SWOON! This year was the 40th anniversary (the ruby anniversary) of the International Quilt Festival, and the 35th Anniversary of the (wholesale, to the trade) International Quilt Market.
This year absolutely was the biggest and best Festival I’ve seen, with true exhibits (not just husband’s lounge and charitable booths) all the way to the far wall. And at the main doors, this display inspired by the phenomenal red and white exhibit in New York city a couple years ago.
One of the best things this year didn’t happen to me, but to Barb Black. Barb greets all the teachers in the Teacher’s Room when you arrive, gives you your schedule, room assignments, paperwork, marching orders, goodie bag, solves problems and is just generally wonderful to us. Well, Barb made a red and white quilt. And HER QUILT was selected to be the theme quilt for this year’s show, on the entrance signage, banners in downtown Houston, on the show bag, and on display front and center right as you walked in. I could SWEAR I took photos, but I can’t find them, so you’ll just have to enjoy her quilt on my bag (and I KNOW I took pics from the back side to see the quilting!). I tell you, there were teachers all over the planet whooping it up because “OUR Barb” was on the bag!
Barb Black’s beautiful red and white quilt on the 40th Anniversary International Quilt Festival show bag. GO BARB!
And just for fun, here’s a peek into the teacher’s room. The whole back wall is FILLED with boxes the teachers ship from all over the world to the Teacher’s Room with kit supplies, things to sell, handouts, you name it. The area is organized alphabetically, so the first thing you do after checking in with Barb is go find your boxes!
Teacher boxes…my stuff was at the far end. I can tell this is early in the week because the boxes are still shut!
On Monday, I taught my intro class Let’s Machine Quilt.
The students were stupendous. Here are some samples of the work the students did in class, and most professed to be rank beginners. I thought they did a great job!
Here’s the class hard at work, with my samples up on the foam core boards at the front.
More student work–you really can write your own name!
And yet another sample.
This year I wasn’t in a Janome room, but was in Bernina instead (no idea why). We had a WONDERFUL Bernina helper, the nice lady in the tray hair and dark top at showing how to thread the machine.
This is a fun exercise…quilting along a line and the other one no one ever believes will work, but does: “driving” through the intersections.
On Tuesday, I gave an 11 am lecture, How Did She do That? This talk is essentially a digital trunk show with some live quilts, telling folks “how I did that.” I love giving it, and change it up at pretty much each venue. Since Tuesday is the day AFTER Market ends and the day before Festival begins, most folks are traveling or in classes during that time so the crowd was small, but it went well. Since my talk was the middle of the day, I couldn’t head out to museum-hop or shop in Houston, so I attended Pam Holliday’s lecture, which was just before mine.
Pam Holliday’s quilt of her cat
And this GLORIOUS quilt based on Pam’s photography (she’s an amazing photographer, too). Shot taken during her lecture.
And of course you run into friends:
With Luana Rubin of eQuilter, whom I first met at Festival in 2003! Luana always looks so lovely!
I discovered that I needed something for my Wednesday class, so after my talk I walked up to a RiteAid a half mile or so away. On the way back I spotted this and had to take a picture:
Inspiration is everywhere….got any idea what it is?
A wall inside an office-building!
The lobby–the grain,m the texture of the stone reminded me of the froth on waves.
Next post will cover my Birch Pond Seasons class, which I’ll be teaching next at Maine Quilts 2015 here in Maine !
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