Quilt Market 2008: Fabric 2.0 meet & greet

As mentioned, Friday night brought the Fabric 2.0 Meet & Greet hosted by Caroline Devoy of jcaroline creative, Kathy Miller of Michael Miller Fabrics, Lissa Alexander of Moda, and Christina Batch-Lee of Etsy and held on the rooftop terrace of Hilton Americas with its stellar views of downtown Houston.

Caroline Devoy was a wonderful hostess and it's easy to see she's an expert in this field. She quickly introduced me to Michelle Engel Bencsko, whom I had met through the world of blogs, but never properly chatted with. Michelle was super nice and was really patient with me while I asked her 1,000 questions about her fabric design. Her new line of fabric, "Dogwood" for Henry Glass, debuted at Market, while she has several lines on Etsy that she is printing herself.

I then introduced myself to Jay McCarroll, who has two lines out this December with Free Spirit, "Woodland Wonderland" and "Garden Friends." Jay was very friendly and totally genuine, as expected, and he instantly had me laughing. When I asked about his design process for these prints, he mentioned being very conscious of making smaller scale prints for quilters. Speaking of process, he also reminded me that he has a movie coming out called "11 Mintues," which is showing in select cities and will be out on DVD soon.

I finally got to meet Kim Kight from True Up in person. We had previously only communicated via email and she is as wonderful in person as I expected. Everyone there seemed to know Kim, which didn't surprise me one bit. She is doing such a great thing for the community with her awesome blog, and I don't think I'm the only one who gets that.

I also had a great time meeting Melissa Averinos who debuted "Sugar Snap" for Free Spirit; Jenean Morrison, also with Free Spirit; Myrinda Dixon, owner of Fabric Hound; Bari J. who has wonderful handbags; Chelsea of Pink Fig Patterns; Mary of Flourishes; and Weeks Ringle of Fun Quilts who shared her experience of starting out in this business with me. It was such a great feeling to connect with this community, sharing ideas and experiences -- I could have stayed all night, but I also wanted to see the frenzy at Sample Spree.