Rashida Coleman-Hale, fabric designer, author, and sewist extraordinaire, joins us today for the third installment in her series of posts about her experiences debuting her new fabric collection, Tsuru, at International Quilt Market.  Bad travel mojo plagued our designing heroine on her way to Market, but she’s made it to Houston, TX at last!  Today, Rashida shows off the pretty swag she’ll be giving away at the Cloud 9 booth at which she’ll be showing her new fabrics when Market officially opens tomorrow, plus comparison photos of two rounds of Tsuru strike offs.  Enjoy!


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So I’ve finally made it to Houston!  I say finally because I’ve had quite the ordeal getting here. Here’s how my schedule was laid out:

Tuesday – Leave Atlanta 8am arriving in Denver at 10am.

Wednesday – Tape an episode of Sew It All TV.

Thursday – Leave Denver at 10am arriving in Houston at 1pm.

Here’s how things actually went:

Tuesday – Missed 8am flight to Denver. Caught the 9AM flight going to Washington DC. Changed flights and arrived in Denver at 6:30 PM.

Wednesday – Taped an episode of Sew It All TV.

Thursday – Caught shuttle at 6am from hotel to catch 10am flight to Houston.  Plane was held on the ground because of maintenance issues.  Finally left Denver at 6:30 PM arriving in Houston at 8:30PM.

So as you can see things weren’t exactly going my way with the flying.  I think I’ll just drive next time. Ugh.

I’m exhausted and grumpy (so I’ll keep this post short), but I’m here and SO ready for the show!

On the plus side, everything that I ordered arrived right on time for me to pack up in my suitcase!

Buttons came….

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And I’m SO happy with how they turned out!  The cards also arrived and I’m loving them as well!

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My first thought was to just hand the buttons out, but this is Quilt Market, why not up the ante a bit?

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Oh!  And look what else came!  Strike Offs Round 2!  The first set is on the left and the second on the right.  The blue is definitely the way we intended it to be, but I think I’m quite partial to the red on the first set.  This group is very, VERY close, but I think there may have to be one more round. I’ll keep you posted!

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I’ll be posting more frequently over the next few days from the show floor so that you can see the Cloud 9 booth as well as highlights of the many, many gorgeous and inspiring sights to be seen at Quilt Market!  See you in a few!