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I will have several posts about the 2014 Houston International Quilt Festival. I am starting with my experiences at a teacher since my view of the festival was through the eyes of a teacher. Just to give a little perspective, a few facts: The George R. Brown Convention Center is 1.8 MILLION square feet! The Quilt Festival is the largest event in Houston, the largest quilt show in the world and the only event that takes over the whole center. There were 130 plus teachers and I was one of them. Over 65,000 people were expected to attend and this…
I’ll have one more post about PIQF so come back-it will be a surprise. But today’s post includes stunning traditional, portraiture, landscape and wearables. I have many photos that did not make it as my battery ran low and they were too fuzzy to print. Enjoy! Is this not stunning? Ann Marie wrote that she had purposefully taken classes over the last 4 years from some of the top instructors in quilting. This quilt contains all of her quilt educational experiences in one quilt-wow! My photo of the card was fuzzy so I don’t have the specifics on this one,…
I had about 4 1/2 hours to see the vendors and quilts at Pacific International Quilt Festival this year so my photos will reflect that meager time frame. There were entire sections that I missed. What surprised me was how drawn I was to the abstract work! I don’t do abstract…yet. But especially after looking at the ab-strakt-ed group’s work and the Mountain Art Quilters, I think I’m a fan and future compadre! Who knew? So this post will include abstract pieces as well as wholecloth work. I don’t generally take a lot of photos of the winners-I figure there…
Quick post here: I’m packed and ready to go! I’ll arrive this afternoon and hopefully will make the Winner’s Circle tonite. On Wed I have myself scheduled to attend 3 lectures, a lunch and a dinner. I have two quilts on the floor: one in the 500 Traditional Quilts exhibit and my donation quilt to the IQA fundraising auction. Then my teaching begins-all classes full: Thursday Machine Quilters Forum 9AM-Noon “Basting and Blocking” Free Motion Fun: Fills and Frills 2PM-5PM Friday Fabulous Feathers …
It’s been a wild ride this week- finding out I will be published again and prepping for Houston! Last week I said I was giving all my brags at once-who knew? I lied: I was notified this week that my images will be included in the upcoming book “1,000 Quilt Inspirations”. The book includes detail photos from quilters of all genres from around the world! I sent in several photos and I’m not sure which are included. The book is published by Quarry and is available here. I can’t wait to see my copy-WHOOP! I’m also prepping for Houston. You…
A lot of good things have happened over the last few months and I haven’t gotten around to sharing all of them. I thought I’d put them all in one glorious shot of shameless self-promotion. Houston I’m teaching again at Houston International Quilt Festival, the biggest quilt show in the world. I’ll be teaching 4 half-day classes and one full-day class, all on consecutive days, so I’ll be busy. But you already knew all that. 2013-First group of ladies at the Friday Sampler that were excited to learn to quilt feathers The news is that all of my classes filled…
I walk Basset Boy early in the morning during the hot summer months. It’s so early that both night and morning people are sleeping. The stars are usually bright and visible. I LOVE that hour: all is still-even air conditioners, there are no cars, no pedestrians and the whole earth is shrouded in peacefulness and quiet. There is virtually no color and I see most things in silhouette. It’s beautiful. When Elizabeth gave us our Sept assignment and asked us to work with “lost edges” I was, well, lost. I wrote about part of the process here. I am fairly…
I’ll be teaching again at the Houston International Quilt Festival-and this year is its 40th anniversary! The Festival organizers ask each teacher to consider donating a small quilt to an on-site silent auction to raise money for the non-profit IQF. I really enjoyed making my donation quilt this year, come take a look: I started with an eco-printed wool panel purchased from Tin Thimble. If you’re local, you really have to spend a day at the old Loomis Fruit Shed: have a lovely lunch in the atrium, browse one of the coolest nurseries around, enjoy the shops (olive oil, wine,…
I recently developed a new workshop titled “Your Quilt, Your Way” in which I work up several quilting design plans for students based on a submitted image of their work. I just taught it over the weekend and I think it was a good workshop. I worked with 9 student quilt tops (as other participants observed), most of them art quilts. Many times an art quilt demands mindfully chosen but very simple quilting; quilting that enhances, yet neither shouts nor shrinks. If the quilt design is strong on its own, the very best quilting choice may be parallel lines or…
I’m working on the Elizabeth Barton Master Class assignment for this month which calls for “lost edges”. Lost edges recede into the background to create the illusion of form. It was a new concept to me-or so I thought. The more I researched it the more I realized I knew exactly what it was. And indeed, I’d been fascinated with lost edges since the beginning of my quilt making: I made this quilt in 2001, straight from Alex Anderson’s star book. This is one of the blocks. See how the edges of the saw tooth star fade into the background?…