Back in July or so, I blogged a bit about stripping down the “hippo” chair in our living room. It started like this…nice, but in need of clean, un-ripped (and not dog-chewed) fabric:

It took two weeks of stripping and cleaning and removing of nails. Then, the local place I wanted to buy my upholstery supplies was so expensive I saved $60 or so by ordering (and paying shipping) off the internet. That meant the supplies arrived just before we left on our trip, and one thing led to another and I got back to the chair this past week.

Here is the first stage of stripping from back in July…and yep, that dark dusty stuff is horsehair (which you can’t find any more…at least from upholsterers….stables, maybe!):

Then down to the tatty, dusty, disintegrating, groady, nasty burlap:

and to the tattier place underneath where I discovered a lot of dirt and a missing spring….right in the middle of the seat! This is what the springs looked like before,

And here is the nicely 8-way hand-tied sptings

Here is what the “webbing” (such as it was) looked like on the bottom before:

Now here’s what it looks like now:

And finally, the burlapped “seat”:

Next, replace the horsehair and cotton batting on the seat, the start the cutting and sewing. Think I’ll also burlap the back, as the back-springs and horsehair are a nuisance, and at least burlap will keep them in place and not falling all over…

These past three days I’ve also removed another thousand or so nails, tacks and staples from the past 75 years, replacing some (including one I tried to apply through my left index finger…ouch!), and the one I missed and found my thumb with the tack hammer instead (has a nice black/blue dot under the nail now), and many scratches later… this is not a job for the squeamish or hemopheliac!

Doing the cutting / patterning and sewing will be easy. Alas, i think I also need to take steel wool and finish to the wood. Ugh. Oh well, it will be beautiful again when I finish. Back in a few!

Sometimes you run across simple words of wisdom in unexpected places. Or maybe not so unexpected. I loved this passage, from p. 92 in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I read the book on the way to (and finished it in) Houston.

The story is about a girl who escapes an abusive father in the company of her care-giver. The setting is rural South Carolina, 1964. The two come to live with three black sisters in a town several hours away from the girl’s home. These women are beekeepers, among other things. The story is written from her perspective.

“I hadn’t been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called “bee yard etiquette.” She reminded me that the world was really one big bee yard, and the samer rules worked find in both places: Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and long pants. Don’t swat. Donte even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates, while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”

So that brings me to my final post about Houston. The best thing about Houston isn’t the quilts: it is the quilters! In this wondrous cyber-world that so many of us now inhabit, we can meet and chat with folks from, literally, around the world, just like here on this blog…who woulda thunk this could exist even ten years ago…. so here are the best photos of all, my friends:

Marie is one of the best friends I’ll ever have in life, and now we are on opposite sides of the US…fortunately, we both e-mail well, and have good long-distance plans on our cell phones! You’ve seen this photo before, of us in front of Marie’s quilt, but it’s worth showing again. I saw her last two years ago, in Houston, and it looks like it will be another two years until the next time….

Then there is our Far-Flung-Frayed-Edge, Deborah Boschert (who by the way has just self-published a fantastic little book, and we the Frayed Edges got to be her guinea pigs for part of it I think for our last meeting with her here in Maine–here’s here blog and website). Deborah’s hubby’s work took them to the dark side of the moon (aka Dallas, with apologies to all Texans, but it’s a different world than here in Maine LOL!). It was so so SO wonderful to get her call when she arrived at Festival on Friday and just chum around like we’d last seen each other a week ago, not the better part of a year.

On Saturday night, we went to Mama Ninfa’s for dinner with quite the crowd. My friend Lisa Walton (her blog is here) came the farthest, from Sydney, Australia. She’s the one at the far end of the table. Carol Soderlund (website here), dyeing teacher extraordinaire and just plain fun, is in the green in the middle, and then Deborah. We were quite jolly, having stood in line 90+ minutes with Margaritas and Coco Locos to while away the time! There were five others including Barb and Alex, good buddies of Lisa and Carol’s from California, and some friend’s of Barb’s, so we had a ball.

