Houston Quilt Festival--Quilts, Classes, and Friends

Just a couple of the thousands of magnificent quilts at the show.

Working with "Sliced Steps"

Taking a break to have dinner with my "New Orleans family" who live in Houston now.

Putting some new fabric to work

Trying a couple of patterns for a 9" block in "1930's" prints.

And then playing with a "convergence" method (a la Ricky Tims) using some sale fabric. This is a really fun process. I think it will be great with fabric with lots of movement.

My own "shop hop"

I visited 5 different fabric shops this past week, from Sister Bay, WI to Paris, IL. I've got some projects in mind for some of the fabrics.

I picked up the red and yellow fabric for a 1930's block...

and the bright floral foursome for a Ricky Tims convergence quilt.

Now to make time to get something started!

Cutest little quilt

The innkeeper at the bed and breakfast that we stayed in is a remarkable decorator/artist/quilter. This is just one example of her beautiful work.

Finishing projects

Sometimes the hardest part of a project is putting on the finishing touches. Hand sewing the binding, sewing on embellishments, even putting on a label. I think I beat my personal best by finishing three separate projects in the past week. Not necessarily big projects, but no matter!

Onward and upward

Congratulations--a job well done.

We had a wonderful day, having fellow graduates and family over after the ceremony for a champagne toast to our terrific kids!

Happy Mother's Day

Wishing that everyone has a wonderful day!

I have some new inspiration---

thank you!

Tackling UFO's

I am slowly working on my "unfinished objects" backlog. This is a little wallhanging that I started last summer and had to put away to head off on vacation. I've finally gotten it back out and quilted and bound it. Check one off the list. One more UFO to finish after this and I'll allow myself some new projects : )

Ethnic Grocery Tour

Fun day (a little rain didn't slow us down). I lost track of how many different stops we made, from Asian groceries and bakeries to an Ethiopian grocery to a Hungarian chimney cake store-yum yum!

Accidental landscapes

After taking a workshop with Karen Eckmeier, author and quilter extraordinaire, I finished the project I started in the class and actually got it hung up! This was a fantastic workshop--my list of future projects definitely includes trying to craft another "accidental landscape"!

New sewing studio

I've spent the last couple days moving my sewing space to a new room. Now I can leave it out permanently. But it has prompted me to finally organize my stash. Up until this year, it was not a large stash, but it seems to have grown exponentially recently.

So I've been busy sorting fabrics into FQ's, precuts, large yardage, scraps, and some "in-betweens". Then I would like to sort by color, etc. and then find a nice display/storage method so that I can see and access easily! I'm getting excited to finally get back to some UFO's and finally finish them.

Gorgeous flowers

Beautiful roses arrived on the doorstep today! They are a "thank you" for opening our house for a graduate student conference dinner this past weekend. Great food and drinks, fun people. The time flew by!

Amish country

Here are some of the goodies I picked up in Amish country today. I'm so glad my friend Jan came to town so that we could explore new places together! Beachy's Bulk Foods was amazing!! And Miller's Dry Goods was also worth the trip-lots and lots of fabric. I just had to pick up the bag of "marshmallow tidbits" (read "Lucky Charms minus the cereal"), knowing that it will make my daughter laugh.

Energized

This quilt top is from the book, Stratavarious Quilts, using plum and gold batiks. I found these fabrics at Threads of Time, with help from my friend, Cheryl.

Hello

These are the blocks from the block lotto group that I joined last month. March was the red and white D4P (disappearing four patch), and April is modern clover: