It’s International Quilt Festival Time!!!

For the last two years, I have been able to attend the Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas with my friend Linda and this year brought more of the same fun!!

We arrived in Houston and immediately went to sign in and pick up our registration packets. It was so much fun to look at the show thru the portal windows on the second floor…..

The “party” got started…..

….in the usual way, with Mexican food from Pappasito’s…..YUM…..

I started finding quilt designs before we ever hit the show floor!! This tile was in the restaurant…..

….and the carpet in the hotel has inspired me for all three years that we have been here!!!

As we entered the show, the top award winners were display along the front of the hall and, in my estimation, THIS quilt should have been the top winner!!!!

Lea was there to talk about the quilt and her process. I was interested to learn that she first fused the fabrics to a background and then covered it with a Bridal tulle in a Champagne color. She then thread paints over the tulle. Whatever her process, it was a poignant and amazing quilt!!

One of the first special exhibits that we saw was the “Cherrywood Fabric – Bob Ross” challenge. Each year Cherrywood selects a topic and puts together a bundle of fabrics that must be used in the making of the quilt. When I heard about this challenge last year, I figured that it wouldn’t be all that great, but I…..Was…..WRONG!!!

There were a large number of quilts displayed ( I am guessing 150 to 200) and the designs were absolutely amazing.

• 

• 

• 

• 

I particularly enjoyed the “70’s” furnishings in “Painting with Bob” and the tree leaves on “Sunset Among the Trees” were done with ribbon embroidery……

We moved into the “Comics and Sci-Fi” exhibit and stood in front of this quilt for a long time, trying to figure out what it was……

Only when I looked thru my camera could you really see it…..NOTE….squint when you look at the above photo for best effect!! It was cool and terrifying at the same time!!

Not so terrifying was this comic sci-fi character quilt……

Moving into the “Modern Quilt” exhibit, we found this amazing radial quilt……

….and this lovely quilt by our very own Sylvia Schaefer!!!! I absolutely LOVE Sylvia’s quilting!!

• 

• 

In the “Extinct Animal” exhibit, I found a fun peacock……

This quilt is a great example of using “Fussy Cutting” in an applique format. Personally, I think that this looks a lot easier than piecing…..

In the “Celebration of Color” exhibit I loved this fish quilt although I can’t imagine cutting out all of those fish outlines!!!

….and this quilt reminded me that I need to get back home and get to work on my “color” quilt!!!

We wandered into the “Tactile Architecture” exhibit and I quickly forgave them for turning down my “Tiles of San Giovani” quilt!!! I LOVE this archway quilt…..

….and this Eiffel Tower quilt was magnificent and was HUGE….probably 8 feet across….

There were a number of other quilts that caught my eye, but this one was probably my favorite…..

I was very interested in the way that the bricks were rendered…..

It appears that the blue was first quilted and then the splotches of color were added with paints!! What a great idea!! As I looked at the above photo, I realized that they outlined most of the quilt with black thread quilting. It really made the quilt “pop”!!

I took this photo to remind myself of an easy border pattern that I could use a straight ruler to create…..

Finally, I found two sunflower quilts to enjoy…….

• 

• 

I hadn’t even noticed the bee on the left one until I read the quilt title!! And, have a look at the center of the quilt on the right. This is only a portion of the quilt but I was amazed with how the flower center was created.

We spent most of the evening in the quilt area but did manage to wander a bit in the Vendor hall, and amazingly, four hours passed before we knew it.

I would say that it was a great “preview” for the days to come!!!