Elvis Exhibit at IQF

Now that we're home and somewhat back to a normal routine, we can share more from the International Quilt Festival. We arrived at the George R. Brown convention center about 1:30 in the afternoon.

It was the first trip to Houston for both of us.

We entered the center on the second floor from the parking garage and had been advised by fellow quilters to check out the view from the round windows on that level which overlook the convention center floor.  We later found out that the GRB is designed to resemble a ship, hence the round windows.

Above is a look at the vendor section.

And this is the quilt show section.

The first place we went was to see Sue's quilt in the OURstory exhibit.  However, due to prohibitions on photography, we can't share photos of that exhibit.  (not until we get an OK from Susanne, our fearless leader).  But there were no limitations on the Elvis exhibit, curated by another friend from Northern Virginia, Donna DeSoto.  The Houston exhibit included 40 of the 96 quilts in the collection that celebrate the life and career of Elvis.

Jail House Rock is by Lesly-Claire Greenburg of Fairfax, VA.  The main technique is fused raw-edge applique.

Goodnight from Elvis is by Kaye Sauer of Queensland, Australia.  It is machine appliqued, quilted and embellished.

Debra Gabel of Clarksville, MD, made Elvis: A Portrait.  She used painting and machine quilting to create the look of a faux postage stamp.

Pink Cadillac is by Susan Bynum of Falls Church, VA.  The 1955 Cadillac was Elvis' favorite and can still be seen at Graceland.

Lucky in Love 2 is by Ricki Selva of Fort Myer, VA.  Her piece represents Elvis with his most famous leading lady Ann-Margret.

Blue Suede Shoes is by Joyce Carrier of Bluemont, VA.  The famous song warns against stepping on his blue suede shoes, but Joyce imagines that perhaps there was one that could step on them.

Fever by Claire Josiak of Calgary, Canada, is based on the lyrics "cats were born to give chicks fever".  This whimsical quilt was a fun addition to the group.

All the quilts in the collection have been published in a book called Inspired by Elvis: Art Quilts Celebrating the King which is available from Amazon here.

IQF Houston - Saturday Sampler

If you don’t follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you may not know that we have been in Houston since Thursday for International Quilt Festival. This is our first time attending the festival and it has been inspirational and overwhelming at the same time. The impetus for coming was that Sue had a quilt in one of the special echibits (sorry; no photos allowed yet due to pending book publication). But we have TONS of other pictures to share!

We’ll start with an event we attended which was the Saturday Sampler. There were 28 teachers in a large ballroom, each doing 15-20 minute demos/presentations. You could choose the ones you wanted to visit over the 2 hour time frame. It was a great way to find out more about a teacher and what they do, and pick up a few tips and tricks.

We first visited with Cindy Lohbeck who demoed her process for Ice Dyed Shibori. We have both done this process but it’s always good to pick up a few tips from experts.

She gets wonderful results and was featured in an article in Quilting Arts magazine (Dec. 2017/Jan. 2018).

Ana Buzzalino demonstrated the use of Inktense Pencils on Fabric.

Melody Crust talked about the elegance of straight line quilting.

Maria Shell explained her method of Improv Quilting, which starts ny making striped fabric out of solids, and using the stripes in various ways to create other patterns.

Jenny Lyon talked about choosing threads for machine quilting on a domestic machine. She is a fabulous quilter.

Judy Gauthier’s topic was Using Scraps to Make Beautiful Quilts. She also talked a bit about color theory.

Karen Miller is an Aurifil thread educator who focused specially on Aurifil thread.

The 2 hours went by quickly and we felt it was a good way to learn a lot in a relatively short period of time.