Some of the more unusual or quirky things I saw at the Houston International Quilt Festival this year:
This was a welcome relief for some partners, I’m sure! Recliners, sports on a big screen TV… (though I think it should just be called “The Lounge” or similar)
Ouch!
I only added this because it’s not often you see a group of men inspecting a Dear Jane quilt with the intensity that these guys were
Another all-day class for me today — Painting with Tsukineko Inks, with Judy Coates Perez teaching. She’s a lovely lady, a good teacher, and we got good value for money for our Materials Fee (a set of 12 inks and applicators, fabric, and other goodies). I learned quite a bit, including the use of aloe gel as a medium for painting with these inks using brushes. I wonder who figured out that aloe gel would work so well?
Would I use these techniques again? Very likely, but not often. They are very time consuming.
Below are some photos of the work Judy and daughter have done using the techniques she taught us.
And here are my efforts — The first photo is from the morning where we learned to use the applicator and lend colours; the second is from the afternoon when we applied the inks and aloe gel with paint brushes. I was quite pleased with the passion flower from the afternoon; the leaves? not so much…
Tonight I leave the hotel for the first time to have dinner at a local restaurant with an Australian guy I used to work with in Perth, and his wife.
Our first full day in Houston! First up for me was an all-day class. The least said about it the better, but suffice to say I lodged a formal complaint with the Festival’s Education Office the next morning.
At lunchtime, I caught up with Kim, the owner of Quilting Adventures in Texas, and we shared stories for two very short hours (all-day classes get a two-hour lunch). No margaritas were consumed!
At 5pm the preview night opened for class attendees — this allowed us two hours of unfettered access to the quilt exhibition and the vendor mall. Both are HUGE. After two hours, the public could gain access.
It took me four hours of quick walking to cover the entire area (the total area of the three exhibit halls is some 82,000 square metres), take some 250 photos of just a few of the amazing quilts, and buy most of the things on my list (it was a short list!). My feet and back were done by then, so I crashed in my room — too tired to write this blog post and to process the photos. Later…
In my first hour at the Houston International Quilt Festival, I joined Monika who was on our tour two years ago in the bar for a quick chat. I went to the bar to get my drink and ran into Marilyn, a wonderful quilter and gorgeous person who I sat at a table with for 5 days in Pam Holland’s class at Empty Spools, Asilomar in Feb 2014. She introduced me to Noriko, who is famous in our world.
Then while waiting in line to get into Winners Circle, who should be standing next to me but Sara, who I’ve shared 5-day workshops with several times at Quilting Adventures in New Braunfels, Texas!
When I warned the row behind me at Winners Circle that they were surrounded by Australians, who should stand up and give me a hug but Connie, a quilter I also met at Asilomar! Connie won two ‘Honorable Mentions’ for her quilts this year.
I wonder who I’ll catch up with today?
Up early this morning to check out of the Millennium Broadway hotel and get on the road to LaGuardia Airport. There’s MAJOR construction going on there, so it was a bit confusing for our poor bus driver, but we got there in the end, got checked in without any hassle, and with plenty of time to spare to grab some (expensive and crappy) breakfast and/or lunch at the airport.
Our flight to Houston left a bit late, and there was a terrible noise in the plane coming from what sounded like a dog barking, but was most likely a pump not working correctly. Obviously the pilot and flight attendants weren’t worrying about it, and once we took off, the noise stopped. It started up in a big way when we landed, though. The flight was uneventful. Some of the girls slept, others chatted, or made hexies, or read. Finally, we were in Houston for the International Quilt Festival (IQF) — the ultimate reason for our trip!
Once we’d checked into our rooms, we headed to the registration desk to pick up totes, pins, etc. then met again early in the evening to get in line for Winners’ Circle, where all the Festival prize winners are announced and the winning quilts in each category are revealed. Wow! What a stunning array of quilts. Some have taken thousands of hours (often years), thousands of pieces of fabric, and many kilometres of thread to make. The skill and artistry has to be seen to be believed. Every one has been made from fabric and thread, and what some of these artists can do with that medium is just phenomenal and truly inspirational.
If you’re a Houston resident and have never been to IQF, do yourself a favour and come along to the convention centre for a couple of hours from Thursday 3 Nov to Sunday 6 Nov 2016. Just come to view the quilts; ignore the vendor mall if you have no interest in it. I think it costs about $12 to enter.
(Oh, and one of our tour leaders, Helen Godden from Canberra, won first prize in the ‘Art – Painted Surface’ category, for her work [in collaboration with batik artist Jonathan S Evans of Colorado] — ‘Faces of India’. Way to go, Helen!!!!)
This quilt won the Gammill Master Award for Contemporary Artistry and $5000 cash at the Houston International Quilt Festival. Tell me this isn’t art! I absolutely love it. For those interested: It’s raw edge applique, machine stitched. And it’s BIG. ‘Unknown man’ by Marina Landi and Maria Lucia Azara (Brazil).
The quilt below won ‘Best of Show’ and a $12,500 cash prize. In her artist’s statement, she said it took her a year to make and she used some 8400 pieces of fabric. Look at how she’s captured the reflections in the water! Reflections of Cape Town, by Cynthia England (Texas).
Today was a ‘free’ day in New York City — a day to do as much or as little as we wanted, and what we wanted based on our own interests. I found that another two people were interested in much the same stuff as me, so we joined forces first thing this morning and grabbed a cab to the Chrysler Building. You can’t go up this building, but you can go into the foyer and take photos, which we did. The art deco ornamentation is just gorgeous.
We had plenty of time and it was beautiful sunny day (though colder than yesterday at about 14C maximum) so we decided to amble to the New York Public Library, only to find the main building doesn’t open until 10am. So off to Starbucks for some coffee (a hot choc for me). We were going to do the 11am docent-led tour but got there a bit early and were directed to the free self-guided tour (with audio player and headphones). This was interesting, but not what I’d hoped — I’d thought the docent tour might take us into the back areas, but it doesn’t; the audio tour replicated the docent tour. The architecture, marble carvings, ceilings, art work, bronze doors etc. are just amazing. In addition, the NYPL now houses the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals, which were delightful (especially Piglet!).
After 90 minutes or so at the NYPL, we walked to the Empire State Building. We didn’t want to go any further than the foyer (none of us was keen on going up to the top), but there was a really long line to get in. And then I spotted him! The NYPD Counterterrorism officer who obliged me by having his photo taken with me at the Rockefeller Center on Saturday — he was on duty today at the Empire State Building! I got out my camera and scrolled back through the hundreds of photos to find the photo of him and me, showed it to him and renewed the acquaintance (lots of laughter from him and his partner), and asked if we could just go into the foyer. He pointed us through another door and in we went. Of the 10 million people in NYC, fancy running into the same police officer twice in 3 days!!! And, it’s not what you know, but who you know 😉
Next stop was Macy’s, where we had lunch. I then left my friends as they wanted to go shopping in Macys, and started the 10-block walk back to the hotel, via some of the streets of the Garment District. Although there aren’t a lot of retail shops there, those that are there tend to specialise in just one or a couple of lines — either fabrics, or zippers, or ribbons, or other specialty items.
By the time I got back to the hotel mid-afternoon, my feet were killing me — except for lunch, I’d been on them for nearly 6 hours, and it’s all concrete or marble. I opened the window in my room, turned my leather armchair to face the view, and stuck my feet up on the window sill to take advantage of the cool breeze to cool them down. Ah, bliss!
Wood inlay elevator doors at the Chrysler Building
NY Public Library lion (either Patience or Fortitude)
Entrance to the NY Public Library
Pooh and friends
Thousands of zips!
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 