I absolutely love going to the Houston Quilt Festival, and I’m very lucky to be able to do so. I left home last Wednesday and returned home on Sunday, and it was so much fun to meet up with old friends and see the gorgeous quilts and the amazing vendors! Since Bernina is celebrating their 125th anniversary this year, there was a special display, and my friend Phyl took this photo of me with it. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity!
This year I didn’t take any photos of the quilts in the show, but I couldn’t really have posted them here, anyway. I just spent the time admiring, rather than trying to get a clear shot without anyone’s head in the middle of a quilt. 😉 Naturally, I did some shopping, too. This first photo shows a pair of smaller left-handed duck-billed scissors! I have a larger pair, but this will be so nice for those smaller areas, and it’s really difficult to find specialty scissors for us lefties. There’s also a small Fusamat for appliqué; it prevents the fusible from spreading and getting anywhere but on the appliqué pieces, theoretically; I’ll know for certain after I’ve had a chance to use it. I added to my collection of rulers, too, with this one from Lisa Calle; I love her rulers! The little blue pyramid-ish thing is a thread snip, which is handy for chain piecing. Finally, at the left is a pair of “things” to wear while machine quilting. I really don’t like gloves, since my hands get hot in the summer and since I can’t thread a needle while wearing them. However, these leave most of the hand uncovered while being very “grippy” for help in moving the quilt around under the needle. We’ll see how they do.
I also bought some new threads to play with. The four on the left are a set from Wonderfil; they are a new kind of metallic, all in silvery tones. They are the smoothest metallics I’ve ever felt, so I have high hopes. The spool on the right is a new color from Superior: rose gold. How could I resist that? Yum!
Here are some machine projects I’ll be working on at some point. The one at top right is from Cherrywood, with a grab bag of pieces of their fabrics that I’ll be able to use for the houses. At top left is a project from l’Atelier d’Isabelle, a lovely French shop that has gorgeous linen fabrics; I used some as the background for a previous quilt. There are four printed motifs, sewing-related, along with two pieces of linen with which to set them. At bottom is an adorable pattern I found on the very last day. Actually, I found it before then, but I absolutely couldn’t resist it by that last day. LOL!
Next is a pair of handwork projects. At the right is another pattern from l’Atelier d’Isabelle, this time an adorable pin cushion. On the left is a pattern for a  little bag and a set of plastic inserts to make some hexies to trim the bag. The inserts actually fold in the middle, so they’ll be easy to remove from the hexies and reuse.
Now I just have to decide which project to begin first!
