Vending at Quilting Trade Shows + Markets

It’s been about 1 month since QuiltCon 2024 in Raleigh, NC and I wanted to document some of the memories of the show before they get away from me. In doing that, I also wanted to share a little bit about our history with trade shows in the past. Fun fact, QuiltCon was my TENTH show that I've done with Lo & Behold! That's hard to believe. Keep scrolling for some original photos from back in the day. 

But regarding QuiltCon,  it’s organized by the Modern Quilt Guild and essentially, it’s a celebration of modern quilting. There is a juried quilt show, classes, lectures, meet and greets…and vendors. It happens once a year and alternates locations. We were a proud vendor and sponsor for the 2024 show and I wanted to share a little bit about the experience and unload all of my photos in one place. :)

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A walk down memory lane...

We are actually somewhat familiar with vending at shows, although we haven’t done it too much in the recent past. Between 2017 and 2018, I did several small and local "handmade markets" This was back when I first started Lo & Behold and mainly sold premade and custom baby quilts, small items like key fobs and burp cloths. This was prior to my pattern writing days, so I was in the early stages of figuring out what my passions were. Care to take a look back?

Here's baby Brittany at "Craftsboro" in 2017. This was my first show and I literally had no clue what I was doing. I started Lo & Behold in 2017, so this was all very new and fresh for me at the time. Can you spot my sweet photo of Granny? I bring her to all of our events. :)

I did a total of 4 handmade markets in the second half of 2017. Whew! For the final market of the year, I had written my first two patterns, Valley Song (which has since been retired, but we're bringing it back this year!) and Christmas Joy. At this point, this was a big shift for me, so I remember feeling so exposed and nervous about switching gears a little bit with what I was doing. It was uncomfortable to branch out into a completely different world (pattern writing) which most people didn't really understand or relate to at a typical handmade market. 

Fun fact, the above show was where I met Gretchen Quinn. You know, the Raleigh-based potter that I'm now obsessed with?

I didn't have printed copies of the patterns at this point, that wouldn't come until early 2018, but late 2017 was when I realized that I was more passionate about writing quilt patterns and creating quilt designs than anything else. Over the next 6 months or so, I slowly transitioned my focus.

I vended at Pinner's Conference in Spring 2018 and I was digging back through my photos, shocked to find that I don't really have any pictures of my booth! It was 10 x 10 (up until this point, I had only had 6 foot tables), so having an actual space that people could walk into felt like a big deal! This was also our first show that wasn't local. We lived in Raleigh, NC at this point and Pinner's Conference was in Atlanta, about 5 hours away. We managed to fit everything in our car for the drive down, but it was filled to the brim! I actually think we might've invested in a Thule roof box at this point to help us transport some of our stuff. It was an adventure.

I had 4 patterns at the time (Valley Song, Christmas Joy, Southwest Diamonds and Celtic Crossing). This was the only photo that I could find from the event!

I remember not really selling that many patterns at this show... actually, I didn't sell much at all. None of these shows were super profitable, really. But I had the MOST fun being there, standing beside what I made (literally) and interacting with other vendors and customers. I'm an introvert through and through, but I love every minute of vending at a show. 

I think I only did one show in 2018. Since I was focusing on pattern writing and less on sewing physical goods for sell, there wasn't really a point to vending at local maker's markets. 2018 is the year where I really put my head down and did a ton of work establishing what I wanted Lo & Behold to be. In between weekend shifts at the hospital, I released 5 patterns that year and did a ton of internal work learning new skills and developing my style. Its funny because even looking back to 2018, my style has changed SO much, but nonetheless, I was clear on who I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing. This shaped the shows and markets that we did from this point forward. 

Then came the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo OSQE in Raleigh in August 2019. This was our first trade show specifically for other quilters. We had just started doing quilt kits and at the time, I had about 10-12 patterns (if I remember correctly). This was actually not the best time for us because at this point, we were living in temporary housing as our house was getting repaired from major water damage.  I had literally just made the decision to start doing fabric bundles a few weeks prior and I remember carrying boxes of heavy bolts up 3 flights of stairs in our tiny apartment which was stocked with only a few things, since it wasn’t truly “home”.  We both had to ask off from work to do this show…which was a big deal for both of us because we exclusively worked weekends for our first 6 years of marriage. At that point in our lives, we only got about 2-3 weekends off together per year and we spent one of them in this little 10x10 booth together. Haha. It was a fun time and a fun memory to look back on.

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This 10' x 10' booth felt like such a huge step up from our 6 foot table at the local maker's market. And it was! I was so proud to get to this point. And the show went well for us. I felt like I was finally in my element and I loved connecting with other quilters.

