Ready for more? We are still recovering from Market…our crates have arrived for unpacking, ugh. We are trying to sort through all of the great information we discovered and of course, we are always planning different ways to share our newest fabrics with everyone!!! The … Continue reading I&A at Quilt Market – Recap Part 2!
Have you ever heard of the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child?” Well, the same theory applies to Ink & Arrow Fabrics. It’s not a child, per say, but we feel like it’s our baby and want it to grow up healthy, strong and shine bright!
We work with so many talented people in the industry who support our fabrics and help us create and share great projects and ideas! So, the more the merrier!!!
It’s always amazing to me how we all have different takes on the same thing. Our blog, a couple weeks ago, about the “Whip it Up Challenge” highlighted that very nicely. Six bloggers… one collection… so many different approaches and projects. That is kind of what we do here, right? We supply the fun fabric and let the magic happen! 🙂
Here, we’d like to highlight a few different industry friends who make us stronger and help inspire more people than if we were to do it all by ourselves!!!
First up, our friends at Plum Easy Patterns! We were introduced to Bethany and Deborah from Houston’s quilt market as they won our blog shout out! It was great fun interviewing them and learning about their business. We adore their patterns and thought it would be great to collaborate for this Spring Market and VOILA! One of our favorite quilts came about. The pixies were featured in their “All Ways Arrows” quilt, and I must say, it is totes adorbs… as are Bethany (daughter on the left) and Deborah (mom on the right) We love this geometric arrow quilt!
TUFFETS!!!!!! That’s how we say it in our office…. we have to YELL it out because they are so darn cute!!! These two pixie dot tuffets were made for us by Sharyn Cole of Tuffet Source. Yeah, I know… they are so fabulous! We were so fortunate to make a connection with Sharyn last year around this time and it’s been such a fun adventure since! If you were able to walk Quilt Market this year you probably saw dozens of tuffets throughout the show – they are quite popular… Sharyn’s are our favorite though 😉
How cute is this quilt? It’s our Naughty or Nice collection in a not-so-typical holiday color scheme 🙂 This was created for us by our friend Cheryl Phillips of Phillips Fiber Arts using her Attic Window pattern. Click on the image above to head over to her website 🙂
Happy Quilting sewing blogger, Melissa Corry created this pretty quilt using our pixie dots! The tutorial to make this quilt is on her blog – click on the photo above!
These circle skirts will be featured in an episode of “It’s Sew Easy” on PBS! July 21st Episode 1105 – The Stylish Girl will have instructions on how to create this fashionable skirt with Deb as your teacher! So cool!!! We are thrilled to be a sponsor of this series and we think the City Life and Cat’s Meow collections work just purr-fectly!
We just loved Sassafrass Lane Designs‘ booth at Houston (still remember that orange sofa) and so when we approached them with our fabrics and to see if they were interested in making some fun projects, they were on board! On the top left – the Park Place quilt using assorted Cat’s Meow fabrics is just so retro chic! The red/white/black/turquoise color combination with the placement of patterns and strips are just perfection! Then, we have the Shelby Satchel bag (hanging on the mannequin) which used our Talk to Me collection. Love this messenger style bag with it’s mix & match vibe! And… on the right side we have the Canyon Boulevard quilt using Talk to Me, City Life and The Cat’s Meow, and, of course, the Pixie dots! So fantastic how they mix and mingled the different I&A lines together…
Another friend we’ve made along the way (it’s kind of corny but this year really has been a year of making great friends!!!) is Jessica Stewart of Izzy & Ivy Designs. The dresses Izzy & Ivy make are the stuff that little girls dream of… twirling is a major side effect of wearing these skirts and dresses – I’m so jealous, I want to be 6 again! 🙂
The above skirt is featured on their blog, here. So in love with this!!! Another dress that we showed at market and on our blog is this Emory Dress with Cat’s Meow fabric.
We also sent Izzy & Ivy some of our C’est La Vie fabric… We will save that for a future post… it’s so darn cute! We were thrilled to have a hat and skirt made from that fabric!
The above skirt was a pattern we saw from Serendipity Studio and when we asked for the pattern, she was so gracious to share it with us!!! Zip Zip and we had this gorgeous skirt…
When I was browsing through the different blogs I love, I came across this fantastic “Hashtag” quilt block made by Sew Can She. I fell in love and emailed Caroline to see if she would mind making us a Talk to Me Hashtag pillow for our booth. Talk about excited…
Another talented pattern maker, Jaybird Quilts, has helped us out along the way. The gorgeous quilt below, made by Anne Cowan, uses Jaybird’s Stereo pattern. Made of all pixie dots, this quilt has so much movement and flair. The circular motif quilting on top of the very triangular quilt pieces is such a great contrast!
Theresa McDermott is a talented seamstress that we have worked with for many years. She created the bunting that we had on the back of our booth – so festive!
Also, she developed two patterns for us out of our Happy Hour fabrics. A Beach tote 😀 and a Wine Tote. Both will be coming soon as a free pattern on our website – so exciting!!!
And… because who doesn’t want to look like a fashionista while toting your beach bag and wine bag…. Theresa made us this fabulous skirt and tank top! So chic!
Last… but not least… are our friends Wives of Whitewood. These gals are just great! We love their fun and care-free patterns. Here are some of the items they made for us…
The above pattern is brand new! Using our Talk to Me Fabrics, Wives of Whitewood created this perfect little bag to keep your charging cord/plug accessories in order – so adorable!
