It’s been an exciting and busy May for us at Quilting Arts headquarters. Not only do we have a lot of material going to press, but we also visited beautiful Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN for the Spring Quilt Market. I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty and cultural diversity of Minneapolis, a city in which I’d never spent any time. Both John (my husband) and I tried to take advantage of the limited time we had outside the show hours to explore at night. One fun, memorable evening was spent at Dakota’s, a notable jazz club where we heard the famous Nachito Herrera, a Cuban immigrant whose jazz talents at the piano have earned him bragging rights of playing alongside Santana.
At Market we enjoyed meeting new friends and re-connecting with old ones. We found a few exciting products, too, which we brought back with us. The first was Misty Fuse, a unique fusible webbing by Esterita Austen and co. This fusible webbing is incredible and we’ll be explaining why it’s so unique in an upcoming issue of Quilting Arts. A second product is from the Electric Quilt Company—a new kind of fabric sheet that can pass through your inkjet printer with incredible ease and yield terrific results for your photos on fabric. We placed a sizable order and hope to have it available on our web site very soon.
Bali Fabrics have come out with a new line of hand-dyed silks and other novelty fabrics in luscious, eye-popping, not-to-be-believed colors. I think I’m getting some samples from the company soon, and when I do, I’ll share pictures of them here. (When I was visiting their booth I was so impressed I think I actually squealed…embarrassing myself publicly yet again.)
When we returned back to the office last week, we were welcomed by a sweet surprise: advanced copies of Beryl Taylor’s new book, Mixed Media Explorations. For those who already pre-ordered copies, we’ll be shipping them later this week. I hope you’re as impressed with Beryl’s artwork as we are.
Lastly, I want to thank everybody who participated in the Blog Swap. I received more than 120 ATCs by the deadline and am just speechless. I’m now putting the final touches on this gallery-style book before it goes off to Rockport next week.
Speaking of next week, we’re at press for several projects so I’m going back into my rabbit hole. Until I resurface again in the next few days, happy creating!