Houston Quilt Festival 2022

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
My husband Frank and I went on a seven-day Texas Stars tour by Country Heritage Tours (America's Favorite Quilt Tour Company) from October 29 through November 7. The tour began in San Antonio early in the week and culminated in the annual Houston Quilt Festival at the end of the week. Several excursions were included to various quilt shops and quaint villages. Toward the end of the week our daughter flew down from Oklahoma City to join us for the Houston Quilt Festival portion.

I organized descriptions of our travels semi-chronologically into three blog posts spread across two blogs, partitioning them by focal interest: San Antonio sites, on the road visits, and fabric/quilts.

• WanderOrPonder: San Antonio (WoP 11/17/2022 post)
  Days 0, 1, 2: Saturday, October 29 - Monday, November 1
  Arrival, The Alamo, San José Mission Pearl District, Riverwalk
  
  
• WanderOrPonder: On the Roads in Texas (WoP 11/18/2022 post)
  Days 3, 4: Tuesday, November 2 - Wednesday, November 3
  Quilt shops Creations in Kerrville, One Quilt Place in Fredericksburg, Quilted Skein in La Grange,Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange
  
  
• DianeLoves2Quilt: Houston Quilt Festival 2022 (this post in DL2Q)
  Days 5, 6, 7: Thursday, November 4 - Saturday, November 5
  Houston Quilt Festival and fabric purchases Days 5,6,7

This post's main focus is the Houston Quilt Festival at the tail end of our tour. The post and is divided into background information, quilt exhibits, vendor purchases, and closing. The first order of business was to get oriented to the layout of the show and our hotel. We were staying at the Hilton Americas - Houston which has the advantage of two Skybridges to the George R. Brown Convention Center which houses the show.

The show is held in three halls of the convention center. Hall B and Hall C are for vendors; Hall D is for exhibits. These three halls have a total square footage of 317, 300 square fee. That is quite extensive – more than 100 times the square footage of my 3,000 square foot house! With that much territory to cover Frank, Robin, and I agreed we needed a plan.

We were to meet up with our group for an orientation and tips on how to get the most out of our time at the quilt festival. Entry bracelets were handed out for the advance premiere 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm on Wednesday evening. We peered down through portholes on the second level overlooking the festival floor. Frank, Robin and I decided we would shop vendors starting at the far end and working our way in descending aisle numbers toward the exhibits. Per the program there were more than 600 booths. In those first three hours that preview evening, Robin and I shopped at vendors progressing from Aisle1600 through Aisle 500, left to right in the next photo. 

Thursday was our first full day at the show. Having invested three hours the previous evening in the vendor aisles we started off with the quilt exhibits the next morning. We started in Hall D which housed the exhibits in Aisles A through I. We began at Aisle I and progressed toward Aisle A where Hall D and Hall C met, from right to left in the next photo. This method brought us closer to vendors when we wanted to trade off between halls. The program informed us that over 1,100 quilts were displayed. We learned that although aisles are lettered, that lettering scheme is location-oriented rather than organization-oriented. The rectangles represent "islands" that house a Special Exhibit of a particular theme. It was most logical to circumnavigate the exhibit an island at a time, rather than an aisle at a time. 

After one or two hours, we broke to eat. After that brief rest we continued on with the vendors from Aisle 500 toward Aisle 100.  Alternating between vendors and exhibits rested our eyes as well as our wallets.

EXHIBITS

Sometime I take photos of quilts because there is a technique or quilting pattern that inspires me to want to try. Other times I take photos just because the quilt is so awesome. I want to remember it even if I never would attempt such a quilt either by my limitation in skill or in attention span. By show rules, photos are allowed for personal use only if the artist is credited with the work.

From the special exhibit I Spy a Barn Quilt: Barn Quilts from across America for The Sunday Driver – Drunkard's Path block by Sherry Cowley  from quilt titled Soak up the Sun. I was impressed by the FMQ pattern and think I might like to do something similar when I have quarter circles. These barn quilts were particularly interesting to me since I attended a meeting of my quilt guild where the topic was Barn Quilts and in a follow up class we painted boards as quilts. (See my DL2Q post for 2/11/20.)

These next quilts were also from the Barn series but I took this photo to show how well the colors of the center star coordinated with the shirt our daughter sewed for my husband. My husband's shirts were admired by ladies on the tour and several of them took photos, which pleased my husband .

My husband is a native of Washington, D.C. so this cheery interpretation of I See Hope in Cherry Blossoms appealed to both of us even though the artist drew her inspiration from the cherry blossoms in Brooklyn's Botanical Gardens. It was displayed in the category titled Inspired by Washington D.C.

Wildflower Garden is just too pretty to pass up and it is something I could actually do.

All I can say about Sunken Citadel is that I found it truly, truly awesome and one of my favorites from the show. Those many, many, minuscule metallic fish were mesmerizing.

