Moving on….

It has been FIVE weeks since I last posted and I have to admit that I have had little motivation to do so.   When the last post ended, we were in the middle of our trip to Washington DC.  We spent the last two days there enjoying Arlington Cemetery, the Air & Space Museum and a magnificent “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant called “Ray’s Hell Burger”!!! 

We easily made the trip home, entering the house to find beautiful new floors and lots of dust to be cleaned up!!  The next 10 days were used to clean the house and get things ready for the furniture to be returned. 

But, something happened this past week that has made me encouraged and excited to get back into quilting AND blogging.

A week ago (the 1st of November) my friend Linda and I flew from Atlanta to Houston for the International Quilt Festival!!! 

We knew that we were in the right place when the taxi driver said, in broken English, “Are you here for the quilts?”

Downtown Houston was ready for us, with areas festooned with color…..

We checked into our hotel and then made our way to register and pick up our packets, followed by a wonderful Tex-Mex dinner at Pappasitos…..

While we were waiting for our meal, I checked out the show program and was so excited to find this entry…..

Now I REALLY couldn’t wait to get to the show…. and it definitely lived up to the hype.  It was such a thrill to turn the corner and see my quilt hanging amongst the others from the “Tactile Architecture” exhibit….

And then to get closer…

…..and read the artist statement….

….and finally to listen to the recording that I had made several months ago.  This is the text of that statement…..

“Hello there.

I am Frances Arnold from Bishop, Georgia and I hope that you are enjoying my quilt, “Himalayan Hallows”.

I almost feel that this quilt should be called “Serendipity” because so many things happened during the construction that were not planned by me but ended up being exactly what I wanted to portray. I started the project knowing that I wasn’t sure how I would complete it and that at any point, I might ruin it, but decided that I just wanted to enjoy the process and see what happened.

As I worked on it, I thought about our 10 days of trekking to the Annapurna Base Camp and how the mountain called Machapucherie was always in our view. It is the highest peak portrayed in the quilt.

I also fondly remembered the Nepalese guides and porters who assisted us on this journey, and of the great care that they showed for each of the trekkers. I remembered how hard it was to say goodbye to them at the end of the trip and how we waved and waved until they were out of sight.

Finally, as I worked, I could smell the wood smoke pouring from the teahouses and hear the sound of the bells that hung around the necks of the pack animals that walked the trails with us.

My husband and I are privileged to have the opportunity to travel overseas a lot and I love making quilts that come from these journeys, but this one will always have a very special place in my heart and in my mind.”

And the final step was a photo in front of it…..

Ok….now that I have done all of that, I can enjoy the rest of the show and it was a magnificent one with 1500 quilts and hundreds of vendors!!

More about that to come……soon…..I promise!!