Gudrun´s World

To Houston and back...

Quilt Market was a whirlwind and so have the days been since I got back. It was a great show for us, the book was very well received everywhere. I only had my phone to shoot photos with so these are not so great shots. Here are a few of my booth.

Sorry for the blurry photo, this is me and Yvonne ready for the show to open. I didn't get out of my booth much this show but one of the times I did, I caught Ty Pennington in his booth!!

He was a sweetheart and posed for a photo with me. I loved the display of ties on the backwall of his booth.

Pat Sloan came to visit on one of her sprints around the convention center. She was busy appearing in various booths, demoing and promoting her gadgets. It's always so much fun to see her, I just wish we could hang out for a few days together. Someday Pat...we'll make it happen!!

Sometimes during the show, the booth gets a little quiet. Most of the time it is on the last day....the last few hours of the show, when many people have already gone home! This time around, the last day was on Halloween. We all know that some spooky things can happen on Halloween right...

We had this cute display of cuddly characters in the booth. People would comment on how sweet they were and even pet the dog as they walked by! 

Lucky for them.....they weren't there to witness this!!!

SPOOKY!!! 

Next year, Halloween is on the day we get back from the show.....pheeww!!

Houston and back

Quilt market in Houston was a lot of fun for me this time around. I didn´t have a booth so I was able to walk the whole show, chat with friends, have real food for lunch (outside the convention center). The only downside to my trip was that I lost my phone at Sample Spree and it was never turned in to Lost and Found. It was really weird not to have my phone at the show. Especially because I rely on it so much when I am traveling. I access all my e-mails, post to FB, update the blog and of course to snap pictures of things in the spur of the moment, that I could have posted right here for you to see!

So here are the things I saw at Market that I could have taken pictures of, if I had my phone!

These Denver Nuggets players roaming around my hotel on the day of their game against Houston.

(Ok, I had no idea who they were....it just said Denver Basketball on their chest and my husband informed me!)

 

 

 

 

Ty Pennington in his booth swarmed by quilt market goers trying to get a picture and an autograph.

Later he was walking the show aisles, trying to get out with a huge entourage. Probably scared of getting mugged by ladies with quilted bags;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pam Kitty Morning sitting on her throne in Elizabeth's booth. She took a picture of me, not taking a picture on my non-phone!! 

 

 

I could have shown you lots of great booths, new fabrics, great friends, some awesome food & drinks......sorry about that!!

I have a new phone now so all is good in the world! I had a good excuse to upgrade to the iPhone 4G. Now.....Back to previously scheduled programs!

I am leaving town today to teach at Lake Beauty Quilt Retreat.....see you when I get back.

 

I'm back

Yes, I did get away for a little while. I went on vacation for a few days and it was so needed and so great. I know I promised some more market photo's before I left but things got a little hectic at the end there. I had to make sure that I packed everything a girl needs you know;)

So here continues the previous program....

 The fabulous Kate Spain stopped by my booth and said hi. I have to appologize for the photo, she has a better one on her blog, I only had my phone camera working:( If you don't know Kate, she is a designer extraordinaire...she licenses her designs to various companies, anything from fabric for Moda, plates, paper products, scrapbooking and more and more. She is so super talented and one of the nicest people I have ever met. I love using her fabrics, as you might know she designed  the line 12 days of Christmas which I used for the stockings on the cover of the Fast & Furious Holiday book. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next, I am a fan and a friend for life!! 

More on the 12 days of Christmas fabric....the Fat Quarter shop Mystery block of the month started shipping and remember when I told you that block 1 is the block that I designed. I can't wait to get my kit and make the block, Kate is going to be sewing right along with me too, it will be so fun. But check this out....some super stars have already finished their block!! Just go look in the Flickr group, more and more are being added by the minute, so cute.

Kate is having a giveaway on her blog for a 12 Days Jelly roll.....Jolly Jabber is also having some giveaways to celebrate the shipping of the first block so check it out and place your comments.