And here is Janis (tall one in the center, cream top), whom I met on-line on the quiltart and Janome 6500/6600 lists, and ladies from the 6500 whom well all met for the first time in Houston:

It’s SO much fun to meet people….then there are the bazillions of folks from the quiltart list whom I met again or for the first time, mostly at the QuiltArt reception generously hosted by Karey Bresenhan on Friday evening. Alas, I was having so much fun running around getting autographs on my journal book, I forgot to take ANY pictures!

And now, time to eat dinner and spend some quality time on the sofa with (or reading in bed to) the boys.

Here’s the second half…there were just too many photos for one blog post…yeah!

This kimono-shaped quilt was just wonderful no matter how you slice it:

And I know I’ve seen this quilt in a magazine, but where…it has signs of the zodiac on it, and the rope is really braided…..
Another quilt from the Hands All Around was (again!) from Japan, Spring Ocean:

and here is yet another:

One of the things that surprised me most about Houston was walking up to a quilt that was stunning, and it would be made by someone from Japan. The quilts were different in subject, color and style….but they all came from that one country. For most of these I took a photo of the “blurb” sheet next to it; I apologize sincerely, and especially to the makers, of those few where I missed the information and cannot give credit where it is due. If anyone has the missing info, please do tell me!

This quilt was in the Hands All Around exhibit, and was not only immense, but a real stunner. The colors are much livelier than one usually finds in Japanese quilts, yet you still get the feeling this is a Japanese coastal village.

There were a number of stunning quilts in that exhibit, and here is another one from Japan:

This quilt was in the handwork section, and I regret I don’t have the maker’s name..I’ll see if I can find my program tomorrow and figure it out that way:

First Place in Art Pictorial went to —Furusato (My Sweet Old Home) by HATSUKO HIROSE
of FUEFUKI, YAMANASHI, JAPAN

I’m not a fan of taupe and drab, but the complexity of the line and the sublety of this quilt reallyu grabbed my attention:

There are so many more I’ve decided to split this into two posts, so tune back in tomorrow for the rest. Now time to tuck the bairns into bed!

This first quilt is from the “Culture of my Country” exhibit which debuted, I believe, at Quilt Expo in Lyon, France, this past June. This quilt, if I recall correctly, was by a group of women from Spain. It is five quilts stitched to the “roof” (in black) with a medallion at the top. I just loved the feel of their town!

My friend Lisa Walton was in town again…hooray! It is SO much fun to see her, and such a thrill that she can come all the way from Sydney, Australia, to visit the States. This time she and hubby came early for a bit of vacation on the West Coast, then she came along to Houston. Lisa is the creative soul behind “Dyed and Gone to Heaven,” and vends on-line as well as in Australia. She does beautiful hand-dyeds and patterns (some of which are available through Keepsake Quilting), and she made this quilt:

Her friend Nic Bridges, quilted it, and then Lisa added the beads. In the past couple of years she has aacquired a serious bead addiction, and every time I see Lisa’s blog photos of trips to Hong Kong and returning with (literally) kilos of beads and silks I get very jealous (grin!). Here’s a close up:

Coming a bit closer to the US, is this stunner from Ontario, Canada. Can you believe this didn’t win an award? Called The Zodiac by Martha Brown,

the use of fabrics is incredible. I love the four elements in the corners, the effective use of the rusty orange to divide the signs of the zodiac from the blue inner and outer circles…aw heck, I love the whole thing. I could have spent a verrrryyyy long time at this quilt, much longer than the time I had!

In a day or two I’ll post some more of the Japanese quilts that kept grabbing my attention…I’d walk up to an awesome and quilt and there it would be: “Japan” again! Made me go to the library and check out Japanese Detail: Architecture by Sadao Hibi. Talk about (a) eye-candy and (b) inspiration for quilting patterns and design! Someone brought this book to class when I took a workshop with Jane Sassaman in 2003 and I have lusted after it ever since. I may just have to order it finally!