Houston Quilt Festival 2008

We have many traditions for our yearly quilt excursion one of which is to have our picture taken with our teacher at the end of each class (holding whatever we managed to accomplish). Above is Debbie McCaffrey who teaches the Undercover in Houston class. We are given vague instructions about what fabric to bring (1/2 yd light, 2 yd medium, 1 yard dark, etc) and then we follow the instructions one step at a time resulting in a mystery quilt that often stretches our color comfort zone. Cheri was cringing everytime she looked at her orange fabric and I kept telling her it was terra cotta, not orange (sometimes semantics are everything!). Notice Cheri has two large strips at the end of the day while I'm only holding a pile of small blocks.

Below is Charlotte Angotti who teaches our favorite, must-have class, Let Me Surprise You! We show up in class with only small scissors and thread. She provides fabric that has already been cut into pieces and we just sew like mad, again working with instructions that are doled out one step at a time. Another mystery quilt like with Debbie McCaffrey but this time we don't even choose the fabric. Every year we hold our breath as the fabric packs are passed out, anxious if we'll like the colors and patterns. For us, this is living dangerously!

The big news at this year's show was that Cheri had a quilt accepted for competition- a VERY big deal! She worked steadily for 4 1/2 years to hand applique and hand quilt this masterpiece for her parents' 50th wedding anniversary. I don't understand why she didn't win a prize but we had fun watching show visitors oggle and photograph her quilt.