Tag Archives: Houston Quilt Festival

Breaking News! The Grand Total for our Quilt Festival Pet Project Fundraiser for Friends For Life is…

November 16, 2012 By in Festival Pet Project Fundraiser, International Quilt Festival, Pet Projects Tags: , , 26 Comments

I want to thank everyone so much who stitched and/or purchased fabric postcards for our Quilt Festival Pet Project to benefit Friends For Life, Houston’s premier no-kill animal rescue and shelter program! Our initial hope was to reach $10,000 with the sale of these fabric postcards, and before the show, I was a little worried that this amount was a lofty and unrealistic goal. Well, guess what: my worrying was a waste of energy.

The postcard wall was dog-gone busy the entire show!

 Amanda Schlatre and I even fetched some fabric postcards for ourselves.

.

And by Sunday morning, the guesstimate of nearly 900 fabric postcards  had dwindled to just 20…

…until all were adopted.

And my concern of not reaching $10,000 was for naught. When I discovered the final amount raised between the sale of the postcards and monetary donations, I wanted to leap like Lassie, bound about like Benji, and gambol like Garfield. Are you ready?

.

.

We raised $20,251.62!

To break this amount down, the money will:

• Vaccinate 4,000 cats

• Vaccinate 5263 dogs

• Neuter 363 tomcats

• Provide heartworm treatment for 49 dogs

• Provide 1000 Project WARM feral cat shelters for distribution to colonies all over Houston.

Above with Salise Shuttlesworth, Founder and Director of Friends For Life. I  admire her very much for her tenacity, passion, and advocacy for all animals.

.

I want to thank everyone so, so much for helping us raise this money–for making postcards, for buying them, for blogging about the project, for telling your guild members and friends, for helping in the booth, the list goes on.

Great news for future years at International Quilt Festival/Houston!

For those who did not have a chance to make fabric postcards or attend the show to purchase any, we will be doing this fabric postcard benefit again in Houston for the next two years! So go ahead and start making fabric postcards because we want to raise twice as much next year as we did this year!

.
We will also have news on our accompanying Pet Project juried animal quilt exhibit to debut next year, so if you want to make a quilted animal portrait, we invite you to start stitching.

Cheers!

Quilt Festival 2012 Recap (Part 1): Open Studios!

November 9, 2012 By in Houston Quilt Festival, International Quilt Festival, Open Studios Tags: , , 5 Comments

What just happened?! Did Quilt Festival come and go already? Really?!

Faster than Roadrunner can outrun a rocket, my two weeks of Hilton livin’ and Houston Quilt Show lovin’ feel like they zoomed by at warp speed, and in the blink of an eye, I’m already back at Quilts headquarters, sitting still, feeling exhilarated, inspired, and yes, also a little tired.

What an incredible and whirlwind of a time this year’s International Quilt Festival/Houston experience was for me, and for the tens of thousands who attended, I hope for you as well!

I’ll be posting a few blog entries recapping Festival over this next week, and in this first edition wanted to share some pictures of our brand new Open Studios sponsored by Craftsy, fine purveyors of quality online classes from some of the best quilters in the business. We are very appreciative of their sponsorship, and I know I was among many who felt dazzled watching approximately 40 quilt artists over the course of the four days of Festival share their art as well as tips, tricks, and techniques for better quilting.

x
Open Studios was located close to the entrance of the Food Court, and it was exciting watching it come together!

After Ray from TexExpo and his team rolled out the floor, they began erecting the wall panels that would create the four distinct open studios rooms for artists to quilt, stitch, embellish, and paint.

x

x

Here my coworker Belén Timmins is sporting a classic pose in one of the windows of Open Studios just after one of the walls was completed. Problem was, we knew beforehand that these rooms needed propping…and propping quickly since the show was opening in less than 24 hours.

x

.

After making a few trips home to grab some things from my studio, and with the help and eye of Leslie Jenison and Jamie Fingal, we decorated all of the rooms with props and hanging mechanisms for each artist to display their art for their sessions. I thought the Craftsy sign looked pretty striking!

.

I especially loved the paint room with Leslie Jenison’s art cloth billowing out of paint cans.

x

Some highlights…

Cheryl Sleboda was one of our debut artists to launch Open Studios this year, and demonstrated how she embellishes her quilts with LED lights. Clever girl, that Cheryl…

x

Nancy Goldsworthy divulged her secrets for how to couch chunky and challenging threads to a packed audience of quilters.

x

Marlene Glickman demonstrated nifty surface design techniques using simple, everyday items such as sticks, clamps, and stamps.

x

Joyce Hughes amazed attendees with her beautiful quilts featuring raw edge appliqué and thread painting.

x

Leslie Jenison showed how easy and fun it can be to create one-of-a-kind art cloth with monoprinting.

x

I got to play in Open Studios, too, demo’ing some surface design techniques, and as an admirer of Lynn Krawczyk’s art, it was great fun having her as a neighbor during our sessions!

x

All in all a lively time was had in this new area on the show floor, and I want to thank all of the artists for being so generous with their expertise, and to thank Craftsy for sponsoring this fun event!

