My trip to Quilt Market 2015

WOW!! What an incredible adventure I've been on for the past few months! Can someone pinch me because I must be dreaming!! Trading at Quilt Market has been one of my number one goals since I started in the industry nearly 10 years ago. I always thought... one day Im going to make it here. And I did!!! Woo Hoo happy dance!

As you would probably know, this whole process didn't happen over night. It took months of planning weeks of folding, packaging, and building. I think getting married was easier!!! But now that its all over, I look back and think of all the amazing people I met, the wonderful opportunities that have happened, and the confidence this experience has given me to take Sew to Grow to the next level.

I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a quick look at my prep for Quilt Market and then show you the stand and run through all the fabulous things I saw and experienced.

Things started off with Mr. Sew Skippy helping me fold mounds and mounds of patterns. This litterly took days and I had everyone helping me from my husband, friends, random children and even my parents. I also had made my own post cards and little envelopes that had to be cut, glued, and assembled. Phew... thank goodness Skippy was there to cheer me on. LOL!

After all those weeks of prep, set up day was finally here. My dad drove me to Houston from Oklahoma to help us set up. How sweet! The girls and I took the two days to set up and we were pretty happy with the results. These are my two Aussie friends Valerie of My Patch Fabrics and Janeene of Passionately Sewn Designs. Val has a very successful online shop full of modern and fresh fabrics, patterns, books, and notions that you can have a look at here... and Janeene is an extremely talented pattern designer who's patterns are fun, easy, and reflect here truley unique style. Learn a bit more about Janeene with the interview we did here or check out her designs here. I was so fortunate to have these two by my side for my first time trading at market. We collaborated together and presented something we can be really proud of.

Here is a look at my side of the stand.

We also lectured at School House, which was a huge hit. We actually had quite a few people turn up. WOO HOO!!

My beautiful Aussie friends Michelle Pearson of Handcrafters House and the Famous quilter extraordinaire Helen Godden made a B-line to our stand to say a big G'day!

I met the most amazing people and saw some INCREDIBLE things. This is why everyone comes here. The inspiration is MINDBLOWING!

Here is one of my favorite litte cowgirl outfits from Cloud 9 fabrics booth.

This is another Aussie that is a hoot and a half!!! It was such an hounor to meet Kim Andersson of Iadorepattern and see her incredible Good Hair Day collection that I had heard so much about. Cant wait to show y'all some of the new stuff I'm making out of this fabric.

And Below, are just a few of the incredibly talented women I met or ran into this year!

I was a little star struck when I met Dana of Dana Made It. This girl has an AMAZING You Tube Channel and Blog. Its always good to meet the people you look up to.

These are the talented ladies from Hawthorne Threads. What an amazing moment to have them stop in their tracks and fall in LOVE with my patterns before they rushed off to the air port. Hawthorne Threads is one of the largest US online fabric and pattern retailers and they now stock all my Clothing Pattern Designs!!

I literally squeeled with excitement when I realized that this was Lauren from Sew Modern in L.A. (white Shirt) I cant wait to go back to L.A. next year, and hopefully do a little bit of teaching for Lauren in her shop. On the other side is Miss Julia from Robert Kaufmann. This girl was so cool and such a pleasure to have met.

Last, but not least is my favorite girl... April Rhodes. She is an extremely talented fabric and pattern designer and she is COMING TO AUSTRALIA (Paddington) in March next year. Im so upset that I wont be able to make her class, but I still believe there is room if you want to join in on her 3 workshops. Click on the link Here to find out more. Trust me, you couldn't find a sweeter person with such a big heart like April. You will love every second of being in her class.

There were so many more amazing opportunities (like being picked up by distributors) and incredible people that I met, but I wanted to give you a quick snapshop of my first time experience. If you run a small business and would like me to write a post detailing my marketing, planning and logistics please leave a comment below. I wasn't sure how many of you would be into hearing about the business side of going to Market. I hope you all enjoyed this little journey with me, and I plan for this to be the first of many trips back home to present Sew To Grow at Quilt Market.

"Sew to Grow is: Planting the seeds to grow the future of our craft!"

Best Wishes,

Lindsey Rae