Quilt Market - Day One - Schoolhouse

What a day!!  And I'm an idiot.

First, I have to say that we have a pretty decent hotel. There is a huge spread for breakfast - oatmeal (not steel cut, but still - it's oatmeal), cold cereals, eggs, cold cuts, waffles, etc.  And it's complementary. That's the best part. I was chatting to someone else yesterday and they had a $15 breakfast voucher which they thought was pretty decent until they saw the prices. A muffin for $11. Doesn't leave much left on the voucher!  And the other hotel where I used to stay - their breakfast was about $25.  No - I think we're doing just fine here. And I timed it yesterday - it took me 10 minutes to walk to the convention center.

The first thing I did was to get to the FedEx office to mail my package to the magazine. When I saw the price come up, I was happy. It was about $17 and two day service. But when I went to pay, the total bill was $35. Why the difference???  Handling!!!!   The guy charged me $10 to pack my quilt and I had to buy the box. Now what was I thinking when there was an entire convention floor full of cardboard boxes and packing tape. If the thought had of occurred to me, I could have been down there finding a box, but it didn't. Oh well - the quilt is gone and that's all I care about - but the fact that I "threw" away that $15 - well, I'm a dolt!!!!

I picked up the Schoolhouse brochure so I could browse the lectures to attend. There was the big premier Schoolhouse which everyone goes to and then there are 14 other time slots in the day. Each one is 30 minutes (although 2 of them are 15 minutes).  It was hard to choose as there were some time slots where I wanted to see more than one thing. ACK!!!!   How to choose?  I ended up picking sessions that were educational rather than just showcasing a new fabric collection. If I really want to see the new fabrics, I can go to the booths. So I don't get a freebie sample - so what? It's not like I'm desperate for more fabric.

I learned a lot and now I have even more booths to chat with today as I have questions/suggestions from what I learned yesterday.  Oh boy - it was crazy in the hallways when the time came to move to another room. And I swear that I picked sessions that were at opposite ends of the floor each time. Needless to say, I managed to get over 10,000 steps in again.

I can't wait to get into the quilt show area today as well. There is the main show and then there are many, many smaller shows. I can't wait to get in to see them. And I have at least one appointment today.

There are some demos as well today that I want to see so I need to get everything marked down on a piece of paper so it's easy to follow.

I have a mini class each morning so I'm excited about that. 

The booths look great - I had a quick run around the floor last night and saw some amazing stuff that I'll be posting later today. Some amazing quilts and I found a new one by Lori Holt (Bee in my Bonnet) that I'm going to have to make. It's a sew along.  Anyone want to join me???  Especially those girls from Farm Girl Vintage.

And there's so much embroidery and I'm getting so hyped about machine embroidery applique. There are so many cool things to make. Too much eye candy! I need to be home sewing, but when I get home, I'll be sewing the next magazine quilt.

Then it was off to Sample Spree last night which is a totally insane event where thousands of people line up for hours so they can get to buy samples and fabric and other goodies at a discount. As an independent attendee, I had to wait until 7:30 to get in whereas the shops could get in at 7 PM. There was a LOT of unhappy people in our line and when we did finally get into the room, the MODA tables were empty.

I did pick up some stuff - a laser cut kit, some thread and a couple of patterns. It was still super crazy and I was getting tired. I would have liked to have one more pass around the tables, but we left and did our ten minute walk back to the hotel.

Good thing I didn't buy too much as I'll just have to lug it all home. But it's an experience - there's no denying that!

I've run into people that I know from back home. And people that I know from Market. It's kind of exciting when other industry people remember who you are. I just like the excitement of it all. I'm such a sucker for that!

Well - I'd better go and get my schedule of events organized for the day.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!