International Quilt Festival 2012

One of the best things about living in Houston is that this is home to International Quilt Festival! I don't have to get on a plane or worry about getting  all my purchases in my luggage and I get to sleep in my own bed at night!

Two cousins from Colorado came for the event and I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all! One has been here before, but for the other it was her first visit. Petty sure she had a good time!

We went to Preview night to shop, back Thursday morning to buy what we missed the night before. We stayed home on Friday--it gave us some time to regroup and rest up a bit, then we went back on Saturday, just because we could!! And of course each time we found stuff we had previously missed.

 We have our traditions--we get there early so we can get a good parking spot in the parking garage across the street. We go upstairs to Starbucks, get our coffee and sit on the floor people watching until the show opens. This year we got smart and left our lunch in a cooler in the car rather than lugging it around all morning. We went to the car, unloaded our purchases, got our non-squished lunch and sat on the patio at the convention center and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

It's a wonder I even remembered to take any pictures, as I was on sensory overload, so please forgive the lack of detail accompanying these photos.

Shopping for buttons.

This "booth" was by a batting company--the waterfall and all the flowers are made from batting. It was pretty impressive.

Best of Show quilt. Pictures can't do it justice. There were over 5,000 crystals on it and everything represented something, nothing was on the quilt without a reason.

 Two more winners.

 Another winner. There was such depth in his eyes.

 The top one was really pretty, the middle one I loved the turtles, and the bottom one has wool on it ! I'm sure better pictures and information on the winning quilts can be found on the quilts.com website.

Stay tuned...up next will be pictures from some of my favorite booths and a peak at my purchases.