A toothbrush rug to match the lamps

Wow! Where did the last month go? After market there was catching up to do, family obligations, books to finish ... and my house to tidy up. There will be a tour of our home by our local modern home club this weekend. I made this toothbrush rug for the entryway.

I started it in red/orange/greens only - then an eagle-eyed fellow stitcher said oh you are making it to match your lamps! So voila! Yellow had to be added ...

I love Wiggs' suit

You may not know this about me, but I am a fashion junkie. I love watching what people wear, seeing what looks good and what does not. I have mentioned fashion choices of well-known women like Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

But this is first. Today I will gush about a man's outfit: Andrew Wiggins suit. Wiggs, who wowed us with his play this past year at KU, bowled me over with his suit choice at last night's NBA draft. It was exciting to see him drafted first, but what about this suit! As you can see above, the jacket fabric was wild. He wore a splendid bow tie too. And what we all could not see was his choice of no socks. All this was reported in Women's Wear Daily last night, too. Go Wiggs!

Market eye candy

Look at the creative ways people decorate their booths at market. I kept noticing fabric shapes strung together ...

Circles

Garlands

Diamonds

Cut-out shapes

Hanging shapes at the Moda booth

The very cool Cotton & Steel fabric line display

Sights that made me laugh at market

Man in skirt/kilt (there is often one of these outfits)

Mom Cave signs

Nefertiti enjoying a neck warmer

Frida selling Clover items

Determined fabric designer who wore out her new knee at Ikea

New sights at market

So! Market was beautiful, as always. Here are things I saw that were familiar market fare and others I haven't noticed at market before:

Fresh displays that are a treat to look at ...

Babies! Isn't this serious guy cute?

 

 

 

LIVE models, grinning for hours on end.

LOTS of babies!!

An Instagram contest

Mark Lipinski liking Kansas City Star quilts.

The wierd sights of set-up day at market

We're in Pittsburgh, back at the David Lawrence Convention Center setting up for spring quilt market. You can peek from above at how it's going ... you see things you will NOT see anywhere else, like:

A rotary cutter about as tall as most people, where we'll all be snapping our photos this weekend.

Little manikins waiting to be dressed.

Convention center workers riding bikes to cover the distances in the hall.

Massive packing crates.

A natty dresser at Sample Spree who made his shirt himself - out of scraps!

Disneyland of Quilting

Main shop - stuffed with precuts

Driving through Missouri the other day, we had to pull off Highway 36 to see for ourselves what is happening in Hamilton.

That sleepy little town is being transformed. Just a few years ago, the Missouri Star Quilt Company started there. Today, it is expanding to overtake the entire main street. They give tours several times a day and during my tour, someone opined that they were seeing the Disneyland of Quilting. A couple from England was there to visit.

Our tour started at the (new) very large main retail shop (top photo). We passed 2 new restaurants on our way to the quilting retreat building, where there are 37 sleeping spots upstairs and sewing room galore downstairs.

Two buildings just purchased ...

We walked on by 2 newly purchased buildings (not sure what will go there). Across the street, we toured separate shops: one just for solids (!), one just for batiks, one for seasonals, and one for sewing novelties. The upstairs of those buildings is being developed for small retreat group use.

Solids shop

On to the quilting lodge (the old library), crammed with 7 longarm machines. Computerized programs will stitch the design of your choice for 2 cents a square inch. They will bind your quilts too - $45 machine stitched, $55 hand stitched, no matter the quilt size. Full racks of tops and finished quilts were nearby.

Inside the quilting lodge - tops ready to be quilted are in the background.

The original shop is now the company's shipping center, full to brimming. A new warehouse is nearly complete just off highway 36. When it's ready, the current 13 shipping stations will expand to 35 stations. They currently run 12 hours a day there and mentioned a record or 2235 orders received in one day. There is a customer service department there and a photographer who photographs product (mostly precuts) all day long ...

The overflowing shipping department

The story about the company (link above) mentioned 25 employees - last week that number was 115 and growing regularly ... I ran into several people I knew from Kansas City (about an hour away), there to see the newest quilting phenomenon in our area. It is definitely worth a stop.