Houston International Quilt Festival 2012-Part 3

Final installment!“Prairie Fire” by Ruth Powers depicts the early spring burning of the Flint Hills. And that is pieced, not fused-stunning in person. “Brink of Sunset” by Hanne-Grete Brink of Norway was made to honor her ancestors who lived “at the brink of land between mountains, the sky and the sea”. It was constructed on a long arm! I can’t get away from this one-it continues to hold my interest. “Ephemeral Elegance” by Deborah Grifka. Deborah wondered what “modern applique” would look like and this was her answer. She used bias strips to create this original design. “Down Pat” by Pat Budge. There was an interesting write up on this. Pat always believed she’d be a writer but she found that “words can take form with cloth and thread”. This is part of Pat’s anagram series and reflects her love of hard edges. “The Brightness-Towards Tomorrow” by Kazue Iwahashi of Japan. This piece was inspired by a beautiful field of lavender and is entirely made by hand. The center may look like I overexposed the photo but Kazue used a gradated fabric to achieve that effect-brilliant! “The Twelve Days of Christmas”; Osami Gonohe; Japan. Osami was moved when her daughter’s kindergarten class sang “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. She said it was hard to figure out how to express snow-I think she did a fantastic job on that! Again, this one all made by hand.Incredible hand work, applique, quilting. It took a whole lot of French Knots to make that snow effect, but isn’t it just lovely?Hope I’m not boring you now-how can you get enough of this kind of work? “Tulip Treat” by Marsha Fuller. This caught my eye-very traditional, impeccably executed and dang, that striped insert just adds so much to this exquisite little piece. “A Luthier’s Dream”; Betty New. I LOVE the write up on this one! Betty says that both her husband and son play guitar, hence the influence of the guitar shape in the quilt. But she cautions viewers to not read any deep symbolic meaning into this, it’s “just a design focused on line and value”. She used commercially printed ombres to such great effect! I love the quilting and the luminosity of this piece. “The Brothers” by Connie Horne. I love the relaxed and realistic portrayal of Connie’s brothers-in-law relaxing outside of a restaurant. Connie recognized this as “a special moment in time” and made the quilt as a gift to her husband. It’s hard to really capture attitude, posture, and feeling in a quilt and Connie sure did capture it!

EPILOGUE:
I was dazzled by my visit to the Houston International Quilt Festival. The overall quality of the work was astounding. This is just a smidgen of the quilts that were shown. I went with the perfect travel companion, Franki Kohler, and we tried to take in as much as we could while we were there. If you are a devoted quilter/artist and have interest in these shows, you MUST see the Houston show-it has no parallel. Everything about the show was of the highest quality. Go next year!