Textiles and the Triplett Sisters

  This is Thanksgiving Week, a time to give thanks for family, friends, and the many blessings in life.  So, as we continue to write about the Houston Quilt Festival Special Exhibitions, it seemed appropriate to write about Sue Garman, a “matriarch” in the quilting family.  Through her patterns and teaching, she was a blessing to many quilters! Although I never had the honor of meeting her, multiple readers, writers, and quilt aficionados, spoke of generous spirit, wonderful designs, and artistic legacy.  In classes, she shared lots of tips to go with those pattern sheets. She left many patterns and designs to add to our UFO lists and perhaps even finish. Sue Garman made over 300 quilts in her 40 years as a quilter, the majority of the quilts being original designs. The exhibition featured 100...

The Houston Quilt Festival Exhibition Hall is filled with a wide variety of special exhibitions. Although it is easy to be enticed to stay in the vendor portion of the quilt festival, the exhibit hall is the perfect place to see: different techniques, superb skill, and award winning quilts. The exhibition that caught my eye across the exhibit hall was entitled “Freehand Patchwork by Danny Amazona” and it was amazing. Besides appreciating his unique style of art quilts, this was a new technique to be observed. Danny does unorthodox freehand patchwork that is quite different from the traditional techniques. He uses no intricate sewing, but focuses on creating artwork with fabric. Danny states “since I’m using fabric to create my artwork, I want to maintain the original beauty of the textile designs on each piece of...

It’s that time of year, the start of the holiday season.  For many people it starts with Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, etc. For the quilter, the holiday season starts with quilt market/festival in Houston.  It is the time to see old friends, quilting family, and make new friends. So, we hope to see you in Houston!  Please feel free to stop by our exhibition, Pioneer Quilts.  Check out one of our demos at Open Studios or book signings.  Although many of my classes are sold out, I still have some places left in my Adire: Indigo Resist & Dye Class on Wednesday or the Making Material Mine on Friday afternoon.  Come up and be sure to let us know, “I read your blog.”  We love knowing it is being read! If you can’t make it to...

Previously the La Conner Quilts museum, the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum, is celebrating twenty years. To go with the new name, they have a new slogan: Imagine. Create. Inspire. Any nonprofit reaching the five year mark is a cause for celebration, let alone twenty years. Congrats to all who had part in making the museum happen and thrive! Besides the museums two other quilts exhibits Pieces of the Past: 20 years of Collecting and Time Flies...20th Anniversary Festival Challenge exhibit,  QTC was honored to be selected to help with the celebration. Pieces of the Prairie one of our traveling exhibitions will be there. This exhibit will give viewers in the Seattle area a firsthand look at some of the quilts from our new book, Pioneer Quilts: Prairie Settlers’ Life in Fabric. It is...

I come from a theatre background, so it isn’t unusual for lines from plays or songs from musicals to pop in my head. Especially because sometimes the song catches the mood and moment more adequately than I can.  Such was the case when Kay and I went to visit the Chintz Exhibition at Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. A moment when the breath is taken away…then the song begins. In the musical Oliver, the boys have been starving and craving something other than gruel. Thus begins the songs of dreams of food or in this case dreams of chintz.  If you know the tune to Food, Glorious, Food…sing along! Chintz, glorious chintz, Red colors and mustard! While we're in the mood -- Step too close you’ll get busted! Hats, coverlets, and tunics What next is the...