Some great thing happened while on the road in Minneapolis…at Quilt Market!

1. The Quilter’s Buzz will be featured in a new quilting magazine called Quilter’s Home, a quilting lifestyle magazine (published by Primedia) in July. The article will be about blogging and online columns. Magazine editor, Mark Lipinski, emailed me with an invitation to be included on Monday, gave me a writing assignment and a deadline for Tuesday…then I met him on Friday at Quilt Market. The man is a talented crazy quilter guy with about a thousand pounds of energy and enthusiasm—I literally had to run to chase him down! The premier issue of the magazine is on store shelves now—it is a great magazine for the new generation of quilters…. more about it later.

2. I connected with wonderfully talented artists, designers, fabric companies, and quilt shop owners while at Market. Some were readers, others promised to become readers and almost all embraced the online column concept of the Quilters Buzz- (I used the term “blog” sparingly…online column is an easier idea to relate to.) My newfound friends are willing to share their talents, methods, ideas and products and their voice with us. Look for guest writers and features in upcoming posts.

3. And in the near future QuiltersBuzz will be co-hosting sewing/quilting/crafting contests with product give-a-ways and prizes being donated by companies such as United Notions/Moda, Timeless Treasures Fabrics, Red Rooster Fabrics, Indygo Junction, Weeks Dye Works, Quilter’s Resource and there will be more! Crafty girls get out your needles and threads. (Right now I am thinking the first contest will be a pincushion creation (In photo see the vintage pin cushions from the new Indygo Junction pattern—too cute!)---I am open to ideas…. tell me what you think!)

4. I ended my official days of stalking Amy Butler. (She is still the tall one!) And I am sure she is glad. We have become friends instead. She even publicly endorsed the writings of the QuiltersBuzz and suggested all in attendance to check it out! She will be on the QuiltersBuzz again to write about the happenings at her studio. FYI--I met her husband, David. He was incredibly nice and handsome. (I have me one of those cute hubby's  at home, too)


5. I was excited to see that many companies are willing to give a share in their profits and make donations to various the women’s health and cancer issues. I saw lots of Pink out there on the floor of market. And the list of “pink” products and programs is growing. If you need a new cutting mat…try a pink one from Olfa…. it’s a nice change from the chalkboard green one that most of us use—plus for every purchase money will be donated to breast cancer research. Look for rotary cutters, jewelry, ditty bags, fabric lines and even long arm quilting patterns with pink ribbons on them. (Shown here is a only a partial collection of the "pink products"  from Quilter’s Resource, suppliers for quilt shops)

6. But perhaps the BEST of my wild week at Quilt Market was the fact that I got “carded” at an Irish Pub when we stopped to get a burger. I was so giddy and excited to get asked to show I.D. that I fumbled for my license…losing patience, the bouncer guy took a longer look at me and then realized that I was twice the age required to enter…. and let me pass without showing it. But HE DID ask!

The show and tell from market will continue for the next few weeks/months and maybe even years! Stay tuned I have lots o stuff.