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!