This first quilt is from the “Culture of my Country” exhibit which debuted, I believe, at Quilt Expo in Lyon, France, this past June. This quilt, if I recall correctly, was by a group of women from Spain. It is five quilts stitched to the “roof” (in black) with a medallion at the top. I just loved the feel of their town!

My friend Lisa Walton was in town again…hooray! It is SO much fun to see her, and such a thrill that she can come all the way from Sydney, Australia, to visit the States. This time she and hubby came early for a bit of vacation on the West Coast, then she came along to Houston. Lisa is the creative soul behind “Dyed and Gone to Heaven,” and vends on-line as well as in Australia. She does beautiful hand-dyeds and patterns (some of which are available through Keepsake Quilting), and she made this quilt:

Her friend Nic Bridges, quilted it, and then Lisa added the beads. In the past couple of years she has aacquired a serious bead addiction, and every time I see Lisa’s blog photos of trips to Hong Kong and returning with (literally) kilos of beads and silks I get very jealous (grin!). Here’s a close up:

Coming a bit closer to the US, is this stunner from Ontario, Canada. Can you believe this didn’t win an award? Called The Zodiac by Martha Brown,

the use of fabrics is incredible. I love the four elements in the corners, the effective use of the rusty orange to divide the signs of the zodiac from the blue inner and outer circles…aw heck, I love the whole thing. I could have spent a verrrryyyy long time at this quilt, much longer than the time I had!

In a day or two I’ll post some more of the Japanese quilts that kept grabbing my attention…I’d walk up to an awesome and quilt and there it would be: “Japan” again! Made me go to the library and check out Japanese Detail: Architecture by Sadao Hibi. Talk about (a) eye-candy and (b) inspiration for quilting patterns and design! Someone brought this book to class when I took a workshop with Jane Sassaman in 2003 and I have lusted after it ever since. I may just have to order it finally!

At noon on Friday (Nov. 2), I finally got to meet listmom Janis and more of the good ladies from the Yahoo Groups Janome 6500/6600 list. It was so much fun to meet them, see the winning quilts from our on-line competition. The photo above is Janis pinning the blue ribbon on the first place winner, who won a Janome 6600! In the next photo, she’s awarding the ribbon to the second place winner,

whom we got to meet. I loved this quilt…the challenge theme was “I love my Janome,” and what better way to depict your ideal—being on a deserted island with your sewing machine and having time and space to sew, sew, sew!

And here’s a photo of the group of us…if you’re in this photo, drop me a comment and I’ll insert your name here!

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday evening after flying in from our respective coasts, Marie and I attended the “Winner’s Circle,” where the winners prizes are announced and awarded. I was thrilled to hear a familiar name: Pat LaPierre Macafee (who lives part of the year on Mount Dessert Island here in Maine, and part of the year in Naples, Fla.) and her Naples, FL, quilt guild won first place for group quilts for this beauty! Pat did the quilting and accepted the prize….way to go Pat!

Another familiar name, but not someone I know personally, is Rita Steffenson. She came up with another wow-ser this year. Here is the quilt “Chance Encounter” hanging at the Winner’s Circle:

Rita is (on the right) answering the questions of the many admirers (of whom I am one). I love her bright, glorious colors and intense quilting!

Australian Helen Godden won for Mekong Gold, a black and white quilt…I’m so sorry I don’t have a better picture of it, but you can click here and follow the links to the winners and see a better one. Wonderful!

And for another surprise, I loved this fairly traditional quilt which was another big winner. It is another of the Japanese quilts that enchanted me, called “Promise” by Noriko Kido of Nagoya:

I’ll add some more photos in coming days….come back and visit again!

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I was browsing my on-line friend Janis’s on-line photo albums of Houston this morning, and she was kind enough to share this photo of the journal quilt area….and this is only one of four sides, and there were quilts all along the outsides of three of the “walls”. This shot really gives a good feel for how many, many, many journal quilts there are, how beautifully displayed things are at Festival, including the lighting which is so well done. Thanks for sharing, Janis!

I joined the QuiltArt list in late 2002, just as everyone who participated in the journal quilts that first year was sending in their journals for display in Houston. I promptly signed up the next year, in January, to participate, and have been part of it ever since. This past year, Karey Bresenhan, one of the founders of IQA and Festival (and a lot of other great stuff) put together a book called Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project.

