Favorites from Festival

My sore feet were testament to the hours I spent walking the Houston Quilt Festival show floor, studying the hundreds of quilts on display. It takes several trips through the show to really absorb everything - the quality and range of work is amazing and there is something to be learned in every aisle.

This year's Best in Show quilt exhibited the most amazing quilting, black thread on a white background, a bold move as every mistake would show more clearly. The stitching was amazingly close together and there were countless stitch patterns on the quilt. I was fascinated at the quilter's mastery of stitching - her award was well deserved.

Quilting skills are like any other skill, it takes countless hours of practice and many "uglies" before mastery is achieved. I am in awe of quilters who have the amazing patience it takes to create a work with detailed applique or microscopic stitching, like the quilt above. The quilt show exhibits an enormous range of work and techniques, traditional and contemporary, painted, pieced, dyed, discharged, embellished, the list goes on.

Here are some more images of quilts (or pieces of quilts) that caught my eye. My apologies to the artists for not having their name, or the name of their work, I didn't take notes as I took photos.

The Lily of the Valley quilt was one of my favorite quilts in the show. Dozens of batiks were used to create a realistic image of one of my favorite flowers.

As an aside, I'll tell you why it's one of my favorites... First, who can resist the amazing scent of the Lily of the Valley? I have a small patch of them in my garden and many a morning, I pick one stem as I leave home to run errands. The scent fills my car as I go about my morning, just delicious! My Mother carried a bouquet of Lily of the Valley when she and my father got married, a match made in heaven, IMHO. When we were young girls, maybe only six and eight, my sister, Valerie, and I decided we would pick my Mother a bouquet of Lily of the Valley. We proceeded to pick every single stem of flowers in the garden, snipping them just below the last "bell", leaving no stem to go into a vase to drink up water - what did we know about picking flowers? Mom was gracious in accepting our gift, followed by a little lesson in how to pick flowers, with stems. I also love them because they are among the first flowers of spring - the best part being that they totally take care of themselves once established in a garden. Yummy flowers shown in a fabulous quilt.

This long and narrow quilt was another favorite. I loved the unusual shape the arts and crafts feel of the image and the color palette. Again, the artist used a wide variety of fabrics to create texture and depth. I adore this quilt and can only wish that I will someday be able to find the patience it takes to make a work with this kind of detail.

This parrot quilt was AMAZING. The feather texture was so realistic, countless tiny pieces of fabric and a mastery of color and light made this a quilt that I studied for a long time. Again, I long for the patience it takes to make a work like this!

Well, that's the end of my HQF highlights for today...

One of the things I like to do as I walk a quilt show is assess my own quilt skills. I walk around saying either "gee, I could have made that" or "holy mackeral, that's way over my ability". I usually fall somewhere in between, confident in my work but knowing that there is so much left to learn and so many people whose skills are far beyond my own. Mostly, what I leave with, is a sense of wonder over the countless ways that quilting has evolved, from a functional source of warmth to a work of art, and how the making of quilts has grown from hand stitched scraps to all of the amazing techinques that are now used. The sky is the limit with quilting, I can't wait to see what's next!

Shopped till I dropped!

After my initial post, I never got back to blogging about my visit to the Houston Quilt Festival...many weeks later, here it is....

For a quilter, there is nothing like fabric shopping at the Houston Quilt Festival. If it exists in the quilting world, it is there.

The first day I shopped, I bought some hand-dyed wool selvedge bundles from Mary Flanagan Woolens. As I passed by her booth again, I decided that I just had to have more of them - when will I ever see them again? Since they are only $2.50 a bundle, it was not an expensive decision (which is a good thing because, well, the picture speaks for itself, lol). I didn't know what I was going to do with them - I just had to have them!

Cherrywood is one of my very favorite booths - their hand-dyed fabrics and delicious bundles of coordinated colors are irresistable! I've been using their fabrics for a lot of the stencil techniques I've been coming up with and love that the fabric/dyes respond well to everything I put on it. I sometimes purchase through their web site but there is nothing like "hands-on" fabric shopping.

