Houston Quilt Market & Quilt Festival 2025

Come along with me to Quilt market and Quilt Festival 2025 in Houston, Texas, USA. Click on a photo to see full photo or start slideshow. From sewing a Prosperity bowl on the plane to Houston, arriving at the convention center, meeting Tone Finnanger (Norwegian designer and founder of Tilda fabrics), Jina Barney and Lori Woods (cofounders of Poppie Cotton fabrics), Anna Maria Parry (lead artist and designer for Anna Maria textiles), and Sarah Watts (fabric designer for Ruby Star), and so many other wonderful industry professionals, shop owners, pattern makers, and friends, the whole adventure was thrilling. I was fortunate to cross paths with the amazing Judy Epstein, a talented quilt artist and teacher (see her beautiful "Along Cultural Lines..." quilt and the photo just before her quilt includes her & I and her wonderful friends. These meet-ups are everything and such a highlight. Judy has taught many bowl making classes and she, along with other encouraging and enthusiastic supporters (if you know, you know), have helped my Goodness Bowl pattern reach and stay on the top selling pattern list! Sew Special Quilt shop did a beautiful job showcasing my bowl samples (made by artist Lori Jo - thank you) and were so much fun to work with. I enjoyed every class, workshop, and seminar I attended. Our group won the garment design challenge in Joe Vecchiarelli's class. Joe designs for Dancing with The Stars & Dolly Parton (among others) and had the best personality and stories! I even managed to complete a bowl demo on the convention floor despite getting a granola bar stuck in my esophagus earlier. What an ordeal but with a little first aid and a 2 hour rest, I was back on the show floor. Finally, I had the time to wander through the quilt show. What a magical room of stunning quilts. I hope you enjoy the few that I was able to get photographed before I ran out of steam. Cheers, Jean xx

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Well, another dream has come true. I have been to the wholesale Quilt Market in Houston, Texas, USA before but I have never stayed for the retail Quilt Festival afterwards. To be honest, I didn't even know about Quilt Festival. It's basically a huge retail quilt convention with classes, a giant vendor floor, and of course, provides access to the most amazing Quilt show in the hall next door to the show. Through both events and in between the two conventions, I thoroughly enjoyed classes in social media (big learning curve there), pattern design & garment alteration, how to set up a functional sewing space, the seminars that showed the new fabric lines, introduced the latest, greatest tools and supplies, and most of all, meeting people and making connections with other designers, shop owners, old and new friends, and being super inspired and grateful for these shows that support the joy of sewing! Since it's just been announced that the wholesale Quilt Market convention 2025 show was the last one, I feel especially glad that I went! Thankfully the wonderful organizers who have supported and inspired sewing enthusiasts for decades are planning to reconfigure the wholesale event to include more needle arts while keeping the format of the retail Quilt Festival show in place. I highly recommend attending these sewing events and any shows or conventions you can. There are many wonderful sewing related shows in different parts of North America and the world. It's my dream to attend a H & H Americas show and The Sewing & Stitchery Expo next and return to QuiltCon and of course Quilt Canada, in the next few years.