Houston Int’l Quilt Festival 2023 – The Quilts, Part 1

 

I had my best year yet at the Houston Int’l Quilt Festival! This was my 10th year to teach – who’d a thunk it? I will write more about the experience, teaching and Market in subsequent posts. I am not sure what my timing will be on those posts, so stay tuned. I may just post them as I complete them, before next week. I’m running as fast as I can! You can find photos of quilts Part 1, interesting products from Market here and the Festival experience here.

There were 6 quilts that stood out to me. I wrote a little about each of these below. I have posted lots of other quilt photos but will have no comment on the rest. I have a HARD time editing out all the photos I want to post!

I actually posted this quilt before, but I must post again after having seen it up close and having spoken with Kathie Wylie about how she did this. Every black spot you see in the photo is background! How did she do that???? Every little part of this quilt is a stand-alone little mini quilt. For each individual piece, she used Apliquick to make a top and backing piece that matched.

She sandwiched batting in between the back and front pieces and then whip stitched the edges together with teeny tiny little stitches. She then eventually joined all the little pieces together to make the quilt. In the photo above, the stitching that looks kind of like a faggoting stitch, was actually thread painted on water soluble stabilizer. The whole quilt is amazing. It hangs perfectly straight. I do wonder how she ships it.

This is even more stunning in person! It is so real, so amazing! She used a variety of bobbin threads so that the back is thread painted too. This takes thread painting to a level that I have never seen before. And to be clear, she created her own confetti collaged piece with fused and raw edged applique. She did not merely print a photo on to fabric and stitch over the colors in the print!

Oh this is divine! All those little details bring you in – the exquisite hand applique, the Colonial knots, the little dots in the sashing, the subtle beauty of her chosen colors…

This is more complex than first meets the eye. Although it looks like woven strips, Peter calls this method “false weaving. He fuses each piece to a single piece of interfacing for the whole quilt. There are over 30,ooo pieces! He used ombre fabrics and “wanted to combine different triangular designs into shifting hexagons and create  a constantly varying depth across the whole quilt”. This is a feat of engineering. I had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife.

This painted quilt is over 21′ long! It is stunning. I regret that somehow I did not get detail shots of this one. Helen Godden made this quilt as an homage to her country of Australia.

You cannot imagine how much hand work there is in this beautiful quilt – hand pieced, appliqued, embellished, embroidered and quilted along with some Boro work. Every inch of this quilt is filled with charming details. She made this quilt for her daughter.

And now, some of the many incredible quilts at the show, in no particular order. A little write-up on each would have been lovely, but then I wouldn’t post until 2024! Each photo has been cropped and color adjusted if necessary.

Part 2 is in the works. I hope to post it in the next day or so. Also following that post will be posts on Market, teaching and the experience of being at Festival. I’ll be linking up with:

Nina Marie’s Off the Wall