Quilt Market is currently in progress in Houston and I sort of miss the hustle and bustle, but not enough to consider going back! The morning weather report confirms that I am glad to be safely dry and at home, having experienced Houston’s torrential rain and flooded roads on a previous trip!

The Northcott Fabrics booth will be displaying this sample from my POPPY! pattern featuring their new Shimmer line of fabric.

Also on display in the exhibits area and staying through Festival next week are “Who, Me?” in “Celebrate Spring”, “Snow Buddies” in a special exhibit of pet quilts and “In The Bleak Midwinter” in “World of Beauty”. I do wish I could pop in to see those exhibits and Festival, but for this year, it is not to be.

Here at home I have been working on a small wall hanging commission. Each year in an attempt to entice folks to invest in art, the Topeka Art Guild Gallery asks for smaller less expensive works for sale during the month of December and January. A couple of years ago I entered a small landscape of a photo that I took on our Alaska trip and it was purchased by a lady who had lived in Alaska for a while. Ever since she has been after me to make her another, and last month she loaned me one of her photographs to render in fabric for her.

The next step is to quilt and bind it for delivery in a week or so.

Recently the Northcott Fabric Company contacted me about using one of my patterns. POPPY!, to feature one of their new fabric lines, SHIMMER. Of course they need it before Quilt Market in Houston the end of October, so it can hang in their  booth there. They plan to market the pattern to stores along with the fabrics for kitting, so hopefully we will both see the benefit.

I already use a lot of Northcott, especially their Stonehenge line which works wonderfully well in my nature themed work. Shimmer has gold added.  The fabric has a nice silky hand and is a pleasure to work with.

Whenever you work with a fabric company before market, it’s always rush, rush. The fabric didn’t even come in to them til last week, they cut it and express shipped some to me and I finished the top Monday. Started the quilting yesterday and hope to finish it today.

Better go get busy!!

The winning weekend continues!  At the Award Ceremony Sunday afternoon I found out that “Harrier Hunting” was given Second Place in the judging. This came with another cash award!

This is the annual Kansas Artist’s Show at the Topeka Art Guild featuring Kansas themed art.  I am always especially pleased when an art quilt wins in a predominantly “fine art” show of mainly painted works.  I wasn’t sure if it would even be recognized that the Northern Harrier is a year around resident in Kansas, but it was well received.  This annual show is open to any Kansas artist, not just members of TAG.

The American Quilter’s Society in Des Moines is this weekend and “Colorado Kids” has won second place and $1000.00 in one of the wall hanging categories!

Further away, at the LaConner Quilt and Fiber Arts Festival in La Conner, WA. “Foxglove Fairy” received an Honorable Mention.

Pretty good weekend, so far!!

Last evening we attended the opening of the EDGE 4.0 exhibit of art quilts at the Tim Murphy Gallery in Merriam, KS. on the outskirts of Kansas City. It was a very nice show of art quilts and some lovely wooden pieced boxes and plaques. I have two pieces there, “Longhorn Splashdown” and “Majesty”.

The lighting can not compare to that of the Sabatini Gallery in Topeka where we last showed!

Before we went inside, we saw this owl on the roof.

His head was moving so I decided to get his picture.  When I pulled him in to focus I realized he was a security camera.  Pretty cool idea!