I’m a bit gobsmacked to realize I have five, yes FIVE…5….5!!!!, quilts on display in Houston this year! If you are there, I hope you get to see them up close and personal…after all, we know what a world of difference it makes. If you’re not in Houston, here’s what I’ll have on display:

All of these quilts except the one of my husband and son are available for sale…. I’ve got my fingers crossed in hopes that the magic red dot will appear on the signage for one of them in Houston!

Tomorrow I will start the trek to Houston: driving to Portland to say with older son and DIL (sleeping on the sofa) so I can catch an early flight out of Portland. For the first time EVER, I’ll be leaving from an airport where I can check two suitcases. Our little local airports have tiny planes (9 seaters) where you can only have one large bag per person. What a difference this makes in going: fewer boxes to ship. Now I just have to hope they arrive without any detours. I’ll be back in about 2 weeks with pictures and reports about all my classes, friends and the fun that is Quilt Festival.

Hi all! I’m delighted to share my newest major piece: Coach’s Clipboard: Win by Fall, which has just been selected for the traveling exhibit of A Better World, curated by Susan Brubaker Knapp and Lyric Kinard. The exhibit will debut at International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston this October/November 2019, then travel to various venues. Big thanks to eQuilter and PAQA-South for sponsoring the exhibit!

The concept behind the exhibit is to feature someone that has helped to make a better world. Here is what I wrote for my entry:

Coach’s Clipboard:  Win By Fall

From world class cities to the smallest villages and towns on every continent, there are coaches who give their time, skills and knowledge to the children of the world.  Their names may not be instantly recognizable the way many of our heroes are, they may not receive the appreciation our first responders do, but they are appreciated nonetheless.  A top high school wrester, my husband Paul volunteered for 11 years as a wrestling coach, starting when our eldest signed up for wrestling in sixth grade through our younger son’s final high school year.  He was the clipboard guy, keeping notes on what the wrestlers did well, what needed practice in the coming week, their scores in meets and the team scores.  Win By Fall, for those not familiar with wrestling, is what you want:  to win by pinning your opponent.  Luckily, that was a fairly frequent occurrence in Eli’s high school career.  

This quilt is a father and son moment, but it also represents the generosity of Eli’s coaches in other sports gave to him as well as coaches around the world who work, one kid at a time, to make them better people which in turns makes it a better world.  Thanks to Eli’s middle school coaches including Jim Morse (Cross Country, Track and Field); True Bragg and Paul, and when Eli visited the high school Levi Rollins (Wrestling), and assorted soccer coaches.  In high school, thanks to Becky Flanagan and Helen Bonzi (Cross Country);  Patrick Kelly, Perry Goodspeed,  Jack Kelly and Paul and all the alumni wrestlers who came to help the team; and Sarah Mismash (Track and Field).

This completes the family quilts–Paul is notorious for scowling at any camera, but I finally got him! The others, in the order they were made:

First off, Happy US Thanksgiving to one all around the world–this was written ahead and scheduled to post because (a) not everyone is in the US and (b) sometimes we need some R&R from the feasting and festivities!

My second full day at International Quilt Festival 2018 I got to teach one of my “Quilting the Garden” workshops, Collage the Garden.  Along with Thread-Coloring the Garden, the two classes can be combined into a two-to-five day workshop–any guilds or retreats out there interested????   My students were, of course, brilliant!    They had a choice of either the tiger lily or water lily in the class–I love when students take my patterns and projects and completely make them their own.   Like yesterday’s post, I’ll have TONS of pictures including some from Preview night on the show floor. Taught students how to pattern, how to use my favorite Mistyfuse, how to get the fabric to do some of the work for you!

These are the two class samples…you can see how well the students did!  One had a *very* hard time letting go from the traditional quilty-applique “thou must do it thus and so exactly” but she finally threw caution to the winds and did a great job–so proud of her!

and here you can see the actual student work:

Way to go!

Learning how to pattern

fabulous fabric choice….let the fabric do a bunch of the work for you. The placements of the darks is spot on.

and the water lily–love how she went deeper darker in the center with reference photo right there to guide her choices

students hard at play!

an ochre/yellow version

Flower nearly complete

And auditioning a background

Another great fabric choice, and love how the trees fabric changes once cut up and placed into the background

WOW!

