Another Inspiring Trip to Quilt Festival!

I'm not sure how many times I've been to Quilt Festival in Houston. Maybe six or seven. It's always such a delight and I always come away full of inspiration and ideas.

I didn't take very many pictures, but I'm happy to share a few with you. They may give you a taste of the experience.

I was thrilled to have two quilts in the Studio Art Quilt Associates special exhibit Balancing Act! It was also a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak about my quilts at the gallery walk on Friday and Saturday morning. 

Lots of people gathered around for the gallery talk and it was wonderful to hear from the other artists in attendance.

I caught a glimpse of my beloved blue stripe. Can you believe I didn't buy any? I feel I may be getting a little too attached to it and I need to force myself to use something new. (But I know where to order it, if I must!)

Here's my friend Rachel making a toast at the artists dinner to celebrate the special exhibit Affinity. My friends inspire me as much as their quilts.

Like I said, I didn't take many photos, but here is Lillian's Expectations by Bobbi Baugh also from SAQA's Balancing Act exhibit.

I love this quilt and I'm especially entranced by these birds tumbling out of this jar. What is that about?!

I will say the lighting in the SAQA exhibit makes it really hard to get a good photo. You can probably tell from my picture up top and from these pictures of Lillian's Expectations that the spot lights on the quilts make some areas incredibly washed out and others annoyingly dark.

I taught two mini-workshops at the Fiber on a Whim booth. Here's one student's Small Stitched Landscape.

 Look at this beautiful detail of stitched doors from Sarah Bell Smith's quilt Doorways.

Since I've been using ladders in my quilts, I'm noticing them more often. Here is Mary Ann Littlejohn's quilt Agreement House.

I always love the Tactile Architecture special exhibit. I was drawn to the quilt and immediately suspected it might be the work of Ludmila Aristova. It was!

Ludmila is a world-class, critically acclaimed artist and here's her quilt... just one of many others hanging on the floor at Festival.

My friend Sarah Smith was not able to come to Festival this year so I snapped a picture of her quilt in the Small Art Quilts category. It's the pink lily second from the left.

I loved this piece from the In Full Bloom exhibit. It's titled The Garden Angel by Jeanette McCall.

I'm in love with the combination of hand stitching around the edges of the pieces with the free motion stitched bird and branches in blue.

I bought just a few items... including this hand dyed burlap from Fiber on a Whim. The color and texture of this fabric is full of potential!

I'm already looking forward to next year.

Quilt Con!

I took a quick trip to Quilt Con last week. Lots of others have posted images to Facebook, Instagram and on blogs. I'm late in sharing a few images. It was fun. I'm so glad I went.

Registration was impressive. So slick. I pre-registered, then just stopped at this kiosk and printed out a tag with my name on it. It definitely felt fresh and tech savvy.

It was so great to see my friend Kathy York in front of her BEST OF SHOW quilt!

The collection of quilts from Bill Volckening of quilts from the 1970's was really cool. I especially loved this map.

Here are the prize winners from the Small Quilt category.

Houses! I love houses.

There was a tattoo parlor right on the show floor. Can you see the blond lying on the table on her side and the guy in the ball cap tattooing her under the light?!

When I think about the most important single element of my work, it's the STITCH. So I really like this quilt.

This was probably the stand out for me. I especially like the use of the ombre fabric.

This was another of my favorites. I love the composition, the color palette, the piecing and the subject matter.

I went to a great lecture with Luke Haynes. He was fun to listen to and really has made a lot of interesting quilts.

Here is one of his quilts on the right. My friend Chawne's quilts is on the left. I like the pairing of these two portrait quilts.

Look who I ran into in the vendor area! Crafty Gemini! Vanessa and I were both teachers in STITCHED 2012. She's an amazing YouTube arty/crafty entrepreneur. It was delightful to meet her in person.

How often do you get to ride a sewing machine?

I also saw Lisa Ellis in the Quilt Alliance booth where I got to play "mod or not." They had pictures of quilts and I had to guess if they were "mod" (made after 1970) or not. I guessed right!

It was a great day. I came away inspired... that's certainly worth the price of admission, right?!

Blog Renew 30: Studio Peeks

I bought a new sewing machine! Very exciting.

It's the Janome 2013.  (Very basic machine that they re-release every year with a different accent color.) I bought my last machine in 2001 for about $990. I spent weeks researching and agonizing over such a huge purchase. It was a great machine and I am surely a Janome user for life. I didn't bother considering other brands this time around.

Since my last purchase, I'm much clearer about exactly what kind of sewing I do and what bells and whistles I actually use. Since I am no longer interested in more than a few decorative stitches and have no need for a teeny tiny embroidered alphabet, I was able to look at machines in a lower price range. Yeah!

You may remember that my old machine was in the shop. The whole repair/shopping/purchase saga was pretty awful. I'm thrilled with my new machine, but everything that happened before I purchased it mostly sucked.

