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My Take On This Year's Houston International Quilt Festival-Edited with Pics


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Just got home about an hour ago from the first day of the Houston International Quilt Festival.  My poor aching feet.  Last year I spent more time at the vendors area than looking at quilts but this year I reversed it.

 

The first place I headed for before it got so busy was:  you guessed it....APQS booth.  There was a nice lady there who let me play with the Lucey.  Oh my goodness.....how smooth....my feathers actually looked like feathers....such a light touch to move it.  I also met the infamous "Dawn."  Very nice lady.

 

I also played with the Innova (which is manufactured about an hour or so from my house) and it was a nice machine...I don't think quite as smooth as the Lucey but still nice.  I played with the Gammil but didn't care much for it....the cast iron machine was much heavier than the APQS and Innova so it didn't move as easily as the others...nice but not for me.  I was in love with the APQS machines before I went and left still in love with them.  Hoping one day to have to rearrange my quilting room for the APQS....hoping for a miracle in December if you know what I mean.

 

Now to the quilts.  Oh my goodness. If you could gain weight by "eye candy" I would weigh a ton.  Every type of quilt you can think of....picture quilts...traditional quilts....art quilts..quilted clothes....lots and lots of old quilts made in the 1800's.  

 

BUT....here is the thing that amazed me the most.  I came away thinking that most of us fairly new beginner quilters may be way too hard on ourselves.  Now I'm by no means comparing myself to these quilters or even you ladies and gents here but I looked at the quilting closely and was amazed at some of the quilting.  I always thought quilt show quilting had to be almost perfect....not some of the ones I looked at....feathers where you have to backtrack on the same stitch line was off on several of the quilts....quilting lines going into an area where you knew it wasn't suppose to be....and the main thing that I saw that amazed me was the simplicity of the quilting designs on some of the most beautiful quilts.  Straight lines, wavy lines, crosshatching, echoing, feathers....many of these quilts (to me) were quilted with such simple designs but made the quilts look so rich and absolutely beautiful.

 

I attached several pics of my favorite quilts on display.  The most amazing one is #3 and #4....this artist took all of these small pictures of women that had been in abused relationships and used them to make #3 picture of the woman's face.  The story was very moving and the quilt is awsome.  (ok I deleted the picture of the small pictures that showed the abused women....thought it might not be good to post that)

 

 

I learned so much today and had such a great time.  Now I gotta go soak my feet cause I'll probably not be able to walk tomorrow.  LOL

 

David

 

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Today, if you went by the APQS booth, the gals all looked like Flo in the Progressive commercials. I'm pretty sure I spotted Dawn but since I didn't get a chance to talk to her, can't confirm. What a show! I had it on my bucket list and now can mark that off. Half way through I started to sit down and listen to a demonstration but when my feet started barking, I decided I better get up and move before rigor mortis set in.  

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I too just got home and was amazed by all of the quilts, and vendors.....one of my favorite quilts was one that you took a picture of with the purple spikes that had soft plaid leaves that had shading from dark to light on the leaves...because they were soft and flannel looking and were shading it really caught my eye...my favorites were the primitive quilts which it seemed like there were plenty of as well as the special exhibit they had and then the little village quilt that a woman made for her daughter that won a ribbon on the end of one of the isles....the detail was unbelievable and the hand quilting was amazing...both the mother and daughter were there and were so sweet and posing for pictures...I will have to upload mine...but I did notice that a good many of the quilts were hand quilted....hmmmm.....(why when it can be done so much faster with our machines? and look just as nice?)

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