Another fun visit I had in my booth took place on Sunday morning before the show opened....

These are the blog hop designers from the Christmas blog hop, all but Sherri Falls and Pam Kitty Morning who weren't able to join us. It was fun to get together and chat for a little bit although we didn't have nearly enough time...we could have talked for hours. There were some ideas that popped up for another hop so you have to stay tuned for that. What to you think about another hop? Would you hop with us again? Did you like the stories? How about the projects? Was it too long? Not long enough? Let me know in the comments to help me plan the perfect experience.

I made it!!

Yes, I´m still on this earth. I´m sorry about the absence but I needed some down time after the whirlwind of quilt market. I have got lots of things to show you from the show so I think I might break it down into two posts.

I had great help setting up the booth, my parents were in town so my all star carpenter dad helped putting molding on the walls and he even built the fireplace in my booth for me!

 Here are some pictures of the booth...my camera went dead after these were shot and no charger in the bag so I didn´t get any photo´s of other people´s booths!

 

On Thursday I had 2 Schoolhouse sessions and Thursday night was Sample Spree. I recruited my husband and son Atli to help out with both and of course I tried as hard as I could to embarrass my 17 year old. They were my quilt holders and had to walk the runway... (excuse the bad photos....they are priceless though!!)

And they had to wear Easter egg ornaments on their ears!!

 

Also some Christmas ornaments...walking the runway...

The grand finally was to wear the tree skirt as a cape!!

Kid embarassed??....Mission accomplished!! ....at least I thought so until he was bragging about his first quilt market encounter to his friends later...

More Quilt Market tomorrow!! 
 

To Market....

It's been crazy around here as you might have imagined by the blogging absence. If you think it is an advantage to have quilt market so close to home, I might disagree with you. I seem to push everything until last minute!! If I was traveling for market, my booth would be shipped off by now and all I would have to do today was to have my toes painted and so on! (I did squeeze that in today though!) Now I am writing this at 7:30 pm, we are leaving at noon tomorrow and I have still about 6 things on my list! I also would like to make me a skirt out of my fabric before the show....we will see about that. Now that will be a major accomplishment if that happens because I have never made myself a skirt before. If you spot me wearing one this weekend, be sure to pat me on the back.....and don't notice the crooked seams!!

I am sure if I lived on this street, my life would just be a piece of cake. I actually saw this street sign in Rockford, Illinois!! I wanted to move there but my family said NO!! Do you think a quilter lives there?

I will be blogging from market, from my iPhone so check in through the weekend. Have a great one!!

Back out of hiding

I am so sorry about the blog absence lately but I think you are going to like what I have been spending my time doing. I have been planning something spectacular, especially for you: A DESIGNER BLOG HOP:

If you participated in the Minnesota Designer blog hop this summer, you are not going to want to miss this one. I have lined up 12 fabulous quilt designers, half of us from Minnesota and then we will hop cross country to visit 6 other designers. We will all be giving you great free projects especially designed to be quick to make for christmas, either as gifts or for yourself. Stay tuned for more information on the hop, we will be introducing the designers next week.

We had a great show in Houston. I posted some pictures straight from my iPhone at the show for you to see the booth. Here are some more pictures from the show that I took with my camera. I have to admit, it's not a lot!! Every market I have the greatest intentions to take lots of pictures but then things get to crazy and I forget....sorry!!

This is the full view of my booth.

Some close ups:

Red Rooster used my new fabric line Olivia for their chairs, tables and booth stuff....very exciting!!

Terri from Whimsicals is always my booth neighbor at the shows because we both design for Red Rooster fabrics. She got a 2nd place award for her booth this time!!

Here are two of my favorite booths at the show this year, Heather Bailey and Amy Butler. I took those in the morning before the show opened so they weren't there. They got 1st and 2nd place for their double booths.

