Home from Houston

This is the George Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, one of the ten largest such centers in the US with 1,800,000 square feet (11 city blocks)! My friend Yvette Howard and I walked each and every one of those spaces ;^) Well, at night our feet thought we had!

We were joined at our hotel by our FL sister Martha Wolfe for two days. She, in turn, introduced us to her friend Betty Busby, whose work we had both long admired. Just a wonderful confluence of art and artists.

Apparently IQF is the biggest convention annually in Houston with 55,000 attendees. However, we quilters are not the biggest and best spenders (outside the convention) in the area restaurants and shops. No, we share hotels, cabs, desserts and the like, saving our coin for more important purchases. I know that there are several convention center vendors who are particularly glad Yvette and I made the trip. LOL

We were there five days: two travel days and three days to cover the exhibitions and the vendors booths. We also participated in a few of the events.

The biggest thrill was the Artist Talk that I was invited to participate as one of the exhibitors in SAQA's Creative Force 2010. It was quite an honor to be included with so many of my favorite artists!

Another event we went to was lunch with Kaffe Fassett AND 900 of his closest friends. Pictured here is the line which we joined about 30 minutes prior to the event. There was a like number behind us by the time the designated time rolled around. I have to say it was amazing that the 90 tables of guests could be served in such a timely fashion...seamlessly.

It's lovely coming home even though we were greeted with snow on the ground this morning. Now we await the arrival of our packages of fabric, etc that we had shipped from the show. They offered this wonderful idea: you can rent a box and stow your purchases periodically so you don't have to lug so much...then when you are ready, you can opt to ship it home avoiding excess luggage fees. Win/win!