Quilt Market Trends

Shopowners attend Quilt Market to learn about the latest trends.  They want to have the newest items in their shops.  Vendors also bring their newest designs and products.  The fabric that is showcased at Market won't be available in quilt shops until the Spring.

Each morning before the doors opened, I walked the aisles to get an overview and see the trends.  I noticed a few.  

1.  Cork - cork that can be used like leather was everywhere.  There were natural colors, colors and prints.

Cork was mainly used for accents on handbags and bags themselves.

2.  Blue & White

This is so exciting.  I love blue and white.  I have a collection of Willow Blue dishes.  My walls are painted blue.  Even my car is blue!  Blue has been on the outs for the past few years.  I'm so glad it's back.

3.  Brights

Bright, clear colors have been on the store's shelves and there is more coming.  Believe it or not, this is a Block of the Month (BOM) called Cadence Court, with instructions to create a wedge a month.  Pretty clever.  It was designed by Shayla Wolf of Sassafras Lane Designs with her fabbric line - Foundation.

4.  Clothing

There were a bunch of patterns to create clothing, plus knit fabric and double gauze.  It's interesting to see what we think of as quilting fabric appear as a shirt or skirt.Have you started making you own clothing?

Did you take a Quilting In America survey a few months back?  It showed up on many websites.  The results were presented at the beginning of Market.  

       Quilting is a $3.7 billion industry

       There are 7-10 million quilters in the US

       Each quilting household spends an average of $442 annually

       Dedicated quilters are defined as those spending more than $500 or more a year.  The demographics of the dedicated quilter is female, 63 years old, has been quilting for 19 years, is well educated (70% attended college), affluent with average household income of $95,900 and leans toward a preference of traditional quilting styles.

Not surprising, is there was almost a 40% increase in those who get information from quilting related websites, online classes and videos and participation in social media since 2014.

The good news is there is a growing group of Dedicated quilters under the age of 45.

First Scrappy Quilt of 2013

 

You may have gotten a peak of this quilt when I wrote about my Disappearing Design Wall.  

Do you remember when I cut up a bunch of my blue and white fabric with my new toy, the Accuquilt Cutter?  I saved all the 2 1/2" strips to bring to Key West for power sewing scrap quilts. In addition to the strips I had a few blocks.  They were box in box blocks.  I have always wanted to make one of these quilts, and I guess at one point I started, but I don't remember when.

 And clearly I did not get very far.

The basic construction is one large block with 2 adjacent small blocks. The unfinished size of the large blocks is 11" and the smaller size is 6".

 Since my scraps were now 2 1/2" strips, I had to modify the construction of the blocks a bit because the original one had varying width strips.

The finished quilt top measures 66" x 66".   It will have to wait to be quilted until I return to PA.

And here's a vanity shot.

I purposely chose to photograph it with a lizard, because as I was walking to my exercise class, I was scared @#%*less when I saw this creature on the sidewalk.  It was about 3 feet from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail.  It was lurking around some trash cans.

I found out later it was an iguana.

They are an invasive species and there are lots of them roaming around, hanging out in trees.  Their presence is blamed on pet owners who have released them as they grew too large.  There are several groups trying to banish them from the island with names such as "Iguanas Be Gonna".  LOL!!!