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.

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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!!

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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…….

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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!!!

Saturday was my “classroom day” although I did find a few minutes for some shopping and quilt perusing.

I started out the morning with the “Saturday Sampler” where I got to spend 2 hours in a room with 28 quilt artists and walk from table to table to hear what they were saying and see their demonstrations.

Since I had seen so many quilts to painted tops, I was particularly interested in those techniques.   There were two artists who were talking about Inktense Pencils.  The best hint of the day was to hold the pencil at the far end when coloring so that you get filled in color and not hard lines that will stay as lines when they are activated…..

The question most asked was about how to “activate” the pencils and there were several different views.   If you are using the pencils on paper, then plain water will do, but on fabric, water will cause the colors to seep and spread.  The real debate was whether to use a fabric medium (such as Golden GAC) or a simple Aloe gel (the kind that is used to treat burns).   From what I heard, the fabric medium will set the colors, but will change the “hand” of the fabric….ie it will be thicker and less pliable.   The Aloe Gel apparently works the same but it soaks into the fabric rather than sitting on top of the fabric.

I spent time with Melinda Bula, listening to her talk about different types of fusible products…. Since I haven’t been pleased with most of the fusibles that I have tried, I found her talk very interesting.   If nothing else, she reminded me that I need to do some research before my next big landscape/portrait quilt.

Next, I visited with Susan Edmonson and enjoyed watching some of her hand embellishment techniques…..

Can you tell from the state of her “booth” that she is highly creative!!!

I had the most fun watching the hand applique work of Karen Buckley…..

She had great ideas about how to prepare the applique pieces which, to me, is the worst part of the applique process.   Her templates are made from “Templar plastic” and result in a sharp folded edge.   She also suggested brushing the edges with  “Magic Sizing” to help the fold hold in place.   I succumbed to her shop and bought a set or two of templates.   So, I guess that means that I need to get some hand applique organized!!

In the afternoon I spent 3 hours with Jenny Lyon, working on machine quilting filler patterns.   With each design, we started out by drawing the design for about 5 minutes…..

….and then we moved to the machine to give it a try……

As you can see, we were working on wonderful Pfaff machines that had a larger throat area. 

Next was a long feather design.   I found that I could sew the right side well, but moving to the left was much more difficult…..

The last design was a box filler…….I have always had trouble with this one but her instruction made it much easier to do.

Jenny’s quilts are all wonderful but I especially enjoyed the border in this Bunny quilt.    It is just a black piece of fabric with LOTS of quilting with white thread…..

I also like the idea behind this quilt…..

……make a top that highlights a single block of printed fabric and then use that design to inspire the rest of the quilting!!

During my lunch break, I made one more, very quick, run thru the show, taking a few photos of some quilts that I had missed.’

This piece by Cecilia Koppmann used fabrics that were given to her by her students……

These quilts were all reproductions or inspired by an 1876 quilt……

My favorite version of the quilt was this one in blue and yellow…….

We talked to Barbara Gonce who made THREE versions of the quilt.   Here she is pictured with two of them……

The night ended with Nachos and University of Georgia football…..

As we flew home, I could only think about all of the inspirations that I came away with.   I spent the entire time on the floor sending myself emails to remind me of things that I might want to try.   My suitcase was filled with a number of goodies, including a pattern for an upcoming baby quilt, a wool pressing board, a Tsuniko Ink starter set and many other fun things that I cant wait to try!!!

The last task of the trip was to fill out the hotel request for NEXT year’s show!!!

CAN’T WAIT!!!!!

The first quilt of this post is a purely whimsical offering by Beth Miller, also from Canberra, Australia……

This quilt by Susan Mogan is a beautiful pastel sunrise……

This stripe quilt by Maria Shell caught my eye…….

I loved the laces that were used for waves in the piece by Eilene Williams……

I love this old barn by Karlyn Lorhenz, but REALLY like the painted sunset…..

Speaking of painted quilts, it seemed to be the recurring theme for the show.   There were so many where the tops were either painted, drawn or digitally produced.  Even this gorgeous quilted piece by Mikyung Jang was enhanced with painting…….

This landscape by Pat Derbin reminded me greatly of our forest trip in China back in August.   The thing that I noticed most about this quilt is that the “leaves” on the steps are simple squares of fabrics……

In the category titled “Balanced Piecing and Applique”, I was drawn to this quilt by Karen Grover.   I really like the applique that is overlaid on the piecing…..

This great quilt was made by Hsi-chen Hsu…..the same artist who made two of the quilts that I showed from the Preview night.   I obviously relate to her work……

I was attracted to the colors in this quilt by Betty Busby that was based on Lichens.   The center “lace” pieces were meticulously cut out!!…..

Finally, this applique quilt by Zena Thorpe was truly amazing……

I not only loved the whimsical nature of the quilt, but these 1/8th inch wide circles were crazy.   Linda and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they were done…..

….and then decided that it didn’t really matter since neither of us were going to try to do it anyway!!!

We closed out the day by meeting some friends for dinner and enjoying an hour of talk about all of the sights of the day!!!

One more day to go…….

On Friday, I was feeling better and set off the for convention center with the idea that I was going to make the most of the day

The first thing that I wanted to do was to look at all of the quilts that were in my category (Pieced – Large) and see who the winners were.  First place was won by Lynda Lynn with this magnificent quilt……

The quilting is pretty magnificent as well!!

Second place was made by Beth Nufer……

Third place went to Andrea Petrocelli for this quilt that had 7,924 Flying geese……

Here is a close up of the amazing piecing……

Honorable Mention was by Renne Ferre……ri

I thoroughly enjoyed walking thru the “People, Portrait & Figures” entries.   This very simple quilt by Cindy Richard was one of my favorites……

Another favorite was a Judge’s Choice winner…..a wonderful portrait by Roxanne Nelson…..

I spoke at length with Jennifer Bowker, a quilter from Canberra, Australia who made this blue ribbon quilt based on a photo that she purchased the rights to.  It was taken during a 2013 massacre in Cairo…..

This quilt, made by Christina Bono, was in the machine quilting category and was super cute…..

I had the pleasure of witnessing a touching interchange between Alex Anderson and Sandra Navaro, a quilter from Spain who spoke very little English and was using her young son as her translator.    It was obvious that she was so moved by having a photo with Alex Anderson and she fought back tears as she told her thank you……

This quilt by Peter Hayward was voted as Viewer’s Choice.   I was interested that the shading was achieved by placing black net over certain areas of the quilt……

There are tons more to show, but I will save the rest for another post……