Enjoying // The International Quilt Festival today! I can’t believe this is already my 4th year going downtown to check out all the quilts and do a little shopping. It’s become an annual tradition for me to take Friday off work (today happens to a be a flex day, which was a nice coincidence) to enjoy everything the festival has to offer. Last year I had 7-week-old Charlotte in tow, but this year I’ll be happily solo again. I do have plans to meet up with a couple friends there, and I know of a couple other people working in some of the vendor booths that I’m hoping to see.
Patting // Myself on the back for hand-appliqueing an entire quilt block! The Houston Modern Quilt Guild hosted a workshop with Carolyn Friedlander on Tuesday and I happily used it as an excuse to take a vacation day and do a bunch of stitching instead. I’ve admired Carolyn’s work for a while — both her patterns and her fabric — but was pretty intimidated by the idea of attempting applique myself. She was a good teacher and the workshop was a lot of fun. We made the block you see above (in that picture the applique is basted but not turned yet) from her Everglade pattern. It’s a 9″ block and it took me 8 hours to make. No joke. I assume the process gets faster with practice but wow.
(I also made a very poor fabric choice for my block. It’s Anna Maria Horner’s Loominous fabric which is beautiful…but it’s yard-dyed and a pretty loose weave and it took a lot of effort to keep fraying in check as I hand-stitched all those edges. I want to try another block in normal quilting cotton to see how much easier that might be!)
Wanting // To sew all the things. Yep, I’m in that phase again and going to Quilt Festival today is certainly not going to help. It’s time to write “anything, not everything” on a post-it to stick in a highly visible place again…
Feeling // So very tired after staying up late to watch Game 7 of the World Series on Wednesday. Oof. Sleepy.
I hope to see you later today!