Quilt Festival Houston Part II

More of the sights and quilts at Houston Quilt Festival..      



Of course, there are vendors.......                                                                                      

Hundreds and hundreds of vendors.  I got in trouble with a few - some wonderful watery batiks, a light/magnifier for my machine,  A lovely piece of over dyed cotton from Wendy Richardson, a French cotton tablecloth and napkins, some repro glazed chintz from the ladies from Amsterdam and some big spools of YLI silk thread. There's lots of other stuff arriving the end of the week in my shipped box. 

I spent an hour or so volunteering in the SAQA booth selling books, cards, memberships, etc  where I met some wonderful quilters from Texas and all over the country. The last group  of 12" auction quilts for the SAQA Benefit Auction were exhibited and selling. My Mated for Life II was on the wall in the middle below the sign and sold! Always a great feeling of relief....  Two SAQA shows were on display - Celebrating Silver and Redirecting the Ordinary. What a great experience touring them with SAQA President Kris Sazaki! 

And, of course, there are winners in the judged show.... here are just a few of my favorites among them. 

Nancy Prince won Best of Show for this wonderful thread painted snow scene 

"On This Winter's Day" 

David Taylor's magnificent "Beneath My Wing" won the Fairfield Master Award for Contemporary Artistry for this intimate and sensitive portrayal of a swan and cygnet. All of David's quilts are hand appliquéd and very closely machine quilted - hundreds and thousands of tiny pieces. As you may know from seeing some of my recent work, I have a thing for swans. 

"Hurricane" by Janneke De Vries-Bodzinga of The Netherlands was awarded first place in Art- Abstract- Large. She told me that it is all hand appliquéd, but machine quilted. The color and movement of this was spectacular  - I was completely enthralled. 

The World of Beauty Award - "Gift of Appreciation "by Kyoko Yamauchi from Japan. Such wonderful detail and amazing workmanship. 

"Moody Beach, Maine, 1957" by Margot McDonnell from Arizona won a second place in Art - Pictorial . This one reminded me of the work of the French Impressionist Boudin - I loved the gray skies reflected in the water. 

And so many quilts that are truly outstanding, but went without awards.  I don't always agree with the judges anyway.  Here are some of my favorites from the long aisles of quilts in the judged show Quilts: A World of Beauty.....

Collaged entirely from various colors and sizes and textures of sewn on buttons

"Red Sunflower" by Susan Bianchi of Saratoga, California 

"Treasures of Egypt" by Jennifer Richenberger from Australia (I apologize if the last name is wrong, I can't read my notes) featured wonderful use of unusual fabrics and appealed to my closet Egyptologist soul. 

Two by one of my favorite artists and friend Sherry Kleinman, the one on the left "Geisha" painted painted on canvas and "Waiting Expectantly" on the right drawn on her iPad and then printed digitally. 

"The Iris" by Judith Roderick. Beautiful abstracted image of the flower. Bright clear color. 

Jerry Granata's "Samson and Delilah".  I'm taking his class in January at Road to California on quilting with unusual fabrics. He certainly does that!

My friend and traveling companion Sandra Lauterbach and her moving and very personal piece "The Wailing Wall of Krakow" digitally designed from her photographs, letters and documents telling the story of her Polish family's history in the Holocaust.

And a fabulous antique  from an exhibit of Mary Koval's Collection - a hand painted Indian Tree of Life cotton Palumpur in all its original unfaded glory. 

In the "Inspired By Libby" exhibit (honoring Libby Lehman) Laura Wasilowski's "Libby's Leaves" I adore her use of glowing color and purchased some of her hand dyed fabrics at the show. 

 

In a beautiful exhibit of French patchwork masterpieces sponsored by Bohin  "Etoile De Bethlehem"by Nathalie Ferri - quilting is truly international. 

So by 3:30 on Saturday afternoon I was totally exhausted and limped over to the lovely and comfortably elegant Four Seasons Hotel across the park to repair myself over a lovely pot of tea and pick up my bags before going off to the Airport. Festival is a terrific experience - absolutely go if you can! So much inspiration that I can't wait to get back into my studio and create something.  Won't be there next year, but see you there in 2016...

Check out http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com for "Off the Wall Fridays"

On my Design Wall Right Now....

I've been working on the quilt I began in David Taylor's class at the International Quilt Festival Long Beach last month. The subject is my son at the age of 10 (he's now 19 and away at college) at summer camp on a Lake in the High Sierras. I photoshopped his image from a party at a gym on to another photo of Shaver Lake and presto! I've had this quilt in my mind for a couple of years and finally, thanks to David, the design was finalized.

The fabric selection for the background was done in a couple of days at home - a wide range of hand dyes and batiks plus some hand marbled fabric for the dead log. The photo shows the end of that process with all the pieces pinned together on my design board. Another few days to turn the edges over the freezer paper, and then it was glued together. Obviously I decided not to use David's hand applique' technique - it's just not me - too impatient for that. I've used Elmers to glue the edges and have sewn it down with zigzag.

Another couple of days have been spent thread painting David's image and adding branches to the large trees. I'm at a quandary right now regarding how much thread painting to do now versus quilting after it is sandwiched. I will attempt David's close quilting to put in some shading and detail in the background.

I've also completed a little art quilt called "Autumn Haze" which I've added to my Etsy shop
and to my website which started as a sample of a short 20 minute demo for the Santa Monica Quilt Guild on "Thread Painting". After the demo I brought it home, added some rubber stamped images, beading and three different patterns of quilting. I love the hazy green/rust "fallish" colors. (I guess I'm ready for the end of summer...) The demo must have been a success since I've been asked to do a full day workshop for the Guild in April. Another adventure....

"Night Flight " will be at Houston After All!

I'm very happy to say that the problem I mentioned with Quilts, Inc. and my quilt "Night Flight" which was part of Celebrate Spring at Chicago Festival has been resolved and it will, after all, be included when the exhibit travels to Houston Festival in October. I received this news and an apology for the office mistake this last week and I am extremely pleased that two of my quilts will be there. I only wish I could get there, too, since these lucky stars will probably never be aligned this way again! Sadly, It's not in the cards this year to make another quilting trip - I'm already set up for a weekend at Road to California and a week at Asilomar in the spring. I hope to find someone to take photos of my quilts hanging there.

Meanwhile I'm well into selecting the fabrics for my piece from the David Taylor class in Long Beach. It looks great on the wall so far... Maybe an in process photo soon.