A Kiwi’s first time at the Houston International Quilt Festival.

On 1st of July I received notification that my quilt “Epilepsy” had been accepted into the Houston Juried Exhibition for 2024. Subsequently I received several comments indicating that this was a really big thing and I absolutely needed to be there with my quilt. After a lot of soul-searching, some successful funding applications and great support from the quilting community, I was able to afford air tickets, accommodation for the full week, registration for events and enough left over for expenses and spending money for what might be a once-in-a-lifetime trip..

I flew into Houston on Sunday and after a few hiccups getting into the hotel (was staying in the Hilton Americas, immediately adjacent to the convention centre) was able to get some sleep before what was an utterly non-stop roller-coaster of a week. Here are some of the high points…

 

Quilt Market and Cherrywood

Monday was the final day of the Vendors Market and OMG it was unbelievable. There were so many things that we don't see here, but also the ability to go take a look at the exhibitions that were now hanging, for example from Cherrywood which is a small hand-dying company in the USA that do colour bundles and have an international challenge with their fabric every year. This year's challenge was Poppies and was on display at Houston for the first time.

I had already been planning to stock up on Cherrywood and attending the Quilt Market (aimed at businesses and distributors) enabled this at wholesale prices, along with Vidani threads which we just don’t seem to get in NZ. Thanks to “Pink Possum” for the heads up about registering to get into this, it’s easier for an international than a local as you just need a business card, GST registration and a website which, if you are a small business or artist, you probably have already.  

Image : Cherrywood Challenge, Thumper’s Poppies, Nikki Hill, Florida, USA

 

Classes

Tuesday was spent in the Carve, Stamp and Colour class with Lisa Thorpe. We spent the morning carving soft block stamps and getting covered in black ink and stamping on both paper and fabric while we finalised our designs, then we colour-tested on a small piece with a medium to help stop the colour from running and finally stamped our finished block.

Thursday and Friday I spent 2 intensive days with Claudia Pfeil from Germany working with silks. In a marathon of sewing the entire class cut, sewed, recut and resewed to create our fractured circles. I was so excited to be in this class as I have been following Claudia online for four years. It had been full, but Claudia advertised that a space had become available while at the Symposium and I was able to completely redo my class registrations to get in.

I ducked out briefly on Thursday to get a professional head-shot taken by photographer Bonnie McCaffery. You need an hour for all the photos and then to go through them to find your perfect  shot/s. 

 

Texas Quilt Museum

On Wednesday I had signed onto a bus trip to the Texas Quilt Museum https://www.texasquiltmuseum.org/ in La Grange (about an hour's drive, and thank god for bus air conditioning). There were 2 exhibitions on at the time:

- Allison Aller Contemporary Crazy Quilts which I found amazing and Allison was there giving a speech that afternoon which was also very interesting.

Image : Crazy in the Garden, Allison Aller, 2009, Washington

-Traditional Feathered Star/Lone Star quilts. These were all very similar and even in the same colours, turkey red, mustard yellow and green, While they were all very nice traditional quilts they weren’t exactly my cup of tea. 

Image :Left  was maker unknown, circa 1920’s and is a Coxcomb with Princess Feather Plumes

There is a quilt shop right next door to the museum and it was well worth a look in to see all the fabric and things.

https://www.texasquiltmuseum.org/

 

Quilt Festival or The Show

The final thing I did Wednesday evening was to go to the Quilt Festival Preview. Those of us attending classes got in at 5pm, other registered attendees had to wait until 6pm. The festival opened to the public the next day (Thursday).

Saturday and Sunday were spent zipping around on my hired mobility scooter trying to get to the Festival Market (aimed at the public) vendors that I was interested in and see all the quilts. With 304 in the Juried Exhibition alone and over 1000 across the entire festival it was a lot to take in. There were several special exhibits including “Sacred Threads”, “Save our Planet” and SAQA’s latest, “Camouflage”.

