Something About Nothing

The main reason I went to Houston was to work at the Mistyfuse booth. I met a lot of great people at the booth and loved it when you could see light bulbs going off as we showed them the product. I helped a tiny bit with the Artistic Artifacts booth, mostly documenting, and schlepping stuff.  The Mistyfuse booth didn't have to change at all between Market and Festival but the AA booth almost came down entirely, and then was expanded to be three booths wide. And then in the blink of an eye, market and festival were all done! It is amazing how much faster everything comes down than it goes up! Reliving Houston through these posts has almost been as much fun, and as exhausting as being there. I hope you have enjoyed this series of posts, AND the fact that there were posts everyday for a week because Cheryl Sleboda over at Muppin.com has once again issued the challenge to post every day during the month of December and I'm going to do it again!  I'...

Of course the other reason to go to Quilt Market/Festival is to see THE QUILTS at the quilt show!  There are so many different types of quilts and I enjoyed them all!  There is so much talent present and I don't envy the job of being a judge in any of the shows.  I have a particular bias toward quilts, if you haven't noticed this yet then let me explain.  I do absolutely LOVE traditional quilts.  I appreciate ALL of the work that goes in to them, but the quilts that call to me from across the room are the ones usually classified in the art categories.   I love surface design and the abstract.  I love layered texture of color and design.  These types of quilts speak to me. Here are just a few of my favorites: (I've included links to the artist's pages where I could find one, so be sure to click on them and see their other fabulous work!) Susan Shie's The Pie of Life: Page of Wooden Spoons in the Kitchen Tarot I just love Susan Shie's whole c...

Liz  and  Ruth  were scheduled to teach a few Take n' Teach classes before Market started on Sunday and Monday mornings and so we all piled in the truck and left at o-dark-thirty to live the dream! A couple of Liz' samples for the Sunday morning class. Sunday morning's class was making embroidery pins with wool from Valdani. I had the privilege of being minion (aka tagalong) and photographer for the class. Ruth and Liz have written several books on hand stitching and run The Thread Lab in Colorado. Ruth showing a student how to make a French knot. Ruth explaining a stitch to Libby Williamson Ruth Chandler's sample book from her Modern Hand Stitching book. Just a few of the beautiful pieces made by students in class. Monday morning's class was all about printing on Roc-lon Ava-lon, Osnaburg, Canvas and Multipurpose cloth fabric using mono-printing on gel plates with wooden printing blocks , s...

I had the opportunity to attend a number of Schoolhouse presentations during market.  These very short classes are designed to help store owners learn more about the products available, as well as how to use the products and share them with their customers.  The premier event was hosted by Aurifil threads .  We learned how the company was formed and how their threads are made, as well as all about their new line of 80 wt cotton threads.  We also received a sample of the thread in a bag along with some Moda fabric. Alex Beronelli from Aurifil was one of the beginning speakers. I attended Lizzy House's presentation about her new fabric line "Printmaking."  She shared how she made her prints and that was the most exciting part to me. Lizzy House showing off her Printmaking line I also took a class about silk dupioni, and a class from  Like Sew  about Facebook Marketing. (sorry no photos) Susan Du Bois, owner of Treenway Silks, gave a g...

Before all the fun of Quilt Market started we had a play day.  Judi pulled out her pfd fabrics, I mixed the dyes and Judy taught us how to dye using quart canning jars.  Something I will be doing again and again! The fabrics were beautiful! Just a few of the dyed fabrics after washing and drying. In between Market and Festival we had a play day making Cyanotype fabrics.   No one in the group had tried this before so we were excited to give it all a try.  It was very simple as we started with fabric that was already pre-treated with the chemicals needed to create these sun-prints. Awaiting instruction in Judi's beautiful studio. Some of the ladies printed out images on transparency sheets, while others drew doodles. I got carried away with the doodles.  The very top doodle that isn't fully in the photo is a collaboration between Judy Gula and I. My doodles. ...