Anatomy of a Quilt Market Booth

We are back from Salt Lake City.  The dust has settled.  I have unpacked my suitcase and done all of my laundry.  I have put away all of the cards and pamphlets that we picked up in a "spring 2011" file (which I may or may not open again...) and I have checked and answered my email which I did not have access to while we were away.

Being back at home, it all seems like it never happened.  What we worked so hard for over the past couple of months seems as it could have been a dream.  But no worries, I have pictures to prove otherwise.

When you arrive at the convention center, your booth looks like this:

You turn the corner and just hope and pray that all of your boxes that have been sitting in storage for a couple of weeks are there, all in one piece and with everything in them.  In our case, they were.  And we immediately began unpacking and setting up.  For the next couple of hours, Janine and I worked at setting up the booth.  We have, by now, gotten this down to a science.  Janine stands on the tables and hangs the blue curtains and then the quilts while I hand her the pins and the curtain hooks.  (We scrounged around for a few shows to get those curtain hooks.  We used to pick them up off of the floor as we were leaving shows until Christy, one of our designers, thought to ask one of the workers at a retail show we were doing.  He actually gave us an entire bagful, just like that!)

Little by little, the booth takes shape.

The last details to be taken care of after the quilts are hung are the lights and the sign.

Then, we go out into whatever city we are in to find some flowers.  We have kept the tradition of having flowers in our booth ever since our first market, when my quilting group sent us a huge bouquet for good luck.  In Salt Lake I looked in the phone book and settled on The Rose Shop.  After a quick phone call, I discovered that store in question was located in a mortuary building not far from where we were staying. We all trucked down there (Sean, Maggie, Janine and I), and, seeing no particular signage, marched right through the front door....and into a wake!  And then proceeded to ask someone who looked official but who did not work there exactly where we could find said Rose Shop.  It was a little embarrassing.  But, we did manage to find the shop located in the back of the building and they did an absolutely wonderful job on our floral arrangements.

For the next three days, we took turns hanging out in the booth and walking around taking in the sights.  If you were there and came to see us, thanks for stopping by!  If not, we hope to meet you sometime soon.  We had a great time in Salt Lake City.  Our new patterns were very well received.  And we are excited to spend part of the summer making some new samples of our new quilts!