Houston, here I come!
I’m so excited! I’ll be at The Show tomorrow and part of Saturday. Today is road trip day — a scenic drive with My Cowboy just getting to Texas. I love road trips! Maybe I’ll post some pictures of that part a bit later.
My most exciting moment at the show will be getting to see my quilt hanging there. Up until now, I have not been allowed to show my quilt; but now that the exhibit is officially open, I can put up some pictures. My quilt, Always Look Up, will be part of the Making Memories Special Exhibit. The Houston Market marked the launch of this exhibit, which will travel around the country to help promote awareness and raise money for the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation, an organization that grants wishes to terminally ill breast cancer patients. The quilts are made from wedding gowns, and will be auctioned off to raise money for the Foundation’s projects. Please visit their web site or my post here to find out more.
It is very difficult to take pictures of an all-white quilt, so here’s what I can show you, and I’ll also say: If you are in Houston and get the chance, go see this exhibit — not just because I have a quilt there (!) but because it’s sure to be a wonderful exhibit and it’s for a great cause.
The Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation invited several quilters to create quilts to be juried into this exhibit. I am honored that I was chosen to be invited, and even more honored that my quilt was chosen for the exhibit. When I accepted the challenge, they sent me a box of cut up wedding gowns, from which I was to make my quilt. Always Look Up is made from the skirt piece of a white satin wedding gown. The wide lace around the outer edge came from the bottom of one of the gowns I was given. I pretty much designed the entire quilt so that I could use that particular piece of lace like I did!
The inner block design was adapted from the tin ceiling in my favorite coffee shop, Washington Street Java Company. Here’s some pictures of the ceiling for comparison.
I created each block separately. I also created each side border separately, then joined all of it together when it was close to finished. I hand embroidered the basic design with silver metallic thread. (It took 21 spools to do all the embroidery on the entire quilt!) Then I did some trapunto and stuffed work in some of the areas, and added some beads. The beads came from the wedding gowns. In fact, the only materials I added were the thread, the batting and backing, and the hot-fix crystals. All the other materials used on the quilt came from the wedding gowns I was given. I hand quilted each block and border separately, then joined them together and completed the embellishment and quilting. Then I stitched the lace on around the border and added some hot-fix crystals for some final embellishment. The quilt is entirely hand made, except I did use the sewing machine to join the blocks together, as I thought it would make it more stable. With all the embellishment, that quilt is very heavy! It measures 58″ x 58″ square. Here are a couple close-up shots, one of the lower corner, and one of the side border.
If you are going to be in Houston at the show, I’d love to meet you. I’ll be hanging around the exhibit for a bit, but I hope to get all around the entire show with the time I have as well. If you see me, be sure to say HI! If you get a chance to look at the exhibit, please come back here and leave me a comment about what you thought about it (not just my quilt, but the entire exhibit). I’d love to hear your impressions.
Prairie Moon Quilts 