I thought I would take some time to take you on a written tour of "Market".  It is held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.  This is a massive 3 story building that can hold about a bizillion people.  It has ballrooms that can be subdivided and many other smaller rooms.  Thursday night was a dinner held by FabShop which is an organization that I belong to that is a support organization for quilt shop owners.  We had dinner and walked away with a lot of new products from vendors.  We shared with other shops and learned what types of things they do for their customers.  It was fun and entertaining.  Bright and early Friday morning starts classes.  We receive a listing of classes being held throughout the day every 15 minutes and some last 30 minutes.  You have about 10 classes in each time slot to choose from.  It is just like school, in that you fight the crowds to get to your next class.  This is a great day to learn about new products on the market and how to use them, new lines of fabrics, we sometimes get to meet the designers.  This is where I saw Eleanor Burns do her little "Magic Show".  She had a small demo on her Day & Night Quilt and her new Orion Star Quilt.  Saturday starts Market.  The crowds to get into the building are unbelievable.  I actually waited upstairs for awhile, before I attempted to get in.  Once inside there are rows, and rows, and rows of vendors. The vendors' booth decorations are awesome.  That is one of the things I like most--seeing what the vendors have done with their booths.  I've seen lifesize stuffed animals, fabric flowers, trees, travel trailers....  The bright colors are wonderful. They compete for awards.  I've discovered in previous years that you must have a plan.  I went through my buyers guide, and listed all of the vendors that I needed to see with their booth numbers.   Once I made my way to all of those, I could look at the other booths.  This took me Saturday and most of Sunday.  By about noon on Sunday, although I didn't get to a lot of the booths; I was shopped out.  Go to the homepage of my web site and look at some of the photos I took.  Be patient and allow the photos to load. I hope this gives you some insight so that when you hear folks talk about Market, you'll be able to understand a little of what they are talking about.

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Comments

• This is a great post!
  by Dan on 18 November 2009 at 2:12 p.m.