The Sapphire Celebration!

The 45th anniversary of the Houston Quilt Festival occurred this year and was very memorable for multiple reasons. The multi-level display of beautiful blue and white quilts was an amazing way to honor the accomplishments of all those workers, vendors, and quilt artists who have contributed to this event for 45 years. The two founders of the festival Karey Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes continue to be involved in the festival and share their love of quilts.

I was pleased to teach 8 classes, 2 demos, and provided 3 gallery talks for our special exhibition. “Antique Quilts from the Poos Collection” exhibited 25 quilts from our newest book “Hidden Treasures, Quilts from 1600 to 1860.” Besides our special exhibition, there were many other special exhibitions, which will be our focus in an upcoming series of blog posts.

The classes that I taught were well received, but also provided us with some new directions. First, we had many requests for more videos. So, we are currently exploring how best to provide more videos on exhibitions, quilts, and quilting. For those who were unable to attend the Festival, we did film a video about some of the quilts in the new book and I’ll let you know when that is available for viewing.

Also, we had a lot of interest in our tools we were using as well as some of the kits for classes that people couldn’t take. So, as requested we’ve added the kits and supplies to our Etsy shop. These additions have caused us to add some new categories but be assured you can simply filter the shop by your interests. Be sure to check out our next blog from the Houston Quilt Festival where we will focus on the special exhibition: “Applique, The Timeless Beauty of Broderie Perse”, curated by Cynthia Collier.