Strictly Stitching

No more baseball - at least for another year.

I was lucky enough to spend all day yesterday at the International Quilt Festival here in Houston. I went with three other ladies and we spent the morning looking at all of the exhibit quilts and the afternoon shopping. The exhibit quilts are amazing and quite a few of them will challenge the traditional idea of a quilt (e.g. nine-patch pieced quilts). Many of them go into textile art. When we left the exhibition area, my mind was a-swirl with ideas of colors, textures, and embellishments. The question is, how to bring them into the more tradional area of cross-stitch? Next year may be a time of experimentation!

Then we spent the next six hours shopping! We did stop to eat, though. I bought a cool pattern to make a stuffed dragon, which I know I won't get around to making in the next 2 years, so I didn't buy any fabric for it. I did get some fabric to make a quilted Cross Eyed Kat banner, which I hope to have done for Nashville. Other than that, I mostly browsed and got a couple of nick-nacks for gifts. Don't say, "Aww, where's the big S.E.X. list?" - you should be saying, "Good designer! You know you don't have any time to do those pretty quilting things - keep working on all those nifty new cross-stitch designs!" And so I will be.

It is interesting to note where crafts cross sometimes. For instance, all of the specialty fabrics with different designs remind me of the different background papers in scrapbooking. There were also things for stamping on fabric to be used for outfits and quilts; there were also pens for journaling on quilts (scrapbooking again).

I'm in the process of wrapping up the "major" designs I want to have done for Nashville. Then I'll start to work on these new ideas, hopefully keeping the ball rolling for some spring releases and any small releases that can also be rolled out at Nashville. I've also got to kick DH into gear for his Nashville project!