I can truly appreciate getting the flow of colors to fall in a pleasing manner in Shirt off His Back. It is not nearly as easy as it looks. I made a quilt titled Masquerade, summarized in a DL2Q post for 10/16/2020 with this same technique and my layout looked muddy and drab. I needed to resort to inserting other color triangles inserted within the hexagons to tone down the cacophony. I also loved the backstory to the fabrics in this quilt.

 

My husband has a clock collection so Watch Master had a soft place in my heart.

The whimsical colors and playful curves of Vibrato appealed to me and made me smile.

The 3-D effect of Cascading Colors caught my eye.

I found the quilting on Elements fascinating and it is in one of my favorite colors family, the corals. I took closeup photos to further enjoy those overlapping circles and undulating pathways.

I liked many of the large square quilts in the exhibit Lost Stars but Summer breeze in particular fascinated me the most. I was in awe at how the lighthouses and seahorses were fussy cut into every diamond. I also like Bee Happy and how its ring of stars was canouflaged, nestled at the base of the yellow petals.

The exhibit on Micropiecing; 200K was extremely impressive as a technique. Each quilt was required to have over 200,000 pieces. Sari Not Sari and Pure Velvet are testaments to the patience, skill and persistence of the artist. I might try the technique on a handful of squares, 2" or less in size, but certainly not 324 (18x18) or 400 (20x20) small squares.

Our final day at the show was Friday. Frank and I had the whole day to visit the show more, but our daughter Robin needed to leave late morning to catch her flight back to Oklahoma City. She raced down to the entrance as soon as they opened to make a mad dash through those exhibits she had not quite completed. Parents that are 74 and 69 years old can slow down their younger daughter. The show staff do move the crowds in rapidly, but the hall entrances sure look like a madhouse.

I trailed after Robin as she asked me to take photos of her in front of those quilts that were her favorites. I also captured her against a huge mural on the wall by the hall entrances.Perhaps she will post those photos eventually in her blog RobinLovesQuilting.blogspot.com. 

We saw her off from the Hilton lobby and took every permutation of photos to commemorate our time together with her at the show: Frank & Robin, Robin & me, Frank & me, and with the help of a passerby, me & Robin & Frank.

After seeing her off, Frank and I went back across the street into Hall D to leisurely look at some quilts we had missed. Then instead of a formal lunch we splurged on a slice of Key Lime Pie with graham cracker pecan crust and a piece of Vanilla Cheesecake with strawberries at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen. The desserts were huge and we took more than half back to our room for later. I was still eating some at Saturday breakfast!

There was a Fedex office in the hotel so we bought an 11" x 11" x 12" box and some tape. Back in our room I packed up my purchases, folding fabric however was needed to fill up every crevice of that box to ship home. It weighed twenty pounds. We set it on a desk chair from our room that had wheels and rolled it into the elevator and down to the Fedex office. That was a Friday and it arrived at my home the following Tuesday. So, what was in it?

PURCHASES
Did I have a goal for this show? In light of my 2022 goal to be a closet quilter and sew from within my stash, I needed to put some priorities on my purchases. I told my husband no more kits unless it was a laser kit that is precut and requires assembly only. I wanted to resist novelty fabrics. Generally I find that each novelty fabric is a quilt. I wanted to stick with a variety of blenders and fabrics that read like a solids to go with stuff in my stash. I claim I am quilter focused on color and yet I also wanted to get some grays to go with these these teal colorway fabrics I already had for this Bella's Bird pattern I had. I'd previously made this quilt in 2016 in orange and gray and was incredibly pleased with it. There are not many quilts I want to make more than once. 

Before arrival at the Houston Quilt Festival our tour had visited four quilt shops: Creations, One Quilt Place, Things In a Room, and The Quilted Skein. I gathered grays at several of them and then continued to get more gray options at the show totaling 9½ yards of grays.

• 1½ yd gray with white sunflowers
• 1½ yd gray woodland animals
• 1  yd light gray woodgrain
• 1 yd gray Kaffe Fassett dots
• 1 yd gray lattice
• 1 yd gray / white stripe (from the show)
• 2  yd from 8 gray/white Fat Quarterss (from the show)
• ½ yd dark gray with a few pale gray dots

I got this panel at the first shop we visited, Creations. It really called to me. It was the last panel the shop had and it was stapled to a foam board. One staff member patiently removed every staple so it was portable and I could by it to take home with me. It measure 42" tall by 24" wide equivalent to a ⅔ yard panel.

These blue and magenta pieces read like solids in rich tones. I bought 1 yard blue at the Quilted Skein and 1½ yards magenta at Creations. At the show I bought stack of 15 fat quarters of red in many tones that equals 3¾ yards. My total for solids is 6¼ yards.

At The Quilted Skein the colors of these two batiks called to me and got 1½ yd of each. Yes – that is breaking my guidance rule. But wait;; perhaps that rule was for the show and not the pre-shops. Total 3 yards impulsive batiks.

These fabrics are for my husband. I got 2 yards of a compass face print he liked at One Quilt Place. That novelty print may become two king size pillowcases. I bought and two fat quarters of a wrench novelty print at the show. They have a small enough print that maybe they can read as black in a man's quilt. Total is 2 ½ yards of husband novelties. Yes, I said no novelties, but, if they have a purpose and are not really another quilt, do they really count against my goals?

These are the show vendors from which I made purchases: Featherweight Shop, Graphic Impressions, Flynn Quilt Frame Company, Knit Picks, Quilting Connection, Quilt Passions. My very first purchase at the show, at preview night was, of course, not within my criteria of what to purchase. I saw these two 3-yd pieces of 108" wide backing fabric. They were each so gorgeous I could not pass them up. Now I have to make quilts to use these backings! Since 108" is approximately 2.5 times the normal 42" width of fabric, each piece is equivalent to about 7½ yards of fabric. That's 15 yards backing already in the first half hour of the show.

These three fabrics were my caving in on "no novelty prints". My son loves owls and bunnies so these will make pillowcases for him. There are 1¼ yd each of the wood grain owls and the bunnies. there is also one yard of the white animal faced print, destination unknown. Total 3½ yards son novelties.

This following laser cut kit was what I was looking for in my shopping criteria. I had already made two quilts out of these kits and they assembled together so well. A blog post on Blue Hues is dated 12/30/2018. The front of the 80"x95" Storm at Sea kit shows the pattern and the back of the kit shows the fabrics contained within. Maybe this quilt will be where one of those backing fabrics goes. Yardage in the kit I estimate to be 80" x 95" / 42" WOF = 181"=  5 yards total for kit.

• 9½ yards of grays
• ⅔ yard panel 
• 6¼ yards for solids
• 3 yards for impulsive batiks
• 2 ½ yards of husband novelties
• 15 yards backing
• 3½ yards of novelties
• 5 yards total for laser cut kit

TOTAL = just under 45 yards

Not all purchases were fabric. I bought two patterns. The pattern Button Holes will be a great design for pulling together stacks of fat quarters. Even if I do not use the Winter Wonderland for a Christmas quilt, the owl, the wreath, the garland as well as the other blocks are delightful in their own right.

I bought license plates for my collection of stores from which I have purchased something. They line the wall near the ceiling in my sewing room, I do not sew them into anything. They are only for decoration and memories. Plates are for the following shops: 

• Quilting Passions, where I got the Button Holes pattern
• One Quilt Place, where FBG stands for Fredericksburg and it reputation for peaches
• The Quilted Skein, where I got the batiks

The Featherweight Shop was offering this 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. I think all the black may make it difficult but may be offset by the different color backgrounds. But hey, if I put a piece in wrong, no seam ripper is required to correct it.

This towel coordinates in color and theme with a quilt I made called Vintage Ornaments post for 10/29/2014 so I could not pass it up. The store owner said to me it was her last one and she would give me a discount. I laughed and complimented her on what a good salesperson she was using the key words last one and discount!

At a 25% show discount I also bought this set of Amanda Murphy quilt templates. I own her two sets of hearts. Her templates are marked in both white and black for light and dark fabrics with a remarkable abundance of registration points. They are backed with an appropriate amount of rubber-like coating so they are skid proof yet easily moved. The largest daisy is 7" so they may help me fill in backgrounds where the sheer vastness leaves me like a deer in headlights trying to decide a FMQ pattern. See for yourself at this YouTube titled Every Daisy Quilting Templates.

That is the conclusion of my purchases. I cannot certify that I visited all 600 of the vendors, but I certainly came very close. This free gift from the first quilt shop we visited, Creations, expressed my sentiment about quilting.

CLOSING AND GOING HOME
Our Friday night farewell dinner was at Maggiano's Little Italy at 602 Memorial City Mall, Houston. The food was, excellent, plentiful and served family style. Family style is a wise and all pleasing method. The diner could pick what she wants, forgo what she doesn't, and have seconds of whatever appeals most. This is a chain of restaurants so if there is one nearby, do not pass it up. It was certainly a farewell dinner to remember fondly.

Before the entrée, our table of five was served large platters of appetizers that included

• Maggiano's Salad
• Balsamic Tomato Bruschetta
• Mozzarella Marinara. 

The platters of entrées included

• Mushroom Ravioli Al Forno
• Chicken Piccata
• Salmon with Lemon & Herb. 

The two desserts were

• Chocolate Layered Cake 
• and/or Tiramisu.

The next morning, Saturday, November 7th, we boarded our 10:15 am bus to Hobby Airport. Our flight did not leave until 4:05 pm so we had time to find a quiet place to relax, read, and absorb the ambience.  Even the equine artwork in the lounging area display made me think of quilts.

Once we were permitted to check our luggage and pass though security we got to see the horses from the other side. We said goodbye to William P. Hobby Airport. (William P. Hobby was a former governor of Texas.)

We were fortunate to have a four hour non-stop flight back to Oakland CA, which left on time. Our trip's theme song was running through my head... On the Road Again.

On the road again 🎶
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again

Frank and I were pretty tuckered out, so I think we can wait to get on the road again. Our naps on the plane home felt good, but we could sure use more. Besides, once I was home I couldn't wait to open that box and revisit all the goodies I'd bought at the show.