houston quilt show

last week while i was on vacation my friend S & i went to the houston quilt show at the george r. brown convention center. this is an international show & takes up the ENTIRE convention center! it took us 2 days & we didn't even see everything!!!

so many beautiful quilts, but these were some of my favorites -- i tend to like the old fashioned looking ones!

that last one was made in the 1800's if i remember correctly. friends & family wrote special messages on the blocks.

this one is appliqued -- of course it's a favorite because it's sunflowers & bluebonnets!!!!!

there were hundreds of vendors - some were so nice that we made instant friendships - like sue & sandi from "pink eyed sissies" and laural from "simply put." we bought a lot from these ladies!!! sue & sandi are sisters who make the most beautiful jewelry from antique cards or ledgers & optician lenses. we spent not only a lot of $$, but a lot of time with them!!! they felt like old friends!!! laural is the designer & owner of simply put - a quilt design shop she runs out of her home in california. i LOVE her stuff!!!! and she was such a sweet lady - she offered susan & me jobs!!!!!!!!!!!! hopefully we'll be helping her run her booth next year during market & quilt festival!!!! that would be so much fun!!!!!

she had this cute little sign in her booth:

i told her i would definitely write about her on my blog!! i've already made one of her projects!!!!! since this post is pretty long & photo-heavy, i'll show you the project i did here, but i'll do another post later about laural & her booth.

the project i did last night was the "tin pan pin cushion" --- it's sooooooo cute!!!!! i stuffed mine with lavender scented ground walnut shells. it smells so good!!!! it's so my style & i apparently have a little tin collection going on!! i have some other tins in my living room that aren't with these so they didn't make it into the picture!

here's the pattern:

and here's mine:

i changed mine up a bit -- i didn't embroider the words on mine, i changed out one of the fabrics (didn't like the pinkish fabric so i swapped it out for the blue/tan stripe, i attached my quilt block to the darker background fabric rather than the lighter - the darker is more "me".

that's the beauty of crafts - you can personalize it to suit your taste. this was such a fun project & it took me about an hour to complete, start to finish, & that's with hand stitching the dresden plate quilt piece to the background fabric.

i want to make a bunch more of these!!!! this one's sitting in my living room. i want one for my craft/sewing room & one for my bedroom & i wonder where else i could put them??!! how many tin pan pincushions can one have???!!!