So then we decided to do another OSQE show in March of 2020 in Atlanta. This time we decided to go bigger and get a 10' x 20' booth. We were pretty nervous about it but once we set everything up and filled out the space, it felt like it was the right size. It was a 3 day show that was really well attended at first, but unfortunately, COVID hit and they ended up having to cancel the third day. 

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Coming home from this show was a huge turning point for us. The pandemic was underway, Peter was furloughed from his job (he worked at a taproom at the time), and I was in the thick of working at the hospital during COVID. It was this point that Peter started working full-time for Lo & Behold. We thought it would be temporary until things got back to "normal" but after several months of his awesome bundle making skills, we quickly realized that he could never go back to his normal job!

OSQE had another show in Raleigh August of 2021. At that point, we were both full-time with Lo & Behold (I left nursing Oct. 2020) so we were fully prepared and excited for this show... & we went even bigger with a 10' x 30' booth! Even though we were local, we had to rent a uHaul van to get everything there. That was a first!

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Which brings us to 2022. We had just moved to our dream location of Black Mountain, NC. Up until this point, we operated exclusively out of our home...which got to be pretty crowded as we continued to grow. When we moved, we decided to get studio space so that we could have a little bit of separation between home and work and it was the best decision we could've made! Since we were transitioning out of the home, we didn't do any shows in 2022...but we did our first Open Houses! These events were held in our studio and allowed us to open the doors to our workspace an allow people inside to shop in person, see quilts and chat about all things sewing and quilting. We actually have our next Open House coming up in a few weeks!

Our next show was QuiltCon 2023 in Atlanta! We attended QuiltCon as spectators in Nashville in 2019 and Austin in Feb. 2020, which I wrote about in this blog post.  So this wasn't our first time to QuiltCon, but it was our first time vending. 

We did another 10' x 30' and this was our first time having help with running the booth. It was just Peter and myself up until this point, but for this show, we had our employees Kara and Elizabeth help with running things. It was a game changer, especially since it was the busiest show that we've done! 

While this wasn't our first trade show within the sewing and quilting industry, it was our first modern trade show. We felt like we were really able to connect with our amazing community and it was one of the best experiences of my life, truly! 

QuiltCon 2024 was in Raleigh, and ya'll know we had to be there! It was so nostalgic to come back "home" to the place where we spent the first several years of our marriage and also to the exact convention center were we had our first industry specific booth. QuiltCon is a huge deal and something that I look forward to every year, so having it be in our home state was really special. We decided to go even bigger with a 10' x 50' booth, which felt enormous when we were setting up; but definitely appropriate (maybe even a little small) once the show started, haha. It was actually a great size for all of the product that we brought and visitors that we had! 

We brought a lot more inventory to this show to fill the larger booth, which meant that we needed a larger truck. We rented a 20 foot uHaul for both 2023 and 2024 QuiltCon, but the difference is this year, we got a lot smarter with how we packed! We put over half of our things on wheels, which was a massive change from last year when we had nothing on wheels. It made all the difference for a quicker load and unload. We set everything up the Wednesday prior to the show, which was a full day event. We had a rough plan of the layout prior to starting but ended up rearranging a few things once we got there. 

Along with the bigger booth, we also decided to sponsor the Minimalist design category in the juried quilt show. As someone who has had quilts in the show before, being a sponsor meant so so much. Through doing so, my intent was to make it clear that even though we are a business in the industry, my (our) passion stems from a genuine love and support for modern quilting. Not to mention, the Minimalist Design category is one of my favorites. Huge congratulations to all who were a part of this category!

This year, we also had more help than we've ever had before...and it was amazing! Kara and Elizabeth were back in the booth again. We also recruited Pete's mom Jamie and Sara of Stitch Lab Quilting. Additionally, we also had our new employee, Michelle help as well. She joined us for the last two days and was able to bring more inventory from the studio.

QuiltCon 2024 was a record year (so I've heard) with the number of attendees. So much so that they had to open the doors early on a few of the days to facilitate safety in the lobby. Thursday through Saturday were quite crowded, it got to be overwhelming at times but I met SO many quilters within the community and hands down, I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.  As an online based business, those face-to-face interactions truly keep me going in all that I do!

If you have visited us at a trade show or market, we so appreciate your support. While these events are not the main part of what we do, we've found that they really fire us up with our purpose and help us see the bigger picture of what we are doing. These shows are an enormous amount of work, especially to the scale that we've done in the last few years, and while it might not make *that* much sense on paper....it's one of my favorite things that we do within the business. 

So where are we headed next? Rumor has it QuiltCon 2024 will be in Phoenix, Arizona. What do you think, should we make the trip?? :)