07 November 2012

it was a whirlwind


You know how when you plan something for a real long time and then it finally arrives and it flies by like its hair is on fire and its heading toward the nearest water source?

Yeah, that was International Quilt Festival in Houston.

Quick. Over in a blink of an eye. And alllllllll kinds of fantastic.

I'm finally coming up for air today. Managed to find the top of my print table in my studio and my writing desk (I'm tempted to just walk in every day and admire it, its a lovely thing). I came back from Festival with some clarity. Some things about my art business have been picking at me and I'm ready to change them. And I want to try some new things. Much pondering to be done but in the meantime, I thought maybe I'd show you some pics I snapped along the trip.

(If you follow me on Instagram (you can find me under "girllovespaint", you can see all the photos I took, some of the quilts in exhibits.)


I was oddly fascinated with the light tunnel at Detroit Metro Airport.


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We stayed at the Hilton and felt stealthy since we got the James Bond room (the little voodoo guy is Hank, gifted to me by Leann. I took him along on the trip for some quirky photo ops).


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 We ate outstanding Mexican food.


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I stayed committed to NaNoWriMo and started writing my short story collection out by hand since I left my laptop at home.


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Kate and I traveled together to Festival and we found coffee refuge in the hotel restaurant (she is even more obsessed with coffee then me if you can believe it). Apparently Starbucks has taken over the world and it was difficult to find anything that was not it. But we persevered and drank many pots of non-Starbucks goodness.



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I did some serious shopping on the vendor floor. This is my favorite new studio friend.


It might be a little bit before I can set it up, need to give the studio some serious layout consideration but I think we will be enjoying many fine hours together.

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I visited my favorite fabric vendor, Akonye Kena (don't see the fabric on their website but trust me, its gorgeous and drool worthy and I'm making really good friends with it).



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The Hilton's food wasn't cheap (we won't discuss the cost) but they distracted you with cute presentations.



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 I did my Open Studios demo sponsored by Craftsy (more photos to come later, Kate snapped away for me).





My demo neighbor was Pokey Bolton, here she is showing her thermofax screen love.



I managed to paint a fly's wings (look really closely). The little bugger sat there and squeegeed them off with his legs. He managed to fly away after a couple of minutes.



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There was a cupcake food truck right in the food court area. We thought it was a stroke of genius.




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I discovered these fabric organizers. They've given me incredible hope that I can finally create order in my studio. A box of them is whisking its way to me as we speak. I'm sure I'll blog about them again.




There was more but those are the highlights. And they are pretty good ones. :)

My primary focus right now is to tidy the studio so that I can work in there without feeling like I want to set it on fire. Back to the office tomorrow for a couple of days and then this weekend is for cleaning. I'm looking forward to it and to having enough mental space to get back to blogging! :)

2 comments:

Leann said...

How wonderful! What a great time! Thank you for the mini-tour!

Jean Baardsen said...

Fabric organizers? Hope springs eternal, doesn't it? :o) I wasn't at quilt festival, but some of my work was. I did 25 fabric postcards for Pokey's fundraiser, and I have four small quilts at the Alzheimer's booth. I think you mentioned buying a postcard. Did you see the AAQI booth too? Glad you had such a great trip. I drooled over the cupcake truck....