The students were wonderful—LOVED having a FULL Class…the collective energy helped everyone!

Then there was preview night…drum roll:  gotta love that little red dot indicating my Autumn on Blueberry Lane sold…AND it was hanging next to my dear friend Deborah Boschert’s ladders and trees quilt, which ALSO sold!

Mine on left, Deborah Boshert’s ladders on right…and both sold!

Love it when I spot someone looking closely at my work, this time it is the Pink Oyster Mushrooms quilt

And part of the Power of Women exhibit….my Lilies of the valley is on the bottom tier on the right side. LOVED this particular part of the exhibit!

I’ll be back with more on Festival 2018 in the coming days!

Tuesday Morning looking at the George R. Brown Convention center from my hotel room, ready for the first day of teaching!

Before any more time elapses, it is time to blog about a wonderful International Quilt Festival 2018.   Since I have a billion photos, I’ll just insert images with little verbiage.   On Tuesday, I taught my Birch Pond Seasons class–because it was the day between Market and Festival, the class was smaller but that meant students had plenty of space to spread out and work, which is great for this class.  I love what my students did!   If you put Birch Pond Seasons in the search box for this blog, you can find one or two other posts about previous classes.

My stuff up on the foam core at the f front and students composing their quilts! The two class samples are on the right hand board, a summer and an autumn version.

Love how Cathryn Sullivan of Pipe Creek, TX, cut the ridge line with the shape of trees–her ridge is closer to the viewer than the hills in my quilts. See below for this quilt as she worked on it more.

And Kathryn’s piece with the closer hills and “woods behind the pond” added. LOVE the silhouette of the treetops!

I love when students use fabrics that aren’t in my wheelhouse and make it their own

The sky fabric was inspired! Love that she used purple for the distant hill. See her progress in the next photos.

She had this great watery fabric for the pond, but it just didn’t sit well for either of us

The brilliant students near her helped her trouble shoot with what fabric she had and they picked this one for the pond

Once the ground/foliage near the pond was in, it worked so much better — ponds reflect the color in the sky so it fit perfectly. The blue was great as water, just not in this composition where it kinda screamed. Mo Bettah!

More great water…this student had a gentle, subdued palette that spoke to her–and amazing blue batik for the water

Another version!

And one more

And towards the end of the day with more trees and ground blocked in

LOVED the fabrics for the sky!

Work in progress!

At some point during the day, friend Luana Rubin (half of the creative team with her hubby who founded eQuilter) popped in for a quick photo:

With Luana Rubin

Then, it was a quick dash to pack up, haul the suitcase and stuff back to my room, then go to the Awards ceremony and cheer on the winners, especially my quilty friends! 

Neroli Henderson, The Eternity Spiral, 

Heidi Profetty’s heart-warming mosaic quilt

Sue Bleiweiss, Graffiti 2

Jenny Bowker’s moving and astounding work

Andrea Brokenshire won one of the top eight awards and did what I’d do if I ever get so lucky–happy-danced her way up the stairs!

And Patty Kennedy-Zafred, SAQA member, blazing new ground for IQA with her Silent Canary

CONGRATS to everyone who entered, whether you got in or not…here’s to inspiring works!

Thanks to my friend Jenny K. Lyon, I’ve got two pictures of my Lilies of the Valley quilt on display in Houston since she is attending International Quilt Market for the (Drum Roll Please!!!) debut of her first book, here, Free Motion Quilting, From Ordinary to Extraordinary.  It has literally just been released…can’t wait to see it at Festival!   Anyway,

Here’s a view of the Power of Women exhibit, which has three parts: the 36″ quilts, some 2×8 foot sheer art cloth banners, and in the background the 2×6 foot quilts of women to admire. I can’t wait to see the exhibits! My Lilies of the Valley is the center one…I had thought they were going to be way high up, so delighted folks will be able to see the quilting and details.  Photo by Jenny K. Lyon–Thank you Jenny!!!!

And a close up–Houston always does such a good job at hanging and “choosing neighbors”! And yes, my quilt IS for sale!  Photo by Jenny K. Lyon–Thank you Jenny!!!!

I get on the road to the airport at 7 am tomorrow, but won’t get to see any quilts until preview night on Wednesday.  So psyched for teaching and friends and quilts and art and friends!