Two other booths that I always make a point of visiting are Laura Murray Designs and Artistic Artifacts. Laura Murray takes apart vintage kimonos and overdyes the fabrics. The results are fabulous, interesting pieces of silk that can be used for all kinds of projects. I'm a big fan of her "scrap bags" - they are always full of great pieces and unusual colors. Laura Murray is also a Paintsticks expert with terrific books & videos on the topic. Artistic Artifacts sells a wide variety of vintage fabrics, trims & goodies and their booth is an endless adventure. My favorite item is their bundles of hand-dyed vintage textiles. They take old doilies, hankies, dishtowels, laces and other vintage textiles and dye them in coordinated, gradated bundles. Each bundle is unique and contains a LOT of fabric and trim. I've used them to make tote bags, quilts, vests, garment embellishments, gifts, and more. The hardest part about shopping in their booth is maintaining self-control (yeah, right, as if I can... at least I can pretend that I tried!).

Another thing that caught my eye was the booths full of hand-dyed wool. I tried to talk myself out of starting to collect yet another type of fabric but, in the end, I folded (ha ha, a little fabric pun). Before I left Houston I had made significant progress on a "penny" quilt mat and I'm working on another one, trying to make it using all flower shapes. I'm going to work on it while I'm on the mend (it's all hand work) and will post pictures of both next week.

I also bought two new gizmos towards the end of the year - the L Letterpress machine and a Felting/Embellisher machine. I've yet to unpack either but am looking forward to playing with both (of course, I had to buy roving in a lot of colors to use with the embellisher.... I swear, it all started when I was a kid with that box of 64 Crayola crayons. I was never satisfied with the box of 16, I had to have the box of 64, I needed ALL the colors...an addiction that continues).

Needless to say, I did my part to support the quilt industry while I was in Houston!

To catch you up on my sudden disappearance... I had been having some problems with weakness in my left arm which was getting progressively worse through November. Steve & I went on a Carribean cruise after Thanksgiving and I nearly dropped a plate after going through the buffet line. One doctor visit led to another with a whole alphabet of tests, CT, MRI, EMG, etc., all resulting in the decision that my weakness was caused by pinched nerves in my neck from two herniated discs and a bone spur. On January 3rd, I had surgery to fix the problem and I am now at home, recovering. I can already feel an improvement in my arm and am relieved to have the surgery behind me. The weakness was exhausting & I have done very little in my studio since October because of it. My goal is to recover from my surgery and regain energy for creative endeavors. I'm thankful to have such wonderful doctors who have been genuinely concerned about me and how to make things better.

Time for a little rest... I'll post again next week.

Houston Quilt Festival

Last night was the opening of the Houston Quilt Festival show floor - it's as amazing as I remember! I haven't been for a few years and I didn't realize just how much I missed it until I walked in last night.

I decided to spend the first night visiting my favorite vendors so I could shop from their best selection. When I'm at a show, I shop only for unusual supplies and things I need to see or feel (shopping on line for fabric just doesn't always work). I loaded up on hand-dyed fabrics and scrap bags (I love scraps!). One of my favorite finds was at a vendor who hand-dyes wool. She was selling bundles of selveges - they have wonderful lettuce like edges and were very inexpensive. I have a couple of ideas brewing about what I'll do with them.

As I hauled my treasures back to my hotel I thought I had shopped enough & that my next day would be spent just enjoying the quilts. However, after a little playing with my new finds, I'm hungry for more. I'm sure I missed a lot last night - visiting the show floor will be a new adventure today. There's plenty of time to look at the finished quilts tomorrow...

Last night, I picked up a one pound bag of long skinny scraps at the Cherrywood booth (amazing hand-dyed fabrics). As I was considering the colors, another quilter looked at them and asked me "What will you do with those? They are SO skinny!". I told her that I don't have to know what I want to do with things, the possibilities are enough for me.

So, here I am in Houston, shopping for I-don't-know-what, bringing home the adventure of new materials, to continue my journey to I-don't-know-where, finding joy in the possibilities that surround me. Quilter's bliss.

More tomorrow...

My yarn garden...

The book from my last entry was "100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet" (I did only crocheted flowers as I don't knit). I had fun shopping for the yarn and selected lightweight ones, like baby yarn and sock yarn. The book doesn't give specifics on yarn types or hook sizes so it was a matter of experimentation & finding what I was comfortable with. I settled on an "E" hook. I have my Nana's tiny hooks that she used for making doilies & teeny tiny flowers but I can't yet master using such a little hook (and I treasure the teeny flowers I have that she made even more!).

