Houston Full Day #1

Well.....full day #1 is down in the history books. We managed to survive and are happily back in the hotel room with our feet propped up and drinks in hand!!! We saw many faces today again......first let me add that I meant to mention Laura Cater-Woods in yesterday's post. Hopefully she won't shoot me for that. On top of that though we've seen Natalya Aikens, Rosemary Claus-Gray, Pamela Allen, Mary McBride, Sandy Snowden, the Brown Sugar Stitchers(at least a few), a number of SAQA people, and Linda Minton came into the booth we missed an introduction with her though. As you can see it is a star-studded affair.

Today was my day for the Make It University class in which I did a mixed media canvas project. Which amazingly got an endorsement from Pokey Bolton as a good project for MIU. Now who in their right mind would have seen that coming!! Now mind you I don't really like teaching as I get so nervous about talking in front of large groups. Now you might be saying that a class of 25 really doesn't count as a large group. Look at the photos below though as you can see it is an open air classroom right in the middle of the show floor. You have your 25 students and anyone can walk up to the edge walls and listen in to see what is going on so really you are talking to a lot more. So the good news is there was no fainting, no getting sick, no weeping or pulling hair out simply a smooth go. Well not so smooth. The class before was running a little over so I had a short time to set up. I guess that could be seen as a good thing as not a lot of time to psych myself out just to focus on getting all the stuff in place! I managed to get it all out and was ready to start on time. I even managed to block out the hecklers mom managed to pull in to action at the start (thanks Pamela, Rosemary, Mary, and Jane)!! Saturday's journal class is now all to mom!!

Here are the few pictures I've managed.....

Me teaching MIU 10/30

2nd photo my MIU 10/30

This photo is a return favor to Jane Davila for posting us in our costumes last year on her blog!! MIU class 10/29. Guess she didn't realize/like that you could clip the mic to your shirt instead of holding it.....oh well made for a better candid shot!

Booth shot #1

Booth shot #2 with grungeboard and roving.

Booth shot #3 all the hand-dyed items.

That's it for tonight. I'll see what pics I can get tomorrow. Should be good seeing as it is Halloween and there's quilters involved. I can see all the costumes now.......have a good day!!

Houston Preview Night

Well guys am I brilliant......I took photos and then left the camera in the booth instead of bringing it back to the room for posting!!! Oh well, will have to show those tomorrow.

We finished set up at about 3 and had 2 hours to wait for them to open the doors for Preview Night. We sat and read, knit, and chatted our way through. Then the doors opened and people poured through. It was a little slow during their Private Preview time of 5-7 but then once the opened it to Public Preview it started to fill up. Definitely not the number of people that today will bring but quite a number. Make It University got off to a great start with classes by Pokey Bolton and Jane Davila. Lets just say the nice white tables that are in the classroom aren't so nice and white anymore!! Their only going to get more decorated as we go.

It has been so much fun to see all the people coming through and putting faces with names. Once again here's some of the superstars we've seen again this year......Jane Davila, Judy Coates Perez, Frances Holliday Alford, Jamie Fingal, Lesley Riley, Christine Adams, Robbi Joy Eklow, and last but definitely not least Maggie Winfield. Maggie- Hope the tiara for this year is great....wish we could see it at the QA reception but alas we have to work right through it :(

Today being the first full day will only bring more names out and about so should be a lot of fun. We plan on having a lot of fun and laughing (yes, Pokey we will be laughing.....and you can direct people to our booth by our laughs) so that the day speeds by. Yup....you guessed it we've already been told we're having too much fun and laughing too much!! Sound familiar?

Alright I better get off the computer now so that I can finish getting ready. I'm trying to distract myself so that I don't think about the fact that I've got to jump in and do a MIU class at 1:30 today. Talk about nervous.......25 people and then all the ones that come up around the edges......OH MY!!! I think I can, I think I can....... Talk to you guys tonight/tomorrow morning.....if I make it.

Update that is all over the place.......

