Crazy Quilter on a Bike!: Spring Market

Friday, May 20, 2016

Spring Market - Day Two

Today is the first day of Spring Market, 2016. Well, the first day of the main floor being open. Yesterday was Schoolhouse presentations.

Before all the craziness of the day started yesterday, I took a walk to Temple Square which is less than five minutes away. A big imposing wall surrounds the temple, but two gates open at 6 AM. I took some pictures which of course are on my camera and some day, I must figure out how to get them from the camera to the internet and sized for the internet. There is an easy way I'm sure. I don't have Photoshop with me to edit them - that's my problem.

Anyway, the gardens were very serene and it made me want to sit and reflect life. However, that brought up moments of sadness and well, I did have a little episode which is OK. It is a beautiful place to just reflect life.

As I walked around, I noticed a couple of things. The entire complex is huge - there are office buildings for the church, there are beautiful and well-tended gardens and loads of water features. Loads of them including two infinity pools (not the kind you swim in, but water features). They were all very beautiful. I also noticed that MANY well-dressed business people (mostly men) were headed into the various office buildings and it wasn't even 7 am yet.

I did walk into the temple entrance and there was a guard checking IDs. Hm - can't go that way. Then I saw a couple of people dressed in religious garb (priests?) that were tending to the other entrance and well - I thought I didn't need to go any further. I needed to get back to the hotel for breakfast.

After breakfast, we were back over to the convention center. And I must say that it was all hands on deck. Almost to the point of being too many hands, but the booth went up fast and it looks great. I'll try to post some pictures on Facebook later today.

I have to say that Deborah, Joyce and myself skipped out of the prepping to attend a couple of Schoolhouse presentations. Personally, I would like to attend Schoolhouse all day as I think there is valuable information to be gathered. And let's not forget that most of them hand out free stuff!!! Deborah very graciously gave me all her free stuff!

My goal was to get to some of the competitors booths to see what they were doing for Schoolhouse. We saw Elizabeth Hartman and Heather Jones who are designing for Robert Kaufman. Both were OK, but not sure how educational they were. These presentations are not supposed to be a sales pitch, but they usually end up being that way. Ours were NOT. Both were shorter than the 30 minutes as well.

Then back to the booth where we prepped for our Schoolhouse presentations. Joyce Hughes, who does amazing things with panels, did a presentation and then Deborah and I did the presentation for Northcott. Both were well received which is the important thing. Both presentations were filmed, so hopefully that will go up on the Northcott YouTube channel in the near future.

In the big leagues!

Back to the booth, where by this time, everything pretty much had been done - a bit of tidying up and we were good. I think it was 4:30 PM. And guess who I ran into? I knew they were there because they had a Schoolhouse presentation right after ours, but no time to get to it. Jeanne and Shelley from The Quilt Patch in Moose Jaw. How fun to see them - it's been a while. And two of the girls from the store were also with them - Jo and Colleen.

Barely had time to put my stuff in the room and then four of us, Shirley, Deborah, Joyce and myself headed out for an early dinner. We hit The Cheesecake Factory which is just minutes away and had a fabulous dinner. While the rest of them had a dish called Bang Bang, I had an omelet and a beer. I know - why not! Life is too short to get caught up in what's right and what's wrong. At least, the omelet and beer were for dinner, not breakfast!

Then Shirley, Joyce and I headed back to the convention center for Sample Spree. I've heard a lot about Sample Spree but had never been. Oh boy - the place was a ZOO. First, because we are not buyers, we can't get in with the rush which is good because the line was insane - it was HUGE. So we sat and waited and then paid our $10 to get in and then we were in the insanity. Instantly, we were sucked into the crowd and I lost sight of Shirley and Joyce within seconds. Many of the booths were swamped - OK - all of the booths were swamped. People were coming away with HUGE shopping bags. Not one, not two, but multiple shopping bags filled with FQ bundles, and other pre-cuts.

There seemed to be many fabric manufacturers there and some pattern designers. I think the origin of sample spree was for shops to purchase samples made by the designers to hang in their shops for classes and to sell patterns and other supplies. Now, it's just a fabric buying frenzy. I went around several times and I thought long and hard about what I wanted/needed. Did I really need another FQ bundle that I would probably never use? Nope - so even though several of them were calling my name, I wasn't really in love with any of them. So I didn't buy any. But I did buy things that were unusual - a gorgeous panel with the alphabet on it, but this is NOT a kids alphabet panel. It's by Windham and well - I love it.

Studio Alphabet panel by Windham

I bought a pack of BIG hexagons from ME + YOU (Hoffman) and I bought some mesh and a bundle of new patterns from byAnnie. Before I left home, I threw all my US money (bills and coin) into my bag. There was a lot of coin - well a couple of dollars worth and it was getting heavy to carry. I found a Mini Charm pack (2 1/2") squares for $3. There are 84 charms in it, matches the ones that I got at the Schoolhouse earlier in the day and I unloaded most of my change. Whew - that was a cool purchase. Did not use my credit card once! And I still have cash in my wallet.

Thanks Shirley for letting experience Sample Spree to its fullest. They should sell T-shirts that say "I survived Sample Spree".

Not that I'm a name dropper, but I did see Eleanor Burns at Sample Spree and as the room emptied, I went to her table to thank her. She came to the Hobby Horse many many years ago. 16 to be exact and I took a class from her. (She even remembered that Dwight was getting married that year - I had forgotten that!) She was the one that taught the importance of using a quilt stiletto for sewing. I thanked her for that - it was one of the most valuable quilting tips I've ever learned. Oh by the way, I've seen Alex Anderson several times, said HI to her yesterday and she's staying in our hotel. Oh Susan - if only you could be here. I do have an extra bed in my room!

Back to the hotel room and to bed. Of course, getting to bed early (9 PM) means waking up at some ridiculous time. But that's OK - I just relaxed in the fact that I had nothing to do. No quilts to quilt, no bindings to sew. I was just content to relax. Imagine! But I had computer work to do, so while I'm still in bed, I've been on the computer for hours. Got hungry and dug out my chocolate bar and ate chocolate in bed while blogging. Love it!!!!!

Gosh - I still have a couple of hours before I need to be at the booth and I'm signed up to take a small class with Helen Stubbings this morning. It's going to be a busy day of checking out the booths to see what interesting things are there and see if there is anyone I want to work with for future projects. Thankfully, most of what we see isn't available for sale. Yeah!!!! I may take another reflective moment in the beautiful gardens at the temple.