Eeeeeeep!!!

No I am not scared because it is Halloween - I am freaking out because I am so happy and excited right now!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE International Quilt Festival.  I love how quilting fever basically takes over the city.  The shops are in high gear, everyone online seems to be getting ready to come to the city and I feel like everywhere I turn there is more fabric I should by.

I don't know if many of you guys know this but I am president of the Houston Modern Quilt Guild, and to make it an even better week we held a Market Meet Up on Saturday and SO MANY PEOPLE CAME!! Seriously, I was scared everyone would be too tired after a full day of market to come and it would just end up being our guild members hanging out having a beer (which would still have been fantastic!) but seriously like 50 people came!!

I was totally starstruck like 20 times!!!

Some in attendance were Houston's own Cherri House and Lizzy House (omg her new Outfoxed line is to die for), Aneela Hoey, Laurie Wisbrun, Ann Kelle, Kathy Mack of Pink Chalk Fabrics (one of my fave online retailers!), the original Mama herself - Krinstin Link of Sew Mama Sew,  John aka Quilt Dad, Julie of Jaybird Quilts, Pokey Bolton,  Rashida Coleman Hale (whose new Washi line has me near fainting), and so many others.  Plus there were people there from modern quilt guilds all over North America including LA, Philly, Albuquerque, San Antonio, and Calgary just to name a few..

Oh and not exactly quilt related but Bobby King of the Houston Texans was at the bar too!!Although not exactly for Market!

The sad part was that I didn't get any pictures of the night because there were just so many people and I spent the majority of my time talking with people and handing out door prizes.  I was even lucky enough to snag a charm pack of Lizzy House's Outfoxed fabric which I have already made a pillow out of!

Another awesome thing this week was the Cherri House invited me to talk to the Houston Chronicle with her about modern quilting!  This meant I got to go down to market, get a badge, and a sneak peak at the exhibition.

I was so excited and had a lot of fun chatting with her as we walked through the exhibition hall and pointed out modern quilts to the lovely lady from the newspaper.  Plus I loved getting to check out the show before the festival starts, but was pretty bummed the winners of the quilt show hadn't been announced or hung yet.

After we were done talking I went upstairs just to watch people start taking down their market booths.  Y'all may not know this about me either but I work in a very large museum and part of my job includes installing and deinstalling the exhibits so I have a pretty good idea of the time it takes to load and unload a room that size, and the fact that they basically do it between monday and wednesday night BLOWS MY MIND.

 

Sorry the photo came out a bit blurry, the window on the second floor I took this through wasn't the cleanest. 

Either way it is GOODBYE MARKET, HELLO FESTIVAL!!

And if any of you lovely readers are going to festival be sure to join us Saturday night at the Hyatt hotel bar at 8pm for the HMQG Festival meet up.  There will be TONS of prizes, people, and chatting!  And seriously, the prizes are awesome - just take a peak at the sponsers! 

HMQG Meet Ups at IQF

HMQG Meet Up Name Badges, a photo by A Blond Quilts on Flickr.

Name badges for our Market and Festival Meet Ups for the Internation Quilt Market and Fesival!

EVERYONE IS INVITED!! And there will be AMAZING door prizes!!

Details here.

Modern Quilt Guild Market Meet Up

The time has come!

This Saturday is the Modern Quilt Guild Market Meet up hosted by us here in the Houston Modern Quilt Guild.

The details:

Market MQG Meetup:

Saturday October 29th

The Hilton Lobby Bar

8:00 PM

We are having some crazy awesome door prizes from some amazing sponsors. 

And next Saturday we are having a Festival meet up! At which there will be EVEN MORE PRIZES!!

Festival MQG Meetup:

Saturday November 5th

The Hyatt Lobby Bar

8:00 PM

 

All are welcome to either event so please come and enjoy!

Inspiring (House) Monday

A few weeks ago I went to a vintage sale here in the city that was held at the most inspiring place ever!  It was an event coordinators place (I can't remember the name but I will try to find it!) and was the epitome of romantic, soft, and vintage.  These are just a few shots of her place...  (sorry about the quality of the photos, they were taken on my iphone with 1 hand because my other hand was full of the goodies I bought which are below!)

Hanging empty frames?!  Totally brillaint.  Plus I am seeing this as a quilt with different sized boxes with neutral borders on maybe a pink and white background.

That felt pillow in the chair is welcome in my house any day! There is a similar pattern in the felt issue of Stitch magazine.

Random quilts stacked on the furniture???  YES PLZ.

Adorable garlands and sweet quilted pillows?  Oh definitely.

Bunting, pillows, and vintage dresses, OH MY!

