Festival memories: Dear Marilyn

Carly Mul • November 7, 2022

Marilyn is one of those people that will always be connected to Houston Festival. This is the story...


Marilyn lives in Texas and her daughter Vena lived at that time in Virginia. Both are avid quilters and the tradition became that the two of them would do Houston festival together as a mother/daughter reunion. I don't know if they really have the same taste. What I do know is that Marilyn has a very generous taste, if you know what I mean. Marilyn used Festival to stock up on fabrics  she was using for the church sewing group. So she bought to donate and apparently my color coordinated bundles worked well for the church ladies.

They would stop at my booth on Wednesday night and we tried to exchange the yearly hugs in the frenziness of the "preview night" crowd. Quick questions about the families but then there was no time to talk. Houston exploded and my booth became super busy. Marilyn and Vena would look around and then Marilyn grabbed a lot of bundles, handed them to Vena to carry and grabbed more: at my register that big pile of bundles qualified for a couple of those very nice bags. Not a simple plastic bag, no that beautiful bag that I had made especially for my business. She collected them, I'm sure. "See you tomorrow"! The next day they would stop again and  together they started all over and  picked up lots of bundles again.... "I know I got some bags yesterday, but can I please get some more?" Of course. The same on Friday and maybe also Saturday. Not sure if they were still at the show on Saturdays. This ritual happened for many years. My team, Cathy, Glenda Lisa and Pam, knew them too as they were really staple customers for many years. And when you shop like that, you get noticed! They had a ball doing this.

Then one year, Lisa had food poisoning and was feeling so miserable she couldn't make it to the show on Friday. Lisa had to stay behind in the hotel. We always started at 6.30 am, went to Phoenicia for breakfast and were at 8 am sharp at the convention center to restock.  We had 2 hours to go over the entire booth and it really took all 5 of us to make the big 20" x 30" booth look nice for the new day that would start at 10 am. It always looked  as if a tornado had exploded in the booth the day before. At the end of each day we usually tried to pull from underneath our tables as much restock  as possible, but then had to work all that fabric nicely in the next day.  And even more fabric from the truck and the extra containers had to come in as well, empty bins had to leave the show floor and brought back to the big truck.

Each of us had their own section: Cathy did all the modern blenders, Pam batiks, Fairy Frost and Christmas, Glenda  traditional blenders and  Lisa the entire front which was Grunge, the top corner collection of that year and one or 2 sections with top designers like Marcia Derse, Paula Nadelstern or anyone else who was having a great collection for Houston.  I always did the bundles, Kaffe and contemporary fabrics as those were harder to recognize for everyone else.  This was incredible hard and focused work, but the 5 of us had become really good in doing "Houston".  We made a great team and despite the hard work, the painful feet, the stiff backs, all of us loved it and we laughed a lot.


While Lisa was sick in the hotel, we missed her help and the booth didn't look as sharp as usual. The whole front was done only more or less... Marilyn, sharp as she is, noticed it immediately. "Where is that friendly tall blonde girl you had the last 2 days? I can see that you guys couldn't do everything like normal".

I doubt that any other customer would have made such a comment, but I explained that Lisa got sick from something she had eaten. "Ok, sorry to hear, but Vena and I know how it needs to look and we will help". Before I could say anything she had put her bags under a table and started to straighten the fat quarter bins.  Her (around) 75 years old fingers were going over the fabric as if she had done this all her life. Then the yard cuts. They all became neat and in color order. It looked perfectly awesome. Quickly the booth filled with customers and none of us had any time left for more straightening... we were helping customers finding whatever they were looking for and ringing them up.  Vena and Marilyn became part of the team  and assisted many customers as well. That was so amazing to see!  I took some pictures as I treasured the help and wanted to remember the nice gesture. But then the most unforgettable moment came when Marilyn, at the other end of the booth, yelled over the heads of some customers: "Hi Carly, do WE still have the pattern for this?" She was waving a quilt in the air, but had no idea what is was. I was laughing and loving Marilyn so hard!! Yes, we have the pattern right there.


I am sharing this story with you because this morning, what after 16 years of doing Festival would have been the set up day for Festival 2022, Marilyn called me:" I know you don't have a booth at Festival. We are not there either. Just want you to know that I'm thinking of you, Cathy and the entire team as this would have been the week for our yearly hug".  Fabric people:)