Oh the Cuteness at the first ever DG Expo in San Francisco! A lovely new fabric and design expo, designed to foster smaller local manufacturers.

I had a wonderful opportunity before the holiday rush hit to help my friend Ivy, who works as a sales rep for Robert Kaufman Fabrics (among others), with a new little trade show in San Francisco. I've mentioned her before on here, as the lovely lady who brings dead stock fabric swatches for quilting to my stitch & bitch group to give away. (Thanks Ivy!)

 I think I've mentioned on here that someday I'd like to open a little brick and mortar shop to sell fabric, craft supplies, and handmade gifts, and getting to go to some trade shows in the industry has been so fun! This was the first-ever DG Expo, and the response was so great that they are planning one for the east coast coming up and will definitely do the event annually here in the Bay Area. It wasn't s super huge event, but it was aimed at smaller independent manufacturers of fabric goods, and it was so fun to meet all the local designers who came to our booth.

And here's someone else that I got to meet: Ron Kaufman, the grandson of the Robert Kaufman. He's Ivy's boss (that's Ivy on the right), and was just an all-around super nice guy! The three of us had lots of fun hanging out in the booth and helping designers find the perfect fabrics for their projects.

Our space was small, so we just had room for this little bit of display, plus a banner on the other end, our table, and 2 racks of swatches. I got to take home a couple of the sample rolls of fabric, including a confetti chambray and red & white stripe twill, both of which will hopefully be turned into dresses soon!

As you can imagine, I spent my down time drooling over all the amazing fabrics in our booth! Everything was so cute, and now I'm dying to order some for projects, but I'm on a stash-busting run at the moment and it will have to wait.

And, of course, I got to wander about and look at all the other booths. There were $100/yd hand-stitched fabrics covered in tropical feathers, fine silks and cashmeres, beads, buttons, appliques, and millions of other delicious fiber goods. But, of course, Moda's booth caught my eye the most with their array of cute prints. The 1930's umbrella prints above are just too sweet!

And look at this pre-quilted adorableness! Loooook at it!

And, I know I said I'm stash-busting, but dangit, hot air balloons in yellow and grey people! I die.

Not to mention these lovely textured nautical prints. The whales are the best!

All and all, I had a great time and hope to help Ivy do more shows soon!