Synopsis

• Machine making ugly noise and not working.
• I chose to take my machine to Thomas Sewing Center to be repaired because they are a Janome dealer and had a nice website that made me think they were a professional, organized business.
• Drove 40 minutes to drop off machine. (Then 40 minutes home.)
• Got a call that repair costs would be around $200. 
• Approved repairs.
• Drove 40 minutes to pick up machine. (Then 40 minutes home.)
• Unwrapped machine at home and heard same ugly noise and still not working.
• It was working at the repair shop as I could see from the fabric and stitching on the sample left under the needle.
• Called repair man.
• Went through some diagnostics on the phone. We're both perplexed.
• Drove 40 minutes back to repair shop to drop off machine again. (Then 40 minutes home.)
• Get a call that additional repairs will cost about $100.
• I ask if I could get a store credit for the money I paid on the first "repair" and put it toward a new machine.
• Nope.
• Are you sure? May I talk with the manager?
• Nope. I can give you $50 off the current price. That's it. Plus, you need to bring in all the accessories on your (broken) machine as trade in.
• Drove 40 minutes to pick up broken machine. (Then 40 minutes home.)
• Called several other Janome dealers in the area.
• Loved talking with Clint at Sewing World of Grapevine.
• Drove 20 minutes to buy a machine from Clint.
• He gave me a pretty good deal. $479 with no trade in. 
• (I can keep my broken machine for parts. The lightbulb alone is worth $20, so I'm happy to have it.)
• Plus, Clint threw in the cutest little pin cushion ever! It's designed to fit in the hole for the upright spool.

I wouldn't say this is a clear cut case as far as customer service. They believed they fixed the machine and I got what a paid for even though it broke while in my trunk on they way home from the shop. I was willing to compromise and come to some arrangement where they got paid and I got a working machine. They were not open to discussion.

Anyway, let's not end my 30 day Blog Renew on that distastefulness.

Instead, let me share one more little studio renew.

Here's my old paint storage system.

And here is my new paint storage system! Awesome, right?!

Just three photo storage boxes from Michaels which were on sale for only $1.66 each! My husband noted that if I was really organized, I would have sorted the paint by color. Maybe I'll give that task to one of the kids.

Not your average craft show!

When we moved to Maryland, I began hearing buzz about the American Craft Council Show at the Baltimore Convention Center. This year I finally put it on my calendar and made plans to go! Kristin LaFlamme even drove up from Charlottesville to join me. We had a great time and were so impressed by the variety, quality and creativity of the work.

I made one purchase... wonderful pair of earrings from Mullanium. They also had cute little boxes and pins. I love the layers of elements and symbols.

Wonderfully whimsical -- but in a refined way -- ceramic jewelry from Courtney DeYoung. Gosh, looking at this image again, I wish I would have bought some.

Apparently wood is particularly hot right now. I can see why. Some artists are doing amazing work in work. Check out Michael Bauermeister.

I love the texture and color he had acheived on this vessel -- it's probably at least three feet tall. It was exciting to watch a customer request help in rearranging and examining some of his small wall pieces. She bought several!

Felt jewelry and bracelets created with 3D printing by Maria Eife.

Maria also had some cool bracelets created with a 3D printer. I've heard some stories and watched some videos of 3D printing lately, so I felt pretty smart when I said to her, "Are you using a 3D printer?!" We had a nice chat with her about the possibilities of this new technology. Here is a pretty good video about 3D printing.

I almost bought a coffee cup from Three Wheel Studio. Isn't this super cute?

I almost bought another coffee cup from Justin Rothshank Ceramics.

Justin's work has been on my list of favorite shops on Etsy for years. It was lovely to see his full collection in real life.

Kristin and I were both pretty entranced by these bracelets by Jennifer Fecker of is-felt.

We were also delighted to chat with Gustav Reyes who told us all about his innovative process which involves steaming wood then compressing it and slicing off strips which are completely flexible and can be wound into beautiful shapes like this.

The bracelet still retains some flexibility. I was especially impressed with Gustav as he spent lots of time sharing his process and ideas about the possibilities of wood with many people in his booth.

I was happy to see Stacy Lee Webber because I recognized her work from the 40 Under 40 at the Smithsonian. She creates beautiful and provocative work with coins.

We ran into Cathy Kleeman who told us to look for the great designs on floorcloths by Faith Wilson. Wow. She was right. They were awesome. Kristin and I especially liked her repeated use of the phrase, "here now."

Probably my favorite work of the whole show was by McLean Bronze. I loved these small assemblages set on bronze. If I took one thing away from the show, it's the desire to create work that is a bit more spare.

Brandon Holschuh is a jewelry designer... and much more. He actually sells his jewelry with the mounting stands all together. This is a brooch... or a beautiful sculptural object. He said he sometimes spends as much time designing the armature as he does designing the jewelry. His booth was beautifully styled and it was very clear he thinks about all the details! Inspiring.

Jewelry combining metal and stitching by Lauren Markley. Of course, I was drawn to anything that involved stitching and fiber.

No wait, maybe this was my favorite. Mixed media by Graceann Warn. I am still swooning over these compositions. I think it's fascinating that each of these 16 pieces incorporate the same basic design, but small changes, adjustments and details make them each unique.

Is that enough eye candy for you?! I hope not because later this week, I'll share with you the actual ART QUILTERS who were showing their work at ACC.