Images from my quick visit to Quilt Market…

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I stopped long enough to take a photo of the construction in the daylight. Downtown Houston has been looking better every year. It’s more crowded, bustling, cleaner, and there is a lot more that is interesting to look at. I suspect that next year the Convention Center is going to look better than it ever has.

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I took the next two shots before market opened so the folks you see here are vendors. It will be a lot more crowded once the doors are open and shop owners start walking the floor. It will be even more crowded when Quilt Festival opens. The booth occupants will change, the floor plan generally remains the same.

The opening in the far, white wall goes to the quilts. Aisle 1 starts there…

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Turn and look in the other direction and wayyyyyy down there is aisle 29. This is an event that requires good, sturdy footwear.market-03

C&T had our new book, Wool Applique the Piece O’ Cake Way, prominently displayed!

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I didn’t stop to photograph many booths because I was moving fast. I did stop at Art Gallery Fabrics because of this wall:

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The fabric designer showcased here is Maureen Cracknell. I was lucky enough to get to visit with her for a little bit. She is a lovely young woman who has designed some wonderful fabric. She also has a great eye for display!

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It’s not just that the butterflies are pretty, it’s the way the colorless butterflies flow into the colorful ones. They enhanced the fabric that was displayed with them.

In a similar way, RJR used origami cranes…

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I didn’t know until just now that there is an RJR Quilt With Love blog! Click here.

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If you go on social media and look for #quiltmarket you’ll find lots more photos. Tomorrow I’ll post a few quilt images.

Look out!

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I live in Texas and I am here to tell you that this state is all about road construction. And, in most cases, Texas focuses and gets the job done in good order. But sometimes crews focus on one part of a road, get that done, and then move to the next stretch so it can feel like there is never progress. 

I have been coming to Houston in the fall for 21 years and there are always streets torn up downtown. There are fewer this year but there is a huge amount of new construction in progress.

This year the construction that quilters will notice the most is in front of the George R Brown Convention Center. (I took these photos early this morning before the sun came up.)

  
Entrances at ground level are few. The buses are dropping off at the parking garage next to the Hilton where you can ride an escalator up to the walkway on the 2nd floor to the convention center. It works well. 

  There is remodeling going on inside as well. It may be a little inconvenient this year but I’m looking forward to seeing the changes next year. Truly, this city is prettier every year. 

From Houston…

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I’m in Houston for Quilt Market. My friend, Catherine, came with me. She’s not a quilter (yet) so this is an adventure!

Work begins tomorrow but today we had time to go to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. It was fabulous!

  

We walked through this tunnel between buildings several times. It was way cool. 

Here are a few pieces that caught my eye…  

A woodcut by Alex Katz (above) And this by Jonathan Borofsky (below). 


There was a special Mark Rothko exhibit that I really enjoyed. This yellow one was my favorite… 

   

The red (above) and black (below) also made me happy. 

  
There was a Shadow Monster interactive exhibit. That’s me! 

  

And there’s Catherine! It was so much fun the make these giant shadows on the wall!

 
After the museum we checked into the hotel and then went to the convention center to get our badges and to walk around the park across the street. It has grown into a lovely space. 

  


Catherine spotted these lovely reflections on the walk back to the hotel. 

  

More tomorrow!

Show and tell…

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Lindsay Fulmer emailed with photos and a story of her Spring Wheels quilt. She wrote:

I came across the Spring Wheels pattern from the Once Upon a Season book many years ago when I was a beginner quilter. A few years ago when I felt as though I could take on the quilt, I decided to just pull up my big girl pants and do it. I used a white on white Lakehouse dot for the background and each wheel has a unique Kaffe Fassett fabric. I have been collecting his fabrics for years.

FG Kaffe Wheels Show

The quilt won first place for Large Contemporary and Viewers Choice at the Flying Geese Quilt Guild show called “Harvest of Quilts”. It’s also been shown at Road 2 California. I had Judi Madsen of Green Fairy Quilts do the machine quilting – all done on a long arm however not computerized. The only requirement I had of her was to not quilt on the Kaffe fabric, just on the white. Otherwise, she had full reign over the quilt. Click here to see Judi’s blog post.

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Recently my husband found my quilt on Facebook….he had seen a post from his childhood art teacher. It’s amazing the power of social media! There are over 26k likes at this point. Click here to see that post.

Lindsay, let me add that I think you made a fantastic quilt! Congratulations on the acclaim you are getting for it. For those of you who haven’t made Spring Wheels, I think we would both say that it is too much fun to miss out on.

Rocky Mountain highhhhhhh….

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I had a completely wonderful time at the Colorado Quilting Council fall retreat. Many quilters (including me) enjoyed spectacular views of the Black Forest from the The Hideaway. The ladies were enthusiastic and excellent company, the place is great, the food is good. If you have an opportunity to go to this retreat, you should!

I taught Pickup Sticks, a pieced quilt from The Quilters Practical Guide To Color. It is both an easy and tricky quilt design. Once you get it, it’s really easy… but getting it takes concentration. Everyone in the room was up for the challenge and made progress. I didn’t take enough photos, but you can see that what was going on in the classroom.

Pickup Sticks at CQC Fall Retreat
Pickup Sticks at CQC Fall Retreat
Pickup Sticks at CQC Fall Retreat
Pickup Sticks at CQC Fall Retreat
Pickup Sticks at CQC Fall Retreat

I also taught an applique class. I don’t have time in an applique class to take pictures so you just have to imagine the fun :-).

We were above 7,000 feet. By the 3rd day I could really tell that I had to breath a whole lot more than I do at home. Morning walks were out of the question. I like air in my air! I got home this morning and I can say the Sherman, TX, may not have scenic mountains and dry, crisp air, but it has a lot more oxygen. Yay, oxygen!

 

Autumn photo challenge…

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My friend, Catherine, and I are both taking Ricky’s 52 Week Photo Challenge. This week the challenge is ‘autumn’. What a great excuse to go to the Dallas Arboretum! Let me just say, they have the most amazing array of pumpkins, gourds, and autumn flowers on display. Every year, it gets better.

Catherine took this photo of me :-).

Catherine took this photo of me :-).

For me, the photography challenge was to choose the correct aperture and to manually focus. I had to cull many photos, but there were a surprising number of good ones in the group. We also learned some new editing tricks in Lightroom this week that I am very happy to know.

Of the 209 photos I took, I think these are my best choices. Of these, I have several favorites. I’d love it if you let me know which photo you think says ‘Autumn’ AND is also a good photo—in focus, framed well, overall just a nice composition. I thank you in advance the time you spend doing this :-).

FYI: Click on the photo galleries to see bigger photos. Look for the right and left arrows to scroll through the gallery.

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I took a lot of street-scene-with-pumpkin photos. We went on mother and baby/little kid day. The children were decked out to be photographed with the pumpkins and adults were snapping away like crazy. There were also a lot of adults without children in tow (like us) who were there to soak up a beautiful day.

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This is a yearly display at the Arboretum. Right now the pumpkins are firm and looking good. As they sit out in the sun, and later, after we begin to get overnight freezes, they get soft and tired. The display ends at Thanksgiving, but by then they are well past their prime. If you are nearby, now is definitely the time to go!