Rhonda Bracey: At Random

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).

We had a ‘leisure’ day today, although almost everyone decided to join the group for a trip to Walmart and to an outlet mall (there’s nothing similar in Australia!). Many dollars were added to the local economy 😉 And many in the group acquired the super power of ‘extreme shopper’. Oh, I had another freshly made hot soft pretzel at Auntie Anne’s in the outlet mall — it was a jalapeno and cheese one and was SOOOO good.

Next stop was an out of the way place in New Holland, PA (Cedar Lane Dry Goods, 204 Orlan Rd) that seemed to mostly sell to the local Amish and Mennonite communities, based on the fabrics and clothing in their store. I could have bought a black cap worn by the females for $12.50, but didn’t. The big attraction for many in our group were the quilt tops made by local women — they all cost around $200 each for a queen bed size top, and were an absolute bargain at that price because I know how much fabric, time, effort, and work goes into making them. Many of the ladies will take them home and finish them off, adding the batting and backing, then quilting them, then adding binding. Some may just keep them as they are as an example of an authentic quilt from Lancaster County, PA. I didn’t buy one — I have enough quilts!

Our final stop of the day was a post office where some of the women sent home boxes of things they’ve purchased along the way. This wasn’t cheap. A single flat rate box with up to 20 lb of goods cost around $95 to send to Australia; some sent several. You could buy a suitcase at Walmart for about $30, then pay the excess baggage charge (say, another $30) and still be in front. However, you have to schlep that extra luggage, and for some that wasn’t an option.

I took very few photos today — the first two are of a car parked in the hotel car park, as viewed from the bus (Halloween is in a few days… at least, I hope that’s the reason he had the skeleton in there trying to get out!). The ‘doe in rut’ can was spotted in Walmart.