 
 

We attempted to take some family photos the other day since fall was still here when I got back from the show this time (you never know with Minnesota). The picture of the kids alone came out good, the one of me and Torir was ok too.....but there was no way to get a shot of all of us with everybodies eyes open or looking at the camera. Even though we snapped 30 photo's!!

 
 
 
I guess we will have to snap 50 next time!!!
 
 
 

Market Post....finally

I know I got back from the show in Pittsburgh last week and should have found some time to post pictures, at least the very few that I was able to take. Life has been kind of crazy around here. My parents were visiting from Iceland last week and we spent some quality time together. Then my husband Torir graduated with a Masters degree (MBA) on saturday from The University of St.Thomas and we had a little party for him on Sunday. So yes....busy busy....now things are getting back to normal and I intend on enjoying my last 2 weeks before the kids get out of school!!!

 

The show in Pittsburgh was very good, the book was a big hit and we sold out of our booth stock in 1 hour!! This is the booth, I had a double booth and made a little back room for us to store stuff. It worked out great!

 

All the projects from the book were on the back wall and then on one side we had the new strip patterns and on the other side the new Moon Glow quilt. I loved how open the booth was and people had no problem coming into it and hanging out with us.

 

We bought our props in Pittsburgh, along with the flooring and walls so everything worked out so smoothly. The furniture all got sold by the end of the show so I was really happy!!

 

The Sweet Chirps quilt was watched over by our little birdie we picked up in Pittsburgh.

 

Like I said, I didn't get out of my booth much to take pictures but I did take pictures of my booth neighbors. I shared a pole with the fabulous Terry from Atkinson Designs. Things are never quiet with us two around!!!

 

On the other side of me was another great friend....another Terri!! The master designer behind Whimsicals, we have both been designing fabric for Red Rooster for a few years now so we become booth neighbors quite a few times. Don't ask me what I was looking at....I think Tom (Terri's husband) was goofing around, distracting us.

 

And look who came to visit .....four Minnesota designers on a stick!! They were hiding out in my backroom, Heather, Terry, Linda and Debbie. Check out their fabulous new products by clicking their names.

There are so many market posts out there, I hope you have been checking them out. The one and only Pam has produced a masterpiece which you've got to see! She even caught me in the act in the backroom rehearsing! (you will have to go to her blog to figure that one out)

Jolly Jabber posted lots of great photos from market and they even had me be one of their guest bloggers this weekend which was great. Check it out.

One of main attractions in my booth was the treats that I was giving out....the Icelandic chocolate. Some people came back again and again for a piece. Pam even talked about it....wasn't it good? Well our little birdie that you saw in the picture with the baby quilt got a little crazy with the Icelandic chocolate on the last day and look what he did to our booth neighbor's table!!

 

It's a good thing that Terry, Kirk and the kids were good sports about it and cleaned it up, but I wasn't gonna take the bad birdie with me on the plane and risk another disaster. So we decided to give him up for adoption. The Red Rooster staff took him in and are going to attempt to turn him into a respectable Rooster!! We will see how that turns out!

Lots of fun times were had in Pittsburgh as you can imagine, meeting old friends and making new ones, lots of good food to be had there and a fabulous Convention center with great windows. It would be great to come back to Pittsburgh.

The icing on the cake for us was on our flight back on Monday morning. Sitting there waiting for the same flight was the amazing Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie fame. We were on a Southwest flight (you don't get seating arrangements before hand you know) and she boarded way before me and my right hand gal Yvonne, but she was gonna see if she could puts around to try and keep seats open for us........and she accomplished!!! It was hilarious....she sat, stood up, took her bag out, put it back, moved over a seat and so on....until we got there and got to share the ride to Chicago. It was so much fun, we shared show stories, the rest of the Icelandic chocolate and talked about everything and anything. In Chicago we went our separate ways, we flew to Minneapolis and she took off to Phoenix. Thanks for the ride Carrie, we will have to plan this for next time!!!

That's it for now....maybe I will remember some good show stories later...have a good week.