There is so much to see in the show, so many different styles including collage, pieced, appliqué, 3-dimensional work, couching - you will find something that you love and can't walk away from. With Houston increasing the categories from 7 to 10 next year there are more opportunities for quilters to put their work in.  

Other things I was able to obtain included a spiral quilting ruler through Claudia (thanks to the APQS people who bubble wrapped it for me to get back home) which has been almost impossible to get here until now, and other rulers I haven't seen here. Some vendors were even handing out freebies of small quilting rulers. 

 

The people (and the food)

Festival isn’t just about the quilts, it is unmatched opportunity to brush shoulders with some of the biggest names in quilting (and not know how to respond when they compliment your work), meet geographically distant friends that you may only have communicated with (in this digital age) by email / social media / Zoom, and make new friends from chance encounters at the show or the hotel. American quilters are incredibly keen to help out (and quiz) the internationals. Of course I had the triple combo of Exhibitor, International Visitor and First-Timer ribbons on my lanyard, any of which were conversation starters.

During the entire visit I was under the wing of fellow SAQA Members Phyllis Cullen and Karen Kuranda, who connected to me via my mentor for the year Jan Soules. Friday evening I attended the annual SAQA cocktail party and got to meet many more people whom I have seen on the Facebook groups. 

I took a couple of hours to volunteer at the SAQA stand and became everyone's favourite person as I brought the Whittakers chocolate. 

Much of the socialising happens around mealtimes and there are a good range of restaurants close to the convention centre. My personal favourite was Pappadeaux (seafood) but we also tried Grassroots (steakhouse) and The Rustic across the road from the convention centre. Most nights I was out with Karen and Phyllis for dinner and as we got closer to the festival dinners got more and more crowded with more SAQA people wanting to catch up.

For breakfasts I “made do” with the hotel buffet, which included such treats as maple and pecan pastries and Mexican cheeses. There was also a create-your-own omelette station.

 

Travel tips

• It is a 14 hour flight from Auckland to Houston (and back). Book premium economy class. You won’t regret it.
• If your body, like mine, has trouble managing long distances then hiring a mobility scooter is a must. You can get them from the convention centre but it’s much cheaper to hire from further out. My new friend Karen organised mine from her supplier (Sun Mobility http://www.sunmobilityrentalshouston.com/). It made getting from A to B so much easier but I really felt like I needed learner plates for a while. The speed went from turtle to rabbit and I may have become a speed demon once used to it.
• Buddy up with a local or veteran beforehand so you have someone who knows the ropes / can do supply runs for you if you need something that can’t be acquired at the hotel gift shop. Karen and Janet were lifesavers. 
• Make sure your bank knows that you are going to be at an event with international vendors, not just in the USA, so that your credit card doesn’t get suspended because of a transaction in, say, Euros. (Oops.)
• Make sure you have some American cash on you and not just for emergencies, some places may not handle electronic transactions. The Bohin vendors wouldn't take cards 
  Pack light for the flight over so that you can pack everything on the way back. I tried to pack for every possibility and ended up with many clothes, especially heavier ones, that just didn’t get worn. This led to substantial issues fitting all my acquisitions in for the return journey. 
• If possible get one of those sets of three suitcases which fit inside each other, fit everything you are taking in the medium and smallest (the smallest can be a carry-on if it is light enough), and then you have options up to and including three checked bags for the flight home. An extra checked bag is much cheaper than paying for overweight luggage at check-in.

Takeaways

Seeing my work there with pieces from all over the USA, Asia, Australia and Europe and having other international quilting artists look at my online portfolio and talk about how powerful they found other pieces as well, suddenly made me feel like actually I should be standing tall and proud about my work. It may take a while to put into practice but…

If you follow a quilter/artist that teaches at Houston there is a good chance that they will keep you updated on their plans to go via social media as they all want to have full classes and some need to have them full to make things work. You may be able to take advantage of last minute spots which is what happened for me. Once you’re in a class it is still possible to change your registration and move classes around, you pay for each new class but the classes/lectures/events you drop are refunded. I think the only thing they don't refund is the registration fee.