So, here's my little garden of flowers. I have no idea of what I will use them for but they were fun to make. My favorite is the large daisy-ish flower. The marigold (orange flower) is my least favorite - I don't think I'll be making any of those again! The instructions in the book were very good - even better were the illustrations showing small schematics of each flower, stitch by stitch. I know I will be referring back to this book for future projects.

On to this week's book.... "layered, tattered & stitched" by Ruth Rae. I love the look of a torn edge, be it fabric or paper. This book features projects with raw, sometimes frayed, edges. It sets aside all the rules of quilting that involve square corners & finished edges, encouraging experimentation and the creation of rich, layered projects.

I recently picked up some new hand-dyed vintage textiles at a quilt show - perfect for using in projects from this book. Check back to see what I've come up with!

Anyone heading to the Houston Quilt Festival? I am happy to report that I am going this year and that I even managed to score a room at the Hilton Americas (the one attached to the convention center). I haven't been able to go for a few years and I am super excited about the trip. There is nothing like the HQF! Hope to see you there!

class with Maya

Yes, I did take the class with Maya and it was great! She is such a gentle, peaceful soul, don't you think? She brought piles of things to play with - it's amazing what can be made from cereal boxes & newspapers!

Paper projects & what's next...

I had fun with the projects in "Playing With Books". I didn't make anything complicated - just a few simple ones. I love my new pencil cup - I just rolled pages of a book & added little strips of color to give it some pizzazz. I glued them around a cardboard tube. Cute & quick.

I cut a bunch of circles from the magazine "Above" which prints on paper that is NOT clay coated - that makes it perfect for collage or other paper projects because it doesn't wrinkle like regular magazine pages. "Boho" magazine is another great magazine that uses the non-clay coated paper. Back to my circles... I cut a bunch of circles of varying sizes between 1" - 2". Ran a string between two circles & glued them together - keep going down the length of string with more circles for a fun and colorful garland. What a cute party decoration it would make...

Finally, I made an adorable paper flower out of book pages. It just takes a few simple folds to make a petal section - glue five sections together for the whole flower.

I love creating with simple, sometimes cast-off items. At the Squam art conference I took a class that was all about making art out of humble materials like cereal boxes, paper tubes and burlap sacks. Creative recycling at it's best!

"Playing With Books" also includes more complex projects like carving pages into beautiful sculptural works and cutting books into shapes with a band saw. I wasn't feeling that ambitious but have enjoyed reading about the work and seeing the photos. Some pretty amazing stuff.

The next book I'll be working from is "100Flowers to Knit & Crochet" by Lesley Stanfield. I read about it on Jenny Doh's blog and ordered it about two minutes later. Look at those yummy flowers on the cover! My Nana (my Mom's mother) used to crochet teeny flowers, I have a few forget-me-nots that she made out of fine crochet cotton. I'll be working with yarn - I've never been able to master working with the teeny crochet hooks used with crochet cotton. I'm looking forward to making a little garden of flowers to have as a stash of embellishments for future projects.

I'm also getting ready to head to Houston for the Quilt Festival. I haven't been there for a few years and am SO looking forward to being inspired by the fabulous quilts on display (and, of course, tempted by the offerings of the vendors!).

Hope you enjoyed reading about my projects! Happy autumn...

Back to Books...

My blog started with project called "Bookworm 52" and the original plan was to make one project a week from a book selected from my personal library. I did pretty well sticking to that at the beginning and then I drifted into other things. I decided it's time to return to the original plan - at least for this week, anyway.

"Playing With Books" (Quarry) by Jason Thompson is chock full of an amazing array of projects to make out of books. I've selected several projects that I'll be working on over the next few days & will post pictures when I'm done. I'm also thinking that some of the projects will translate nicely to fabric so I'm going to play with that a little bit too.

Speaking of paper... I couldn't resist buying the L Letterpress machine. I picked it up last week and can't wait to play with it! It's pretty much like a small die cut machine but instead of putting metal dies in the machine, you put raised images that look a lot like clear rubber stamps (the ones you mount on lucite blocks). I'm thinking I can use it for paper lithography also - something I really loved doing in my printmaking class earlier this year. Lots of plans for fun things.... anyone know how I can add a day to the week?

I'm anxious to start my playing with book pages... until next time, keep crafting!