Benny at Market (with a cliffhanger ending!)

If you've been a follower of ours for a while, you may remember our good friend Benny. 

Twice a year he attends Quilt Market with his Benartex coworkers. His short legs mean that he can't run to catch the flight to Houston, so they are nice enough to give him a ride through the airport.

His coworkers also ensure that he's well fed so he has the energy he needs to perform his numerous duties at the show.

While in Houston, Benny takes on a supervisory role, overseeing the booth set-up and ensuring each quilt is hung straight.

 He sat on fat quarter bundles and quilt kits at Sample Spree, making sure that latecomers to this wonderful free-for-all sale could still find fabric to buy.

During the show, he introduced himself to customers, encouraging them to purchase his favorite fabric collections (hint: he's a fan of anything with dogs on it) and posed for photos among the various vignettes in the Benartex, Kanvas and Contempo booths. 

Here Benny poses among the larger-than-life fabric lollipops from Kanvas' Bright Ideas booth (which won First Place, Best Double Booth award...more on that in another post!).

 Relaxing on a park bench in the idyllic Our Town fabric scene, from the award-winning Contempo Studio booth (more on the booth design and its "Best Creativity Award" later as well!).

And maybe a little bicycle riding...

It's a doggone exhausting job, but somebody's got to do it! 

This year, however, things escalated to a whole new level. Benny's celebrity status reached new heights. He started making appearances on Instagram.

He rode around Houston on a Bentley.

When his Benartex coworkers returned to work after the show, and went to unpack Benny (even with his celebrity status, he still didn't get a first class seat on the plane!), they couldn't find him. They began posting signs.

It soon became clear that some nefarious characters decided to capitalize on his celebrity by kidnapping him! His coworkers are currently awaiting contact about the ransom--they expect to have to pay it in fabric!

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Help us look for Benny! He's hidden once on the Benartex website and three times on the Facebook page. Send the locations of all 4 Benny sightings (what page on the website and the names of the 3 fabric lines he's hidden in our Facebook page) plus your name and mailing address to socialmedia23 (at) gmail.com with the subject line "I found Benny." The contest ends Monday November 3rd at 11:59 pm EST. On Tuesday we'll randomly draw one winner from the emails to receive a fabric prize as a thank you for your investigative help.