Quilt Market, Part III

Sculpture by duBuffet rises next to the Houston Convention Center. And fits right in with the building's red, white and blue color scheme!

Here’s a shot of the Convention Center floor during Market. (This shot doesn’t even show it all.) And today it is all gone, and the vendor booths for Quilt Festival are going up.

Janet Stauffacher of Vintage Vogue is teaching several beading classes during Quilt Festival. She was in the class I took on Sunday, so I got to see her elegant beaded scissors case with silk ribbon embroidery. And look at those wonderful beaded edges!

I was asked by C&T Publishing to be an “ambassador” for their new Liquitex® Surface Design Center. It is the wire stand on the right side of the photo, and includes Liquitex acrylic paints and inks for fabric, plus a great little book by Jane Davila that shows you how to use them in a zillion ways to make art quilts. I made two samples for this display. The rack of acrylic paints, inks and mediums will be available in January. It is designed to help quilt shops make surface design supplies available for quilters.

Marcia Derse with her "Gerta" collection for Troy fabrics. I really like this collection, which looks as if it is hand dyed, printed and discharged. These are some pillows made from her fabrics:

Judith Baker Montano and Philippa Naylor in the Dragon Threads booth. Judith’s book is “Fibreart Montage: Combining photography, embroidery, quilting with embellishments,” and Philippa’s is “Quilting in the Limelight: The life, art & techniques of an award-winning quilter.” Spectacular eye candy combined with a huge amount of practical how-to information in both books.

Here’s the carpet on the walkway between the Convention Center and the Hilton hotel, which features kaleidoscope designs by Paula Nadelstern taken without her permission, which resulted in a copyright lawsuit (they reached a settlement).

Ellen Medlock makes “uncommonly cute bags, sewing patterns and crafts.” I met Ellen on Facebook, and made sure to swing by her very pink booth to meet her in person.

I've loved Mary Sorensen’s appliqué designs since I started doing applique. Just beautiful work.

Lisa Wood (left) and Gail Pierce in the Woolylady booth. They make wonderful contemporary designs for wall hangings and pillows made from wool.

My friend Kathy Mack’s design for silk bags for wine bottles are available on little pattern cards through della Q. Della Q makes knitting and sewing bags, and silk taffeta. Kathy Mack is a sweetheart of a woman with a really great blog; she sells special fabrics and patterns through Pink Chalk Studio, an online shop.

I met Sarah Vedeler at the Quilting Arts TV taping in September. In this photo, she is demonstrating how to make her intricate digitized designs for silk quilts in the Brewer booth. Here is a detail of one of her amazing quilts, Heather Feather:

Rosie de Leon-McCrady (left) and Marilyn Boskey of Scarlet Today have great nostalgic-looking quilts that combine patchwork and embroidered redwork blocks.

I first saw Debra Gabel’s cute little “Citystamps” quilts for Zebra Patterns at Spring Quilt Market in Pittsburgh. They feature cities and state symbols that look like stamps. Very fun.

Iris of Mistyfuse was demonstrating her new “Goddess Sheet,” a nonstick thermal sheet coated with Teflon. It puts a glossy sheen on fused surfaces, which can help reduce accidents because you can better see which side is up. Look at all the wonderful artists using Mistyfuse; Iris put their work on these little buttons!

Emily Cier of Carolina Patchworks is a bright new talent from my state of North Carolina. Quilt shop owners were snatching up her great patterns, which manage to look both contemporary and slightly retro at the same time. This was her first Market, and I thing she’s going places! Check out her blog, where she details her Market experience, for a taste of what it takes to set up a booth at Market.

Tommie Jane Lane makes beautiful thimbles; I’ve had mine for years and I cherish it.

For more Market news, and details on new tools and notions with a humorous twist, check out Kelly Jackson’s blog,

Here’s a sneak peek at a few of the special exhibits at Quilt Festival:

The Eye of the Quilter is an exhibit of photographs by quilters, demonstrating that a good eye is a good eye; the same design elements that make great quilts are also evident in these photos.

Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) has two wonderful exhibits of art quilts at Quilt Festival this year. The first, called SAQA@20, celebrates the group’s twentieth year. It was curated by Pokey Bolton, a SAQA board member and editor of Quilting Arts Magazine, and features work by some of the best fiber artists from around the world.

The second exhibit, curated by Patricia Gould and juried by Pam RuBert (who makes hysterically funny quilts), is called SAQA: A Sense of Humor. All the quilts “celebrate the laughable, amusing, comical and absurd aspects of humor.”

Nearby, you can walk through the Fabric Forest, patchwork trees suspended by wires to the ceiling made by a quilt group in Groebenzeller, Germany. Here is Scherer Heike’s “Alligator-tree”:

Indigos of China gives attendees a lesson in how indigo fabrics are produced in China, and includes old and new samples of the fabrics which have been an important part of Chinese culture for centuries.

The Antique Quilts exhibit included this absolutely huge (115” x 129”) hand pieced Princess Feather Star design (maker unknown).

I loved this quilt! (also maker unknown). Here's a detail shot: