to all who participated, and especially to all who commented on my yank-out-the-carpet-from-under-me fall.  I’m pretty much fine, and am going forward, but you can bet I’ll look twice before coming out of an aisle.  That story also made it to Carrie Nelson’s MODA blog, as I had to tell a story to her to get one of her camping badges.  For a great recap of her Moda Designers’ booths, head over there.

I’ll also have another little giveaway at the end of this post, to reward you for reading, AND in honor of my mother’s 88th birthday.  This is a photo of her back in the day.   They apparently used to take all their birthday pictures outside because the camera couldn’t really capture the light as well inside.  I think of that when I tend to use my mobile phone everywhere because its light-capturing sensors are the best.

Quilt Market is about business–the business of selling, of buying, of hawking your wares, of displaying, of meeting your buyers, meeting the designers, meeting the authors.  Sometimes I would get a book at these signings, and sometimes I just snapped photos on my way past.  Some publishers were gracious, not knowing who their books were going home with, yet others were a bit cranky about the whole thing.  Considering that I buy from all of them, I’ll never tell who was cheerful and who was cranky, but it taught me a lot about that aspect of this business.

This talented lady’s book is part of our giveaway today.  Elea Lutz designs not only patterns, but also fabrics for Penny Rose (associated with Riley Blake Fabrics).  It’s a book published by Fat Quarter Shop and has charming pieced patterns, as shown in the quilt behind her.

The other giveaway (I’ll divide them into two) is the Stashbusters Book, by Sarah Maxwell and Dolores Smith, a wonderful collection of scrappy reproduction-style quilts.  I’ll choose two from the comments left below; let me know if you have a preference for which book you might win.

Once I left the cocoon of my Painter’s Palette booth and ventured out, I saw this young woman modeling the skirt found in Alison Glass’ LookBook.    It was like — pinch me!–as I encountered Famous People and things I recognized from all the advertising I see when I read magazines, or attend quilt shows, or wander through the web.  It was going to be a day of double takes as I walked among the Business of Quilting, the other side of the quilty looking glass.

Sassafras Lane Designs, in all their colorful glory.

Renegade salespeople in the lobby of the Salt Palace.  Great carpet, right?

Quilt Soup.  (That’s not Barbara Jones, but a “booth babysitter,” she said.

Don’t look now, but that woman in the Kokka booth is wearing a Wookie Backpack.  I was in line behind her later on at the Lucky Spools book signing, and she shared with us all the trending video of the woman who’d just purchased a Chewbacca Mask for her birthday.  I thought that was a neat coincidence.

These three pictures are from Katie Cupcake, by Amy Hamberlin.  I love that Midtown bag.

Jillily Studio’s booth was a sweet shop, complete with little bagged chocolate truffles they gave out.

Hoffman Fabrics are in my neck of the woods in Southern California, and first started with Hawaiian print fabrics for the local surfers.

I don’t know if you can see it, but Latifah Saafir’s booth (Hoffman Fabrics) has a pair of tennis shoes slung over a wire–so LA.  I loved it!

Fun also to see Hoffman’s newest line of fabrics from Thistlewood Farms.  Those blues! (And yes, that’s KariAnne Wood holding her quilt.)

Heather Jones’ line of fabric is subtle, but I bought some at Sample Spree because I think it will work well in so many quilts.  One of my favorite types of fabrics are those that bring a punch of something new to the existing stash, giving it more life.  She has some great designs in her collection.

Here is a series of photos from the Clothworks/Frou-Frou booths, across the aisle from each other.  Maybe because I was thinking about my trip to Geneva last week, and how I was missing the small prints from Europe, but I really fell in love with these fabrics (plus I love how they feel).

I love their cans of projects.  Very clever.

Now, for a complete change of pace, this is the Free Spirit Booth.  I noticed more and more of this type of booth design among the big names: a central section for the business of ordering, and small alcoves for the designers.

Amy Butler’s section.  She also had a larger booth:

Tula Pink’s alcove.

Snow Leopard Designs by Phillip Jacobs (again, for Free Spirit Fabrics)

Elizabeth Hartman’s booth, with the lovely creator in attendance.

Cori Dantini, for Blend Fabrics.  I loved their booth:

EdMar Company, a small vendor from Idaho was selling these gorgeous rayon Brazilian Embroidery Threads.

Benartex.  I think you can see where all those beautiful quilts go that we see in “sneak peeks” on Instagram (and yes, I spelled “peeks” correctly).  Every booth was awash in beautiful quilts, and I must admit I hadn’t even hit the Moda booths yet, and I was already in overload.  So I thought I’d better head over and see Sherri’s booth, since I’d sewn a couple of items for her and had a sneak peek myself of some of her beautiful fabrics.

I could never get a photo that wasn’t blurry of these two women, so this will have to do.  The Moda designers were in clusters at this show, which didn’t give them much space, but that made meeting them easier.

That’s enough for today’s post. More is coming.

Have a safe Memorial Day (or Decoration Day, as my mother calls it).  Leave a comment below to win a book in the giveaway.  I’ll choose one and announce it in the next post.

UPDATE: Comments closed.  Winner announced in next post.  Thanks to you all for entering!