Wow guys did I fall asleep with the posts.....well not really but this is the first moment I've really had to sit down for any length of time!! We are currently in Houston for the Quilt Market and Festival. Today we went to market to check out all the new stuff. We were slightly disappointed by not finding too much that was cool. On the upside though Michael Miller has found some absolutely amazing designers and their fabrics should be coming in in not too long. We just sat drooling over those. Another booth we got lost in was a Japanese company. Keep an eye out for felt ribbon and really cool Japanese fabrics. They've even taken their fabric and made it into oil cloth!!! I could have stayed in that booth all day long.

As for interesting people we met/saw today.......the usual suspects of Debbie Bates and Liz Kettle of "The Art Tartz" who are published monthly in Quilter's Home. While seeing them we met Mark Lipinski the editor of that magazine. He really is the same in person as what you read in the magazine. Betty Blais who all of you should thank for your Angelina Fibers as she is the queen of the company. Jay McCarroll of Project Runway fame was there introducing a new line he just designed. It was quirky little creatures that made a quite whimsical line. Kinda makes me want to carry novelties but alas we have stuck firm so far.

We have a day and a half off to finish getting ready for set up at Festival. We are very excited about this year and all the stuff we have.

Sorry for the darkness of the photos but the laptop I'm on doesn't have a photo program so I was not able to lighten them. These are pics of our booth at the Gwinnett, GA show and the Shop Hop Challenge Quilts.

1st Place Rebecca Keeble

2nd Place Elleda Rule


3rd Place Julia LaBauve

Paula Coplon

Kristin Rodriguez

Tammy Silvers

Janelle Girod

Lois Benedict

The Start of a New Adventure

Well guys yesterday was the last day of the brick and mortar. We closed the doors at 5PM and now we start our new adventure. Today is set up for the show in Gwinnett. I'll try and post some pics later. We are sharing booth #912 with Quiltin' Time from Canton, GA. We are sad about the end of this chapter but excited for what the future holds. We appreciate all the support that many of you have given to us. No one in our family is sick, as many of you have asked about, simply someone going through a very rough time that needs extra support. This allows us the ability to help give that extra time without having to have sporadic hours at the shop. Now we will be open 24/7.......lol. Well not the phone lines anyway!!

We are going to be exploring many new paths for us in regards to this phase of online only along with shows. Keep an eye out on the website www.fiberonawhim.com as we will be revamping it as soon as we get back from Houston. Also don't count us out on the classes front......we have many ideas up our sleeves for continuing them. We'll just have to see which is the right way for us on that. It is our hope that this time will lead us back to another "incarnation" of a brick and mortar but only time will tell on that one.

Thanks again to everyone for all their years of support at the shop and we look forward to working with all of you through the website and shows!!

Only 2 Days Left!!!

We only have 2 days left here!! Of course we are not going to be out right away so we will still have use of the basement. Good thing based on the pics below.

At 5PM on Oct. 14th we will close the doors on the brick and mortar switching to online only. We are both excited and sad about this. We are looking forward to the new experiences though. So if you wanted to stop by one last time this is it.


Here's what we were working on late on Saturday. Look at the rainbow. Can you believe this is over 200 pieces of cheesecloth!!!

Here's some silk and velvet pieces.

Volunteer help is absolutely great. Here are Gabriella and Katie working away helping us prepare for the shows.

Hard at Work & New Items In Stock

First, we now have received in some of grungeboard like was talked about on Quiltart earlier this summer. We also have several of the Idea-ology mixed media accessories in stock. They are so neat. I can't wait to use some of them. They are available online at the moment.


Second, we have been dyeing up a storm! We have been having so much fun as we are preparing for the two shows. Here are bundles of cheesecloth and old lace. These items will be at the shows and then I'll work getting them online.


Here's what the studion looked like at the end of today with the second batch coming ready. This is cheesecloth and burlap. Then there are some painted laces hanging in there.

Here's some of the mess.......we are going for round three tomorrow. It's mom's birthday tomorrow so she should have fun playing!

You can see why we are going to miss this space. Having this separated wet studio/classroom has been amazing.