Early March Quilting

     Here's a little catch-up on quilting in the first few days of March. Linda and I made two baby quilts for gifts. She did the piecing and I quilted and bound them. I quilted a large puzzle meander on one of them and loopy e's and ell's on the other. The fabrics are the same on both but pattern a little different. My favorite binding is a serpentine stitch from the front, which also shows on the back. There was plenty of kitty help on these.

    I call these little pieces Color Blocks; the quilting is done with feed dogs engaged (rather than free-motion quilting). Elizabeth watched closely until it became boring.

Tarbaby trusts me not to cut his feet as he walks on my cutting table.

This large printed flower has free-motion quilting added to enhance the colors.

A group of us are working on new cut-away felt banners for our church (University Baptist Church, Hattiesburg). These Tree of Life design banners will be hung on either side of the baptistry during Ordinary Time. They are approximately 44" x 98". The designs are by Fashions by Sarah.

Thanksgiving--Mark's Visit

Son Mark came for a pre-Thanksgiving visit. He gets so much done when he is here. An unexpected achievement was making friends with Tarbaby--which is HUGE if you know Tarbaby!--tying up the wisteria bush, petting Elizabeth, planting pansies, power washing the flowerbed stones, getting my TV/DVD remotes sorted, getting my blog to accept comments, getting my computer information and passwords into a safe storage instead of on bright pink pages beside the computer, getting PBQ stuff to storage unit, dealing with frozen Kindle Fire PaperWhite, canceling Norton that I was paying for but not using. All this along with giving Elizabeth lots of demanded attention. I wish I could have photographed all the little tasks and problems he solved for me. He even helped Linda and me get two quilts layered and ready for quilting.

Tarbaby accepting Mark's petting

tying up wisteria vines

Roy used to love to pick the flowers to bring into the house to me

Lady Banksia rose and wisteria 

power washing flowerbed stones

My password filing system--bright pink pages--no longer

Computer tasks with  Elizabeth's help

Layering quilts help

For many years my family celebrated Thanksgiving at my brother's home in Austin. Roy and I would drive from Mississippi through East Texas and pick up our parents to go on to Austin. Terry Weeks and his wife Kay still host and invite any family and friends who can come. It is a great time to get to see my nephews and nieces and other friends who love to go to Terry's. Such happy memories and so much to be thankful for!

Houston Quilt Festival 2012

George Brown Convention Center

I've just returned from the 2012 Quilt Festival in Houston. It's my first trip in several years, and the sights were just as amazing as I remember. The George Brown Convention Center is about the length of five football fields, with five entrance halls--A, B, C, etc., to help visitors get some sense of where they are. The first floor is filled with vendors and quilt displays. In addition to the judged show--Quilts: A World of Beauty--there are about 35 other exhibits. The second and third floor contain registration, information booths, classrooms, lecture halls, coffeeshops, cafes, outdoor patios, and the list goes on and on.

 One of the most unusual exhibits this year was one of photographs of recognizable famous sites with quilts superimposed onto the buildings!

I love pictures of people looking at quilts, and when someone offered to move out of the way for my photograph, I encouraged them to continue to look!


Quilts, Inc. will have picture galleries of winners; also, many bloggers have posted pictures online, such as Trish Casey-Green's excellent ones: http://smu.gs/QmbuvW. 

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) had two beautiful exhibits--A Seasonal Palette and A Sense of Scale. These were accompanied by printed catalogs of all the pieces, and the Seasonal Palette included a journal/workbook by each artist describing the process used. These workbooks were on a table in the middle of the exhibit and available for handling and reading at leisure. The curators conducted tours of both exhibits, with many of the artists available to describe their works further.  Very inspiring!

It was much easier to see the quilt show when we were younger and healthier, but we continue to do what it takes to be there!