This typewritter makes me swoon.  Like I am going to need the fainting couch in the next picture kind of swoon.  Plus the colors in the photo would make the most gorgeous quilt ever!

A pink and white chaise!!!  My life desperately needs this.

Plus I got these baby's from the same that day!



Heather Ross pj's for $25!!!! A 1942 edition of Etiquette by Emily Post for only $12! Plus a gorgeous print from a local artist named Rachel Szitas who is now near and dear to my heart with her love and enthusiasm for art. She is in the process of starting an Etsy store which I am definitely passing on to you guys once it is set up!

Hope this makes you want to try something new, maybe out of your comfort zone for all you bright, rainbow quilt makers out there!

Pretzel, pretzel, who wants a pretzel??

So a few weeks back was the Red River Shoot Out - for those who don't know this is the football game between the University of Texas at Austin and some other school......you know those red people....ug...the University of Oklahoma.

So per tradition me and my best friends from college got together for the weekend to watch the game, hang out, catch up (and eventually console each other over the horrendous loss we suffered in that day game....ug...)

Everyone was bringing something, snacks, drinks, etc, and we were going to cook out for lunch and dinner.  Well here's the thing...

I HATE COOKING.

Cooking in my mind is akin to torture. 

Srsly. 

But I do love to bake and have realized the hand kneading and punching dough is a fabulous stress reliever!  So I made mini pretzel bites using a recipe from the Curvy Carrot (my new favorite cooking/baking blog!)

 

I decided to double the recipe since so many people were going to be at the game watching party but then ended up with so much dough and didn't think I needed to make 150+ pretzel bites so I made me a cinnamon sugar full sized pretzel and it was awesome!!!

 

Of course the down side to baking....THE DISHES!! 

Again please excuse the photography - I didn't finish making this till almost 1 am, so it was dark and I couldn't find my camera and just used my iphone.

WARNING - these things are best eaten immediately. They did not last well until the next day which was totally sad. In hind sight, I think of course they ended up as rock hard little dough nuggets, the salt zapped all the moisture right out of them!!! But why didn't I think of that then?? *facepalm*

Inspiring Monday

Wait, did I just go back in time and miss something?? 

Where are the rest of my best weekend ever posts with photos of the cutest vintage aqua, pink, and white house, and photos from my day antiquing in Round Top Texas when I got the most awesome vintage aprons and flour sack?? Or even where is my Inspiring Monday post from LAST MONDAY???

That's right folks - I am so totally failing at being a blogger right now. 

Plus I spent the last week out of town in both Richmond, VA (one of my now favorite cities) and Ft. Worth, TX (for my Jane Austen conference!!!) so yeah - I am a bit behind!

So in the effort of catching up a bit - here are some of the things I am totlaly finding inspiring right now! (Click the photos to go to their flickr page for all infomation.)











Ok so now that I have tickled your eye balls with some pretties I hope everyone had as fantastic weekend as I did at my Jane Austen confernce, and is now going to go sew!!

GO!!

SEW NOW!!

Best Weekend Ever Part 1 + WINNERS!!

This whole weekend has been amazing so far, full of art, antiques, great friends, good buys, and beautiful weather!

So last night was part 1 of my most amazing weekend.  I got to go to an art opening for an artist named Joshua Bienko who recreates master works on the bottoms of Christian Louboutin shoes!



Now some of you know that my shoe obsession love interest obsession (lets just be honest shall we) is intense and spans the gambit from Converse to Manolo's, and the appearance of Louboutin's red soles just walked straight into my heart.  Here are some of his works.











And my personal favorite!



Sorry for the bad photos as they were taken with my iphone with 1 hand because my other hand was holding one of the best cocktails ever from Flemings!

I love this whole idea because I think art can come in any medium whether it is cloth and quilts or paint and $1000 shoes! I loved the art, the event, the food, and getting to wear my tallest stilettos and not get funny looks because I was wearing 5" over the top shoes. LOL!

*****

And now time for the winners of my blog's first birthday!

Yay!! So here are your winners!

Baker's Twine - The Hungry Crafter
Polka Dots Bundle -Eileen {BlueBirdLuxe}
Stripes Bundle - Virginiabobro
Grunge Bundle - Melissa @ Sew Bitter Sweet Designs
Bliss Layer Cake - Amy and the Bad Cats

Congrats y'all!  I will be sending out emails to notify the winners.

EDIT TO ADD!!  Virginiabobro I can't get a hold of you!  Your name links to your blog but your blog doesn't have your email!  Email me at bomara {at} gmail {dot} com with your address.  If I don't hear from you in a week I will select another winner for the stripes bundle.