Houston 2017 -- Special Exhibit Quilts Part 1

Hi all -

Now I'll start with the best part of Houston 2017 -- The Quilts!! There were so many spectacular quilts that it's really difficult to go through and pick a few to showcase in my blog. What I'll try to show here are a variety of styles and techniques so that you can get a sense for the wide range of eye candy the show has to offer.

I'll start with the special exhibit quilts. These will be in alphabetical order by exhibit name, just because I keep the pictures in folders with the exhibit names and the computer automatically alphabetizes them. There are a lot of exhibits, so I probably won't hit all of them, but you'll get a good idea of what there is to see.

The first quilt is from the A Canadian Nine Patch Celebrating Canada's 150th Birthday exhibit. I just thought this was a really cool quilt:

They Say It's Your Birthday by Carol Stanley & Karen Power

Since I love color, I had to include a couple of quilts from the A Celebration of Color exhibit:

Savannah Lily by Mickey Beebe, quilted by Toni McAuliffe

Rainbow Cat Eyes by Laurie Ceesay

Reconstructed Color by Petra Soesemann

Slices of Opulence by Randa Mulford

The Between Me and the World: Identity and Activism in Quilts exhibit had quilts by Thomas Knauer representing issues of our times. This quilt has a block for each life lost to domestic violence each year -- 1,600 blocks in all:

Excess by Thomas Knauer & Lisa Sipes

The Breaking the Surface - Creating Digital Fiber Art exhibit featured digital image art made by Wen Redmond:

Crown Point by Wen Redmond

On a completely different note, the Creative Stitching exhibit featured wool applique quilts by Sue Spargo:

Bird Play #2 by Sue Spargo, quilted by Janet Joehlin

Peacock by Sue Spargo, quilted by Janet Joehlin

My Tree of Life by Sue Spargo, quilted by Carol Rickard

The featured artist at Houston this year was Danny Liu, whose work was displayed in the Freehand Patchwork by Danny Amazonas exhibit. He is the artist who taught the abstract landscape quilt class that I took. His stuff is so incredible that it's hard to pick just a few to share!!

Abyss by Danny Amazonas

Dragonfly by Danny Amazonas

Rainy Night by Danny Amazonas

Xavi by Danny Amazonas

The Hands All Around 2017 exhibit had a variety of quilts made by people all over the world:

Not Your Typical Tie Quilt by Bernadette Houghton, quilted by Barbara Persing

Preciousness by Rute Sato

The Story Continues by Dianne Firth

Cats on the Roof: Alumnas 2016 by Cecilia Koppmann

The I Am an Artisan Challenge exhibit featured quilts showcasing Kaffe Fassett's new Artisan fabric line. You all know how much I love Kaffe fabrics!!

WWKD (What Would Kaffe Do) by Barbara Jensen

Paint Can Posy by Mayleen Vinson

It's Intense by Janette Sheldon

The Wheel-Wright's Fantasy by Barb Sorensen

The In Full Bloom 2017 exhibit features flower-themed quilts.

Midnight Paradise by Heidi Lund

Victorian Jungle by Barbara McCraw

Baltimore Spring by Jerona Williams, quilted by Penny Barnes

Sol, Arena y Aire de Canarias by Pino Lopez del Pino

Floral Folk Art by Joy Palmer

Bursting With Color by Marianne R. Williamson

Remembering the 30s by Rita Schormann

The In the American Tradition - Appliqued exhibit features recently-made appliqued quilts that are inspired by traditional American quilts.

Beaded and Bedazzled by Rita Schormann

Mariner's Compass by Terrie Newman

Atomic Circles by J. Marcus Weekley

The Cotheals at Home by Mayleen Vinson, quilted by Jan Hutchinson

An American Family by Pamela Trantham

And as you probably guessed, the In the American Tradition - Pieced exhibit features recently made pieced quilts inspired by traditional American quilts.

Pine Burr by Sarah Tapiro, quilted by Zvia Strahilevitz-Klein

4" Baskets by Mickey Beebe, quilted by Mary Lundberg

Red Hot by Deborah Ross

For the Love of Hexies by Sharon Wilkinson, quilted by Leanne Kaufmann

The Never Ending Project by Barb Kissell, quilted by Meg Fazio

DWTS Thank You Bette by Mary Markworth, quilted by Melane McCuller

Storm at Sea by Terrie Newman

Indigo Shweshwe HST Quilt by Celeste Compion

Mille Fleurs by Valli Schiller

Golden Tapestry by Renee Perlman, quilted by Pat Harrison

Omigosh! by Kimberly Pratt

Well, it's getting late so I think I'll stop here. I'll try to get the rest of the quilts posted soon.

Nancy

Houston 2017 -- Purchases

Hi all -

Since we all like to see what our friends have bought, I thought I'd share my Houston purchases in a quick post. This year I bought more than I usually do. I did my usual quick shopping during the Wednesday evening sneak preview, but then I also went through some of the vendors with some friends later in the week. It's the second trip through that did me in!

I have a couple of vendors that I always visit. These are the ones I visited on Wednesday. First stop is always SewBatik. I love their fabrics. They are top quality, the colors are always bright and they keep their lines around so you can always get more of a fabric that you need. And the owners are the nicest people around.

I also always stop at ArtFabrik to pick up some hand-dyed silks and perl cotton. I don't know yet what I'm going to do with the silks, but they are beautiful so I keep collecting them!

Another regular stop is Cherrywood for their beautiful hand-dyed fabrics. I love the suede look of these fabrics!

After hitting my regular stops, I did wander around a little bit and ended up picking up a couple of rulers from DeLoa Jones' booth. The three rulers on the right are from her booth:

The straight-edge ruler and the Handi Grips I picked up in Debby Brown's class. I'm excited to use the Handi Grips at home because there are the best ruler grippers I've found yet.

In Jane Sassaman's class, I was taken by a collection of 1/2 yard cuts:

It was the colors of these fabrics that really grabbed me. They are a really cool combination of pea green and purple. Sounds terrible, but I really love how they look together. I plan to make some sort of a bag out of these.

In Cherly Sleboda's class, I also picked up a few goodies:

(I actually picked up the stencil on the bottom at DeLoa's booth, but this is the picture that it ended up in.) I thought it would be good to have Cheryl's DVD for reference and her smocking template did make the marking a lot easier.

Then I did that extra shopping trip with my friends Susan and Janet, where I got more things that I didn't know I needed. 😊 On that trip, I picked up this bundle of silk strips:

This is another thing that I don't know what I'm going to do with, but I loved it so I got it. Then we went to the Sue Spargo booth, where I had a lot of fun! I love handwork and embroidery, so this was the perfect place for me! I'm just still holding out on collecting wool...

I look forward to making that needle roll after I finish with my Christmas stuff!

Finally, Janet turned us on to another company that makes hand-dyed sueded fabrics: Liberty Homestead.

She said that she has had trouble with the Cherrywood fabrics running, but has never had a problem with the Liberty Homestead fabrics running. I haven't had any trouble with the Cherrywood fabrics running myself, but I do like the price of this fabric. It's a good bit cheaper than the Cherrywood fabrics. The down side of the Liberty Homestead fabrics is that they don't have as many colors. I look forward to playing with these new fabrics!

That's everything that I bought while in Houston. A lot of fun stuff that I look forward to playing with! I bought just enough stuff that they made me open my bag at the airport and move two pieces of fabric from my suitcase to my carry-on bag. I also had to move the show program to my carry-on bag because they had put too many glossy pages in the program so the TSA x-rays were getting blocked and all of the bags were having to be hand-checked. I thought that was pretty funny!

I hope all of my American friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Nancy