Life in plastic, it's fantastic!

We loaded our brood in the car and drove East yesterday to meet up with Paula and her lovely brood in Indianapolis for a day full of Barbie fun at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. Yes, I know there are other exhibits there but we spent pretty much 90% of our time in the Barbie area... are you surprised?



Paula and I were immediately drawn to this wall of inspiration. Cool, eh?



The kids had so much fun playing pretend in all the Barbie exhibits...



Taking phone calls...





Modeling... (that's Jennifer and her son Wyatt in the back taking pictures of supermodels Amelia and Sydney!)



Being paparazzi...



Draping... (a la Project Runway)



Hmmm.. that's not half bad, eh?



Posing...



Running... (This was our view most of the day since Sydney and Amelia became BFFs instantly. After all, they are both "five and a half," as they would have you know.)



Ridin'...



And crusin'... (possibly one of my fave pictures EVER! Check out how comfortable Wyatt is with "the girls", haha)



It was a BLAST and Sydney's already asking when she can go see her BFF again. :)

Market Report - Part 1
Fall International Quilt Market 2008, Houston, TX

Hi everyone! I'm baaaaack! Last time I tackled Market Report in one fell swoop (a.k.a. one ginormous blog posting that left you and I both exhausted!) So this time I've decided to save my sanity and break this up into parts... not necessarily in chronological order, just so you know.

Quilt Market was everything I expected and more. We drove 16 hrs. there and 16 hrs. back (well, Jon drove. I mostly slept, twittered, googled and doodled). Those of you following me on Twitter got the full state-by-state report... even when I called Arkansas "AK" instead of "AR." I can't believe no one teased me about that one! I can take it, I really can! ;)

So, for those of you who are new to my blog, we went down to the International Quilt Market in Houston, TX to debut my first line of fabrics, titled Andalucia, for Michael Miller Fabrics. Below, are a few scattered pictures of my booth and the surrounding areas...

This first picture shows the view from the aisle directly in front of us. On the left you see part of my booth, on the right you see part of Paula Prass' booth. Directly behind Paula's booth you see a sliver of Sandi Henderson's booth and the remainder of this picture shows what Michael Miller's selling stations looked like.



Below is a picture of Kathy Miller (Michael Miller Fabrics) and me standing at my booth. Check out the awesome quilts made specifically to showcase Andalucia by some amazingly talented ladies. The one on the left is called Now & Forever and was designed by Abbey Lane Quilts. The one on the right is called Spring Up and was designed by Lizzy Anne Originals. You can also see the 2 chairs that I painstakingly upholstered just days before the show and a few other sewn samples...



Here is a full shot of Spring Up:



This picture shows a few Market goodies including a couple of purses by my talented mom (a.k.a. marielizcreations on etsy), some super sweet bibs by Bug-A-Boo-Baby (check out her blog for some detailed pics of these and of the baby blankies she made for the booth!), and a pillow and dress by yours truly. By the way, my mom will be offering her Market-Sample-Purses in her etsy store very soon, so keep checking for these!



A super cool pineapple pincushion by my talented friend, Eva Taylor. Check out her blog and leave her a comment to be entered to win a pineapple of your own! How generous is that?!?



Totally AWESOME Andalucia jacquard ribbons designed by me for J. Caroline Creative (these are only 8 of the 16 designs offered!) Wish you guys could see & touch these! They are super soft and the quality is unsurpassed. These ribbons totally stole the show, IMO! Caroline will have these in her shop soon, so keep checking!



And speaking of Caroline, here I am standing in her AWESOME booth, which, by the way, won a prize of Best New Exhibitor. Way to go, Caroline!!!



And last, but certainly not least, is this picture of me sitting in my booth chatting it up with one of the loveliest ladies I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, the vibrant and so inspirational Elinor Peace Bailey.



Now, I want to leave you with a few links to check out:

• I did a designer interview with Gina Halladay of Quilter's Buzz. What a lovely lady! Go over there and read! (those of you who attended my schoolhouse session may notice some overlap... sorry!)
  
  
• Boutique Café created history with the first ever live podcast from Quilt Market and I was honored to be their guinea pig, er, first interviewee! ;) You can catch a recording of the live feed right here... complete with testing, bloopers and a heck of a lot of giggling!
  
  
• The Jolly Jabber, Fat Quarter Shop's awesome blog, is doing a day-by-day Market Report that is not to be missed. One of the best pictures of me has already surfaced in their "findings" and check out this one I spotted on their Flickr account of me & Jon. Awww! Please stay tuned for a full interview in a couple of weeks! I'll let you know when it's up!!!

OK, that's it for now! Thanks for being so patient through this super long post... I swear I thought it was gonna be much shorter! And to all of you lovely ladies who came over and saw me at Quilt Market, MWAH! Love ya!!!

All Shook Up

Mm mm mm, oh, oh, yeah, yeah!

Our bed was shaking, rattling and rolling around 4:30 a.m. today... and NOOOOO! It's not what you think! Get your minds out of the gutter. Sheesh!

We had a 5.2 magnitude earthquake... the first I had felt since we moved to the States from Costa Rica when I was 16!! I thought I had escaped all natural disasters of the earth shattering kind. eeeek!

This one wasn't so bad and as a matter of fact Sophie & Sydney slept right through it. I am the lightest sleeper on the face of the earth so at the first sign of shaking I was literally on my feet screaming "WTH was that?!?" Jon woke up for a split second, checked his watch and said "probably just a plane flying really low" and went back to sleep. I walked around the house for a couple of minutes trying to figure out what had just happened. It's been 20 years since I felt that sensation!!

Eventually I went back to bed and when I woke back up a couple of hours later and checked my email I learned the truth from none other than my soon-to-be "coworker," the fabulous and talented Paula Prass. She sent an email telling me about her eventful morning with the earthquake and I knew that she didn't live too far away from me, so I checked out the news and it was one of those "AHA!" moments!

According to reports, this is the second strongest earthquake that has shaken this region of the country. The strongest being in 1968, so most of the people around here have never felt one this strong. And I could tell... everywhere I went today, people were gathered in groups sharing stories. LOL! And the funniest thing is that everyone's stories were pretty much identical: the wives all said that they got up and checked on the kids and turned on the news while their husbands went back to sleep in total disbelief or apathy. hmmmm. Men!