Photo catch up and What's it like at Houston IQF?

I've had these pictures lying around for a while.  I need to share them!

This is my do.Good Stitches block for October.

Really fun and fast!  I also love the color palette that was chosen.

These are birthday blocks for Yaya Brenda.  

She wanted blocks for a Christmas quilt.

Yaya Marion was auditioning borders for her medallion quilt.

These are October blocks that Yaya Brenda and I made for Covered in Love.

This is an Art Car I saw outside work the other day.

It's like finding a shiny new penny on the sidewalk - definitely good luck!

What's the Houston International Quilt Festival Like?

Photo from second floor of vendor area (2015)

25 rows of vendors selling fabric, notions, sewing machines, clothing, jewelry, beads, etc.

Some of the vendors:

Riley Blake, Quilt Dots, Red Crinoline Quilts (saw Paula Barnes taking care of her booth), Primitive Gatherings, Second Chance Fabrics, Missouri Quilt Company (Jenny Doan was getting a pic taken with a fan!), Tutto, Pfaff, Janome, etc., etc., etc.

What about the exhibits?

I'll share photos of my curated show in later blogs.  Today, what's it like to BE there?

First of all, it's at the George R. Brown Convention Center which is about 3 blocks long in downtown Houston.  It has a high ceiling, and they bring in lots of lights to compensate for that.  Unfortunately, there are still some quilts that are not lit that well.  

The lights are hot, so the A/C runs full blast.  Trust me, we know how to use the A/C in Houston!  Bring a light cardigan or scarf, etc., just in case, but with the amount of walking that I did (Rows A through T were all quilts! and the rows were about a block long), I kept quite warm.  Overall, between the vendors and exhibit, I probably walked 3 miles in the 4.5 hours I was there.

The atmosphere in the exhibit area is very much like being at a museum, and people generally treat it that way, with the exception of one young woman who was complaining about work.  I get it, work can sometimes suck, but we're here to look at quilts, m'kay?  Also, don't wear buckets of perfume. It will trail after you and affect those nearby.  I had to vacate no less than four areas from being overwhelmed with scent.  Men, that goes for the aftershave as well!  My suggestion - use soap and deodorant and call it good.

There are pages on stands that explain what the quilt is about, who made it, where they're from, what materials they used, their inspiration.  It can be kind of a game to figure out which page goes with which quilt, since they're not always right in front of the quilt!

Here's the Diamonds Quilt #2:

You can see that it's hanging in front of a black curtain.  

With the A/C on full blast, the quilts wave around a bit sometimes. 

As long as you don't look at the bright lights, you're good.  Which is not hard to achieve with all the beautiful quilts everywhere!  They certainly draw your eye, even from afar.

And aside from the exhibits that don't allow pics (usually those that have been professionally photographed and  they're selling a book of those photos), people DO take photos (like me and this lady).  Some people also take a snapshot of the accompanying page with the maker name (like me and this lady, just after I took this photo).

In this case, I did not get a photo of the center quilt maker page because I know whose it is - 

Meadow Mist Design's Use Your Illusion quilt.  

And it is not the only quilt that I recognized from seeing online!  

Is the Houston IQF in your future?  

Will you or your quilt be there (or both)?

Linking up this week with: