Houston Quilt Show

Houston Quilt Show photos: picasaweb.google.com/marne.parry/HoustonQuiltShow#

As is the case, no doubt, with everyone who was in attendance, this is one amazing presentation.  Not only is it HUGE (and we're talking about 1400+ quilts here) there were hundreds (I didn't actually count) of vendors selling everything (and we do mean everything) you could ever want or need, plus a few things more.  I met people from Germany, Singapore, Venezuela, Great Britain, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands.  I just didn't meet some of the others who were also there from around the globe.

So what did we notice?  This was the year of the borders and bindings - they were unique and very different.  You will see in a few of my photos where I tried to capture that - they were wavy, shaped, pieced.  There were minute (as in tiny) borders - usually of a different color which really set off the quilt center.  There was piping around the edge of the quilt - almost imitating rick rack.  Buttons.  Interesting.  It seemed to me that there were far fewer art quilts - although there was still that category with some amazing entrants, but many pieced, more traditional quilts.  As usual there were a number of quilts that we were not allowed to photograph - so good luck.

So what did I buy?  Not fabric.  I did buy a few tools and I'll show you those over these next few days/weeks.  One of the highlights for me was meeting An Moonen, a Textile curator from the Netherlands.  I treated myself to a copy of her glossy, art book (in English) on the History of Dutch Quilts.  I also met Petra Prins, the owner of Den Haan and Wagenmaker in Amsterdam,

Such a lovely lady.  I look forward to visiting her quilt shop in the eastern Netherlands, as well, next time I'm there.  I didn't take a photo but also got to meet another blogger, Jossie from Limburg, in the Netherlands.  It is so fabulous to get to meet, in-person, folks I've talked with here online.  Great, great fun!