Quilt Market is no more

December 6, 2025

In case you missed it, Quilts Inc. announced on Wednesday that Quilt Market – the long-running quilt industry trade show held in Houston each fall – has officially ceased operations. You can read the official announcement here. However, International Quilt Festival, the consumer show that usually follows the trade show, WILL continue. Dates for that show are November 12-15, 2026 at the George Brown Convention Center in Houston.

In 2022, h&h americas opened a new, competing trade show in Chicago encompassing all the needlearts – not just quilting. I’ve had a few creative-type colleagues from the greater ATL attend the h&h americas event. They recommended I attend this industry event as a sewing educator. Apparently, I have the credentials to do so. The 2026 dates don’t work with my schedule, but perhaps I can make plans to attend in 2027.

2025 has certainly been a year of big changes in the world of sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting, cross-stitching and every other fiber & textile specialty. Private equity discovered our “grandma hobbies” and literally wreaked havoc on the entire crafts industry in its quest for investor returns. I’m still miffed about the whole Joann fiasco. Tariffs have also added to already higher prices on fabric, sewing machines and craft supplies. The Janome 9480 I’ve had my eye on is now $2,500 higher than it was this time last year due tariffs. Surprisingly, the Elna version (same machine AND includes the stitch regulator) is $1500 cheaper than the Janome. I’ll continue to wait until prices drop or my Janome 8900 gives up the ghost and will probably wind up with the Elna version.

All in a day’s work for a therapy dog

December 5, 2025
Helping Allison destress before finals.
My niece, Sadie & me at our GA Tech event.

On Monday, my niece, Allison, got to see her Aunt Teresa (me) and Sadie in action! My local therapy dog group does a finals week destress visit 2-3x per year at the main GA Tech campus library. It’s always a lot of fun – especially when Sadie’s canine friends show up. Allison stopped in to pet the puppies before her physics class. I understand from grandma that she did well on her calculus final and is a little apprehensive about the physics final on Friday. Good luck girl! You’ve got this!

Let’s talk scrap management

November 29, 2025

Meet my scrap bin. It’s a medium plastic decorative storage basket found at stores like Target and Hobby Lobby. Nothing fancy. Most of what you’ll find in my scrap bin are bits smaller than 5″ square and random jelly roll leftovers.

I realize there are quilters who have elaborate stash management systems and cut all leftover fabrics to pre-determined sizes. Some even write books about their stash management systems. Me? I prefer a much simpler approach.

At the end of a quilting project, I “process” any leftover fabric. Random, full-size precuts are stored with my 2-1/2″ strips, 5″ squares and 10″ squares. Any larger pieces are returned to color-coded bins.

My quilting bee group makes several scrappy quilts a year for charity, so I sort the remaining bits for future charity projects, the scrap bin or the wastebasket. When the scrap bin gets full, it’s time to add a project to the rotation to use up some of the scraps.

Here’s my current project:

Foundation pieced scrappy half-square triangles

The FPP paper pad yields fifty 6-1/2″ blocks. I have enough of this white-on-white print to make about 12 scrappy HSTs. I’ll grab another white fabric hunk when it’s time to make block #13. Said blocks will be made into items to donate to my guild’s community service (placemats or a baby/toddler quilt).

Once a scrap become smaller than 2-1/2″ square, I toss it. If it’s been a busy, active quilting season and I’ve accumulated way too many scraps, I’ll pass them along to a friend or donate them to Scraplanta.

As a former librarian, I culled different sections of our book collection on a regular basis. It’s a key part of collection management. Applying those same principals to my fabric stash, including scraps, keeps things manageable. It’s great to save the scraps, but you also need a plan to use the scraps and/or divest of the scraps.