In the next post I will share some very exciting news we have about the funds raised for Friends For Life with our Festival Pet Project, but in the meantime, I hope that many of us can keep those in the Northeast in our hearts and prayers as they cope with the aftermath of Sandy. If you want to help, there are a couple of quilt drives that I have been made aware of: Luana Rubin is coordinating Hurricane Sandy- 5000 Quilts and  quilter Victoria Findlay Wolfe whose neighborhood was devastated by the storm, is coordinating a quilt drive on her blog.

Hope everyone has a restful and stitch-filled weekend,
Pokey

Update on Events & Opportunities for the Upcoming Quilt Festival in Houston!

October 17, 2012 By in Houston Quilt Festival, International Quilt Festival, Pet Projects Tags: , , 1 Comment

All of us at Quilts are getting so excited about the upcoming show in just two short weeks! We are busy packing more than 1000 quilts, countless signs, show programs, totes, badges, ATCs, fabric postcards, t-shirts, books (you name it, we are packing it) to get ready to move into the George R. Brown Convention Center next week.

In getting ready for Festival, I have decided I am going to pack up my sewing machine and studio supplies to schlep to my hotel room so at night I can make more fabric postcards for our Festival Pet Project Fundraiser as well as ATCs for our Trading Post!

Pet Postcard Update

Speaking of our Pet Postcard fundraiser (and if you don’t know what I am talking about, all of  the information is here), we are still accepting fabric postcards in our offices through Tuesday, October 23, and if you are coming to Festival we will accept them at the show through Saturday, November 3. Simply bring them to Room 213. Please note: the Pet Postcards will be on sale at Quilt Festival, not Quilt Market.
I thought I would share a few of my own fabric postcards that I have made thus far. (I still plan to make 50 total!)

My little Min Pin, Louie, has a big ego…

.

I mean, for real…he has a big ego. Did you ever see the movie “Goodfellas?” Remember Tommy DeVito, the character played by Joe Pesci? If Louie was a human, he would be him.

.

My kitty Khaleesi, who has been exploring her playful side and stretching her physical boundaries lately, inspired this yoga postcard.

.

ATC & Mug Rug Trade

Don’t forget! Make and bring ATCs and mug rugs to trade at Festival! Bring as many as you want to trade, and tell all of your friends who are coming to the show!

Newly Expanded Open Studios Brought to You by Craftsy!

We are so excited to have a much larger and expanded version of Open Studios this year, and in the food court area where people can relax and spend time with the artists. During Festival, there will be approximately 60 sessions with more than 40 artists who will be demonstrating their craft and sharing their expertise with attendees. This event, brought to you by Craftsy.com,  will have a variety of artists on hand demonstrating everything from free-motion embroidery and piecing to monoprinting and embellishment. I will post the full artist schedule in the next couple of days, so you can print it out and plan your visit to this area.

New: Mix and Mingle Reception!

We hope you’ll join us on Saturday (November 3) for an evening of fun! We’re hosting a new event, MIX ‘N MINGLE from 5:30-7:00 p.m. in the pre-function area, outside of the ballrooms on the third floor. No pre-enrollment is required, all show attendees are invited. What better way to wrap up your day than spending time with old friends (and making new ones!), talking about your day, unwinding, and enjoying refreshments from the nearby cash bar. And best of all…we’ll be giving away hundreds of dollars in door prizes!
More information to come shortly, but I have a date in my studio tonight to make more fabric postcards!

It’s a CAT-astrophe at International Quilt Festival Headquarters!

October 12, 2012 By in Festival Pet Project Fundraiser, Houston Quilt Festival, International Quilt Festival, Pet Projects Tags: , , 4 Comments

Things have gotten down right cat-ty here at Quilts Inc. headquarters as we have received more than 170 fabric postcards so far for our Festival Pet Project Fundraiser, some of which feature the feline variety!

 

.

x

The above three funny feline fabric postcards were humorously painted and stitched by Sandra Gray.

Norma Schlager stitched this cute kitty!

Another fabric postcard by Sarah Anne Smith (who will be teaching in Open Studios…more on that soon)!

 

And Jeannie Palmer Moore painted and quilted this charming tabby.

We are aiming to at least receive and sell 500 fabric postcards, so we hope that many of you are planning to act as cat-alysts to our cause, and help us help these animals from suffering cat-aclysmic fates by stitching up some postcards this weekend. Am I putting you in a fit of cat-aplexy with my play on words?! Stop your cat-erwauling. ;-)

And have a fun, and stitch-filled weekend!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 2,796 other followers