Can Quilt Festivals Give You Jet Lag?

When returning from overseas travel, I found that it takes me about 5 days to recover from jet lag and feel like I am fully functional. Going to the International Quilt Festival has the same impact on me! Five days of classes, shopping, photographing amazing works of art, lunching with dear friends takes some recover time. Not to mention the overload that one feels from the mass of creative energy and ideas.

I am working on a small art quilt for a gallery exhibit. Here is a detail of some of the quilting lines.

Quilts are defined as having a top layer, middle layer (batting) and a bottom layer; all joined by stitches. This art quilt will have four layers, an additional layer of organza (that is if my experiment works out)!

I have a layer of water soluble stabilizer on the top and bottom with the organza sandwiched in between. The plan is to stitch the outlines and then cut out some areas. I'm hoping the thread will keep the organza cut outs from fraying and the stabilizer will keep the organza nice and smooth. Since the stabilizer is kind of thick, flat head pins are going to substitute for basting.

I'll let you know how my experiment goes. Any suggestions are welcome!

Sunflower

During class with Melinda Bula, I determined that I had to have a french border print to complete the sunflower quilt.

Immediatly after class, I went down to the IQF show floor with my sunflower work-in-progress and found the vendor with the wonderful french fabrics. Their fabrics are more of a tablecloth weight than a traditional quilting cotton weight but they had the exact look that I wanted.

It was like a scavenger hunt with several other shoppers digging through the piles of fabrics helping me looking for just the right shades of blue and yellow.

Originally I had planned to use the large sripe with the lavender bundles as part of the border but it did not play well with the sunflower. Funny, with the striped fabric cut and reassembled into borders the background looks like a oversized napkin!

Sumflower is now nestled in its' french frame and ready for quilting!

Leaves and Bird

So many blogs this morning referred to autumn leaves that I thought I'd better contribute. While most of the trees are still covered with green leaves here in my part of Texas, some have started to fall. I have no idea where these leaves came from but look at the color! I love the contrast between the soft green moss and the bright red leaves.

I also thought I'd share my little bird painting from my class with Judy Coates Perez at the Houston Quilt festival. I learned a lot from her and will definately do more paintings of this sort. It was also fun to have Judy's daughter Nina in the class as Judy's helper. <

What you are missing in Houston

Here is the Accuweather forecast for the next couple of days in Houston.  Note the "feel like" temperature (a combination of the heat and humidity) of 104 degrees for Wednesday!!  Bring a sweater if you are attending classes at the Houston International Quilt Festival; the air conditioning will be cranked up to extract the humidity and the classrooms could be cold!

Imagine Hope

If I credited one person with inspiring me to consider the contemporary side of quilting it would be Hollis Chatelain.

I can vividly remember the first time I saw The Grandfather.  The love and kindness on the grandfather's face as he peeled the orange; the intent stare of the child waiting for the juicy treat.  My eyes could not drink in the detail fast enough.

Hollis has set up an organization called Imagine Hope Awareness Through Art.  Fourteen of her works will be on display at the Houston International Quilt Festival at the Imagine Hope booth (#814). I will be volunteering at Hollis's booth on Wednesday night and Friday morning and would love to meet you!

Suzan