I'm home in body but not in brain, so let the pictures of International Quilt Festival in Houston do the talking!

See those relaxed, confident smiles on Virginia and Nancy's faces? Just the night before, they counted the loot from the FFAC postcards that had sold thus far for Market & Festival, and they had successfully raised over $100,000 for cancer research! Yes!

Here I am nudging my way between mixed-media artist and Cloth Paper Scissors arts editor, Lesley Riley (left) and mixed-media artist, Christine Adams (right) at the SAQA/Journal Quilt Book reception graciously hosted by Karey Bresenhan. Artists from Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project autographed and left messages in each other's copies at the party. Kim Ritter said between laughs, "I feel so high school!" She's right, but in this case, we could drink (legally).

Lesley Riley teaching her Lutradur book at Make It University. Students worked with Creative Textile Tools to discover how they could etch shapes and organic, textured edges out of the Lutradur. (Lesley will show how you can use Lutradur in a number of creative ways in an article in the next issue of Cloth Paper Scissors.)

And here we are having fun at the "Surviving the Runway Creative Challenge with Cloth Paper Scissors" on Saturday night at Make It University. We kept the challenge particulars top secret so we could keep "designers" on their toes, and I still can't spill all the dirty little details as we're going to adapt the challenge for the Chicago crowd next spring. I will say, however, that there was a lot of laughter. (Proof by how sore my stomach was the next morning.) 

Above, the designers are walking the runway explaining their creations to our three guest judges (handpicked from our audience). Each designer was challenged in the end to make a house structure--inspired by both Lynn Whipple's and Debbi Crane's articles in Cloth Paper Scissors. (The Chicago crowd next spring will have a slightly different task.) Competition was stiff and the stakes were high––we had some excellent prizes for the top three winners, including textile tools, Pearl Ex Powders, Lumiere paints, and Shiva Paintstiks. Designers were instructed to strut their stuff and many a quilter was bustin' a move. Afterwards, winner Judy Twitty said, "I haven't had this much fun in ten years!" Mission accomplished. (Award-winning house that had us all in stitches shown below.)

Tweet