The book, by the way, can be ordered online from Quilting Arts Magazine, which is also the publisher. As usual for their magazine and books, the photography is what quilt photography ought to be! First I’ll show you a little bit of the journal exhibit this year, then share the book.

Here I am standing next to my journals…it was so cool, the first time I walked up there were two women both taking pictures of my journals….how cool is that?!

And here are my friend Marie’s journals this year, about her many cats:

I totally LOVED the green silk border on this one:

I’m honored to have not one or two but five journals in this book, including my very first ever. The January 2003 journal is extra special because I asked both Karey and my oldest son Joshua for the “OK” (and received it!) to use a piece of Joshua’s second grade art as the basis for my first journal. I was surprised when we were given the chance to edit our text for the book to realize that a mere three years ago I was using paint and metallic threads on a quilt for the first time…what a long way I’ve come in such a short time! You should have seen Joshua’s eyes light up when I opened the book first to “his” page and he said “that’s that’s that’s my thing!”

And even better, it made the introductory pages…look at the thumbnails on the bottom right, and that’s it on the left side!

A while back the editor, Patricia Bolton, told me I had made the opening of the section of the Flowers, Plants and Trees Chapter (the book is divided into 1-Series, 2-Stories, 3-Flowers, Plants and Trees, 4-Animals and Insects, 5-Landscapes and Special Places, 6-Faces and Figures, and 7-Abstract). Well, it was even better than that…turn the page from the divider to Chapter 3 and this is what you see….all three of these are my journal quilts! The large one is from January 2004, the others are the January and February 2006 journals:

Finally, I have a self-portrait in Chapter 6, Faces:

This quiltlet was also from 2004; I used Photoshop Elements to turn a photo (snapped with a so-so camera by holding it at arms’ length and clicking!) into a black and white, then re-colored with thread.

And the story wouldn’t be complete without Marie. She and I began the journal journey together, and they even hung our two series next to each other in 2003. She submitted the first two photos for 2006 not realizing they were also being considered for the book…not only did they both make it, but they both got full-page spreads, AND the one of Odie was the one and only journal quilt (out of about 1800!) that was included in the show catalog!!!! Way to go Marie!

Just to give you an idea of the scope of the exhibit, here is one shot of the display this year:

There were something like 200 series of journals…in this photo you can see only nine of those 200…..drat, wish I’d taken the wwwiiiiddddeeeee angle view photo!

There will apparently be just one more year for the journal quilt exhibit, and Karey has said it will be different than these first five years. We have no idea what she has up her sleeve, but I’m sure it will be good. Karey always has great ideas, and I’ll just have to wait until after the New Year to find out “what’s next.”

Here’s the elation part: OK, I’m about to pop so I’m gonna share it here! Karey Bresenhan and her cousin Nancy O’Bryant are two of the four founders of Festival (also known as Mecca to quilters, and located in Houston), along with their late mothers. One of their enviable jobs is to purchase quilts for the International Quilt Festival Collection. I am honored and humbled that they have selected The Tide is Hire to be in that collection!

Elated doesn’t begin to cover it….how about rocketing past Saturn with Neptune rapidly coming into view? This is the first (and I will certainly work hard to assure it is not the last) major sale for me, and I am so thrilled that Karey and Nancy thought so highly of my work. I will strive to live up to their confidence in me, and am itching to get back to the studio. I can still scarcely believe that my work will join that of so many famous quilters, but I’ve even printed out the e-mail so I can keep checking it to make sure the words haven’t changed LOL!

And in another bit of disbelief…or…..

entering the Twilight Zone:

I am now, officially as of 9:17 p.m. EST, the mother of a teenager. Yep, that’s my thirteen year old boy! Love him to bits, too! His first words this morning were “that’s the coolest balloon I’ve ever seen” (well, after “I don’t feel good can I stay home today” because he was actually running a bit of a fever):

And he was thrilled with his gifts from the three of us: three classic rock CD’s including Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Led Zeppelin IV, and a Van Halen CD that Eli knew Joshua wanted. Way cool! And this evening, we celebrated the fact that he doesn’t feel sick any more with his favorite thing for his birthday: pumpkin pie!

And here he is, risking lighting his head on fire with all that hair hanging over the candles:

And Paul decided to have a little pie under his whipped cream!

With all its ups and downs, I wouldn’t trade a nanosecond of the past thirteen years with Joshua and then Eli. They make life wonderful!