Houston International Quilt Festival-Preview Night

(Written on 11.01.12) I’m here at IQF-Houston and I am vibrating with the energy I am getting from all of these amazing quilts, garments and art. Last night was Preview Night and I saw maybe a tenth of the quilts and as well as friends from all over. This is just a fabulous experience!

Since sleep may just not be happening, I thought I would post instead.My friend Diane Loomis’ “Five Bar Blues” won second place in the Merit Quilting category. My photo just simply does not do it justice-her work truly is perfection. It is heavily trapuntoed and the glow from the Radiance fabric (silk/cotton) really adds to the beauty.Her quilting is just exquisite! This quilt wins a major ribbon everywhere it’s shownLinzi Upton from Scotland created a triptych of quilts based on Nordic carvings-“Odin’s Trilogy”. She wanted to give the effect of hammered precious metals so each quilt was made with lame and wool batting. Yikes! She did mention that she had to quilt them from the back-ain’t no marking lame!“Beach Guardians” by Virginia Greaves. This piece is so charming -you can just see the joy in the girls’ faces.“Natsumi on Her Bike” by Hiroto Miyama of Japan. Just pure childhood exuberance captured! The quilting on this is beautiful and the quilt is dimensional. Brigit Abubeso Bell-Lloc from Spain created “Make You Happy”. It is based on a photo of her Mother when she was 20 years old. It is so striking!“Window to the Soul” by Alison Laurence of New Zealand went right to my heart! It really was like this gentleman was looking at me-what was he thinking, what’s his story?? The eyebrows were dimensional and so reminded me of Andy Rooney!“Departure” by Kiyomi Yakayanagi of Japan was perfection! The design was exquisite, the colors divine, the impact was striking and it was perfectly executed-all by hand! This was a wedding present to her son and his bride.The details were amazing. Beautiful!“Fifteen” by Camilla Watson of New Zealand. Don’t you just see and feel that fifteen year old attitude? Camilla’s comments said “She is power and vulnerability, freedom and restraint, confidence and insecurity.” I’m feeling 15 all of a sudden!Jenny K. Lyon’s Judge’s Choice, giggle! “Hearths Aglow” by Katrina Walker combines two of my loves: sheers and silk. I have had a similar idea in my head for a time and even have a few squares of a sheer log cabin in my studio. I’m kinda annoyed that she got to it first!“Composition” by Gilbert Muniz was exquisite. He very artfully combined many techniques, fabrics, textures and color into this single ensemble, yet it does not scream “quilty” like many art-to-wear pieces do.

His comments said he was inspired by mid-twentieth century abstract design. Each garment piece presents a different technique. But he did not want the color story to overwhelm, hence the use of neutral tones. I would love to study at the feet of this guy.Look at this beautifully designed and constructed collar! So much detail but it all works together in a tasteful way. He is thinking of a woman’s body and how this would frame the face. This ensemble is flattering, artful and tasteful-it’s hard to hit all of those at once.Even though it’s out of focus I had to include this close up of the buttons and the work on the front. What an artful combination of beading, piecing, collage, free motion quilting, hand work and exquisite garment technique!!

And this was just on Preview Night! I will have more posts to follow.