Back from Houston IQA Festival!

Ah, it's nice to be home, even if there's effectively a 3-hour time difference to adjust to, with the time change! Houston was wonderful, inspiring, exciting, and fun. I had a delightful visit with my sister Rosellen Bohlen, who's now a confirmed quilter with 4 classes under her belt and the fabric purchases to prove it. It was also great to run into (and have lunch with) my friend Nadine Sanders from Lark Camp (my music camp where I play fiddle every summer, over on the Mendocino coast), whose guild won the group quilt first prize. Nadine was on the breakfast crew with me the first two years I went to camp, and is a weaving instructor from Washington and now Minnesota. She calls herself The Singing Weaver (www.singingweaver.com). Her Washington quilt group, called Hanging by a Thread, did portraits of themselves using only Kaffe Fassett fabrics (top picture).

Then I ran into my husband's cousins Gayle Simpson, Marilyn Simpson Recupero, and Marilyn's daughter Zoe Williams, whom I always see at Houston whenever I go there. Zoe had a quilt in the small abstract category, which was about her coming out on the bright side of some serious health challenges (second picture).

I hadn't remembered that Leila's Debke Dancing and Laura's Dark Angel and Coastways Florabundance (mis-labeled Say It With Flowers) were going to be in the show, so it was delightful to see them in the special exhibits. Ann's Gettysburg Address quilt headlined the Text on Textiles exhibit and showed really well, I thought (third picture).

Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures of Laura's and Leila's, and forgot to take pictures of a whole lot of other quilts, like mine and Joyce's and Ann's competition quilts. But I did manage to take pictures of 199 other quilts and their artists' statements.

One last picture: Our Mendocino Woven Connections, with me (bottom picture).

It looked great up there. Alas, no ribbons, but the other group quilts were indeed cool and very tough competition.

All told, including Ann's auction miniature quilt and the quilt she had hanging in the Wonderfil vendor booth, I think the group had 11 quilts displayed at Houston! Some kind of record!

Vicky, Marilyn, Ann, Renee, and Joyce in Houston

From Joyce:

Home Again, hey ya’all! Houston was fabulous this year – the quilts just blew us away! As usual, the display set up was wonderful. Away from the maddened shopping crowds. Quiet, spacious and a total feast for the eyes. The shopping kinda grabbed most of us although as usual, Miss Ann shopped us all under the table with the rest of us trailing behind. She will of course make fabulous use of the fabrics in the future. It was sweet to spend time together and the attached picture was taken by Marilyn’s wonderful sister Rosellen on our last night just before we went to Masa’s for a great dinner.

Lots of memories to review and contemplate.

PIQF Stars

Here's another proud quilter at PIQF. Renee Gannon stands in front of her Hawaii quilt, Lo'i Kalo. It's part of our Hawaii quilt project and is an abstraction of taro fields near where she stays in Kaua'i every year. She used dupioni silk which gives it that lovely shimmer.



And here is Ann Horton, happy with her Judge's Choice ribbon for her quilt, Basket Arrangements. Gloria Loughman was the judge. Ann used several photos taken by her daughter, Jesse Horton, in Guatemala. Ann had two other quilts in the show. She's been winning ribbons like crazy it seems. Yay for Ann, and all our group members with quilts in this show.

Most of us went down to Santa Clara for 2 days and enjoyed the show, and the vendors, especially Ananse Village where Vicky, Laura and I came away with some gorgeous batik and tie dye fabric from Africa. We also just had a great time hanging out together, eating light meals by the pool, enjoying the sun and admiring everyone's fabric and thread purchases. Part of our group is bound for Houston in November. I'll be traveling in Israel and Egypt then, so I will miss the IQA show, but I'm really excited about the inspiration and adventures I'll have there.

PIQF

PIQF was indeed stimulating and validating for me. I must admit I got a lot of pleasure watching people interact with my quilts, which were hung in a great place between the two big rooms of the show. But mostly seeing all the great art there made me want to get busy and finish the quilts I've got going and start new ones!

PIQF

Fall is a busy season for MQA. We are all getting ready for our trip down to PIQF, October 14 and 15. This is always a fun trip for our group. This year we will be enjoying several quilts from MQA that are at PIQF and New Quilts of Northern California. Houston follows and many of the group are attending this year as well. Venturing out to quilt shows is a shot in the arm for any quilter and we make the best of it with good food and lots of conversation about art and the quilt world.