So, I’ve spent the last two days in Houston, Texas, attending Quilt Market 2008. It’s a work trip, and I didn’t know quite what to expect beforehand. I guess I sort of expected a lot more of the “traditional” quilting audience… and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see something quite different and meet people who are just cool as all get-out.

Now, here’s the full disclosure part. I don’t normally write about work stuff on here because, well, I don’t want to be “a publishing marketer who blogs.” I’ve been keeping up with this for much longer than I’ve been working where I work, so it seems like this should be “me” and not the work version of me. If that makes sense at all. It might not. I’m quite tired.

The point is that I’ve been attending in my capacity as the marketing manager for a book published by Wiley: Seams to Me by Anna Maria Horner. You can buy it pretty much everywhere online (and get autographed copies from Anna via her online store) and you should read her blog (and not because I do… she’s got a great writing style and a fantastic eye, so every image is just a pleasure to behold. Maybe even something to aspire to?).

So - over the last few days, I’ve been hanging at Anna’s booth, interacting with buyers and wholesalers and distributors and just fans of Anna, helping her out with answering questions about the book while she signed copies and talked with her legions of admirers (seriously.) I also got to meet some of her colleagues/friends - other incredibly creative designers who are also well-known in the industry and just super cool peeps to boot.

For example, Heather Bailey of “Hello My Name is Heather” blog fame (and many many other things including fabric designs, patterns and patented hair ties which I will be ordering shortly). She’s lovely and fantastic and so nice. We sat next to each other at dinner last night and sang They Might Be Giants lyrics together. Good times.

I also had time to chat with Melissa Averinos of Yummy Goods blog fame. She’s fantastically funky and seems to have the charming touch of the wacky that I sometimes feel I have. Sometimes. She’s got a store, a new line of fabric called Sugar Snap (I need to order some and learn to sew, truly), as well as some cool finished goods (cuff bracelets I’m going to try and score tomorrow), as well as an incredible sense of taste. She runs a shop (also called Yummy Goods, I think) on Cape Cod and was showing me some of the things she found at Quilt Market that she’d be ordering up to sell in her shop. If Cape Cod was closer, I’d totally be shopping there. Yes, indeedy.

And, of course, I’ve been spending the most time with Anna Maria Horner - a human dynamo, really. New line of fabric, new book, mother of five… and a super funny, superbly warm and generous Creative. An aspiring designer stopped by the booth to say, “Hi” and tell her how inspirational she is, and it turned into a bit of a career counseling session complete with portfolio feedback (since the designer had it with her). Also, Anna made me a gorgeous skirt using some of her newest fabric line (NOT YET AVAILABLE IN STORES! I feel all exclusive and on the inside). I’ll photograph it later since it’s wrinkled from having been worn and sat on all day. Here are some photos of her award-winning booth:

More later. Internet connection through the hotel is a little dodgy and uploading photos appears to be an issue. Either that, or the laptop doesn’t like my multi-tab habit. These things happen.

Update: here are more of my pictures from Quilt Market on Flickr.