As you can tell, we “get by with a little help from our friends” and we are so thankful for all the collaborative efforts as it made for a FUN and successful Quilt Market! We will share more of these projects on our social media and we are excited to do more and more in the future! Feel free to email us at info@inkandarrowfabrics.com if you are interested in working with us and our fabrics… you can never have too many FRIENDS!
TRAVELING TUFFET ALERT!!!!!!!
The Tuffet is on the move! Our mini-tuffet is off on her journey from Quilt Market in Houston! First stop was the Shipshewana Fabric Show in Shipshewana, IN. Our friend Brenda from Sew Creative Threads is holding our mini-tuffet. The Ombre Scroll Stained Glass Quilt is featured on the wall.
Next stop: Our Traveling Tuffet made her way to Trevathan’s Sweep & Sew Shoppe in Hillsdale, MI. What a fun shop window featuring QT’s Janet Wecker Frisch collection “Letter Stitch” .
Patti, is shown here in front of the great window display.
In stores now, our new collections, Heads Up by Studio 8 and For Love of Country by Dan Morris for QT. Take a look, there are a lot of great creative possibilities! See the full collection and patterns by clicking on their names above.
Our friend and designer, Desiree Habicht was at quilt market and has a great blog showing her whimsical designs! Her re-cap of quilt market is here: Check it out at The Clothesline Desiree’s Designs Blog So much fun and talent!!!
Its finally here, our very first blog for our new brand, Ink & Arrow fabrics. We couldn’t be more excited to share with you the fabulous fun of our fabrics. Our website will be live in early December, but, until then, we’ll blog about our adventure at Quilt Market (our industry convention) and give you your own sneak peek of the collections and inspiration!
I’m Meredith, an employee-owner at Ink & Arrow. I work as a marketing brand manager and I am so proud to be a part of this new adventure! So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee or tea (or both) and we’ll get inspired together!
Do you love to scan pinterest and instagram images and drool at the projects you find there? Are you addicted to fabric? Are you scouring blogs on the regular? If you are the kind of person who is a maker and creator, we know you’ll love Ink & Arrow. We love all things creative and can’t imagine a time/place without color, print, pattern and fun! Our Ink & Arrow fabrics are designed with you in mind! #NoRulesJustFabric #becausefabricshouldbefun Each fabric design has a little motif hidden in the design for extra fun. An arrow, an I&A or Ink&Arrow is in there somewhere… How cute is that!?!?
Here’s an inspiration board we made for our Quilt Market booth. Quilt Market is a place where shop owners, pattern makers, publishers and fabric companies get together to network, show collections and fill their shelves/magazines with amazing stuff! We were there this past weekend – what a whirlwind!
We’ll be back. There is so much more to share! Please comment and give us ideas of things you want to see on this blog!
Well, a few of us have returned from Quilt Market in Houston. The Marketing group arrived in Houston last Wednesday to set up and prep for our biggest trade show of the year! International Quilt Market in Houston is an industry convention for shop owners to buy fabrics, notions, and patterns for their shops. They come from all over the world and visit exhibitors like us to see our collections, network, and get inspired! It’s a great event with lots of color and creativity!!!
Above, see how color & creativity SHINE in our Block of the Month quilt “Festival of Stars” designed by Pine Tree Country Quilts and our “Stained Glass” quilt designed by Cyndi Hershey. Both feature our new Ombre Scroll fabric. These are just being shown at Market and will be available to shops in March 2016 – I know… “Patience is a virtue”. 🙂
While at market, most of the companies meet with peers and also with potentially new customers, magazine editors, book publishers and the like. Our team has been busy! We were especially excited for this market as we have a completely new booth! This market was the launch of our new booth styling – hard walls with plenty of room to hang and pin quilts/fabric as well as a space for creating visual vignettes!
Speaking of vignettes, our licensed artist/designer, Janet Wecker Frisch had her own section that she beautifully decorated to show off her collection, Sewing Seeds II which will be available in stores in March 2016.
And… if the décor wasn’t impressive enough, she and Jo Packham, founder of “Where Women Create” got together for an Issue signing. The Winter 2016 issue features Janet’s studio and gives a glimpse into her creative world.
That was just a snippet of Market, we’ll blog again soon to share more with you!!!
International Quilt Market… it’s happening… in a Month!!! The countdown begins and we are a tad busy! If you are unfamiliar, Quilt Market is like THE event for shop owners to get together, get inspired and buy for their stores. Everything from fabric, to patterns, to supplies and even software for quilt designing is exhibited. It’s overwhelming, in a good way!
Imagine rows and rows of beautiful fabrics and projects and all the thread and accessories you can imagine in one place. For us, it’s our “Oscars” or “Super Bowl” or “Insert big event that is both exhilarating and exhausting” here. Twice a year, we travel to market and while there is no trophy or acceptance speech, the satisfaction of showing our latest and greatest fabrics and ideas while interacting with customers is our reward.
After Quilt Market, there is a Quilt festival where talented artists submit their amazing work to be shown off and hopefully, win a prize. That alone can be so inspiring and I often look at the projects in awe of the time and passion dedicated to this craft. The festival is open to the public, however, the convention is for shop owners and industry professionals only.
In the weeks leading up, I will make sure to include you in some of the preparations we are making. Our fantastic team here is dedicated to making this a success. We are like Santa’s elves!
Here are some pictures from our prep work. While we work year-round, the months leading up to the fall and spring markets are nothing short of BUSY!!! I am glad we can take a minute to share what is going on with you!
On the QT 