Thursday, November 6, 2008

More Houston Quilt Festival fun

After a "brief'" pause for attending my guild's retreat, I'm back with a few more comments about the International Quilt Festival in Houston.
I'll be sharing more quilts as the days go along, but in all honesty, I need a day or two working with the show catalog to get all the correct info attached to the pictures. Giving proper credit to the quilt makers is always important.

"Seasonal Sisters" by Gail Thomas, Annette M. Hendricks, and Helen Godden of Vernon, , BC, Canada. (The World of Beauty Award, $7,500 sponsored by TheQuiltShow.com)

What could be more wonderful than three quilting sisters standing in front of their award-winning quilt? They claimed their faces hurt from smiling so much... and they were still smiling hours later when I saw them in the lobby of the Hilton. And I can understand why!

To see pictures of all the winning quilts, you can go to the International Quilt Association site http://www.quilts.org/winners.html

There are so many things going on at Festival, it's impossible to do them all. Several "make-it & take-it" classes and demos were set up in the show or vendors' areas.

Making quilts for orphans in Addis Abada, Ethiopia, is a project sponsored by June Colburn and Noreen Fling. You could make some blocks at this sit & sew, using sewing machines sponsored by Janome. I'll be talking more about this project, "Quilts Beyond Borders", as I have several friends involved. Noreen told me they hope to have a very well-known person to be sharing the children's needs with his large group of fans, but I can't tell until it happens! (hint: are you a member of the posse?)

"Olama" by Susan Shie of Wooster, OH

The "Patchwork Politics" special exhibit featured both serious and humorous quilts with political themes. I am a great fan of Susan Shie's work (visit her Turtle Moon studio to enjoy more!) and was delighted to see this one, as well as another in the SAQA exhibit "Masters: Art Quilts". The 2007 work above uses an air pen for her journaling method, while the garden themed quilt in the in the Masters exhibit was written in hand embroidery, her original method. Everyone seems to agree the air pen writing is much better for her hands!
No photography allowed in the Masters exhibit (and a few others)!
But there is a
beautiful book from Lark Books called "Masters: Art Quilts Major Works by Leading Artists" Martha Sielman, author and curator, which more than covers the quilts shown at the Festival. If you like art quilts, this is a wonderful book with all color pictures, over 300 pages and a fantastic price!

I include the follwing for A. CoffeeQueen:

The breakfast of champions! Champion show-attendees, that is. ACQ missed the Houston show for the first time in a few years, and I know she will feel better seeing that the Starbuck's was well supported. I wish I could have shared this banana bread with her.
It was all consumed by the time Cherry-Cherry made it through the line with her scone (sorry...no scone photo available). That's the difference between ordering a black coffee and a mocha-latte.
If only CC had realized, she'd have taken the plain coffee, too.

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