Hello from Houston! This week I'm working the APQS booth at the massive(ly fun) International Quilt Festival here in Houston. If you're in town, come by the booth and say hi! For those of you who couldn't make it to the show, I'll share some quilty lovelies in the next couple of weeks from my visit here. Of course, you can always like and follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I’ll share photos of my favorite quilts at shows before I can post them here, along with other fun things happening in the studio and at home! In the mean time, here's a continuation of my post from last week with some of my favorite quilts from MQX Midwest. The images are a little small, but you can click each image to enlarge it and really see those quilting details!

"Shelly's Brunswick Sampler" pieced by Klonda Holt, quilted by Dorie Hruska

Can I just say, I've been in love with the work Dorie Hruska is doing! Look at how she breaks her spaces down into simple grids and creates different filler designs within the grids. Her quilting is absolutely stunning and so inspiring! Dorie designed some grid stencils and recently published a book that my guild and I are going wild over. You can check them out for yourself here.

"Stepping Stones" pieced and quilted by Kathy Tamosaitis

Kathy wanted this quilt to feel like walking across a stream on stepping stones and her quilting, which was a mix of computerized and hand guided, really accomplished that! Can you see in the water areas where the quilting is so free flowing and in the rocky areas it's more rigid? This is the quilt you look at when you need to calm down.

"Looks Like Rain" pieced and quilted by Michael Raynor

When I see a very modern quilt from a distance, I'm immediately drawn to it. There's so much color play and negative space with room to play for the quilting! But so often I take a closer look and see the quilting is very simple, straight lines and not much else. I get so excited when I see a modern quilt like this! I love the way he played with density to really carve out certain areas of the quilt. And he used his fillers to play with curvy designs to stay within the rain drop theme for the quilt.

"100 Points of Color" pieced by Nancy Eisenhauer and quilted by Jane Hair

If you liked the grid work in Dorie's quilt above, you'll love this quilt too! Click on the close up image so you can really see Jane's quilting. The borders and sashings are broken down into simple grids and she used a variety of fillers. It looks so fun and playful! On top of that, each of the 100 blocks were quilted differently!

"Star Gazing" pieced by Beverly Schroeder and quilted by Jane Hair

Here's another stunner from Jane Hair, and once again she used grids to help breakdown the negative space into a lovely orange peel design. And look at the borders where she created more stars with the quilting!

"Wedding Rings and Flowers" pieced by Carolyn Stine and quilted by Maureen Mueller

I'm a sucker for quilts with floral applique. I keep trying to start one of my own, but I get busy with other things and it gets put aside. I was floored by the super dense quilting here. The quilting is really a simple filler, just tightly meandering curls and echoes, but to make it that small is a lot of work! You can probably see the feathers in opposite corners, but she also has a few smaller feathers hiding throughout the top mixed in with the tight fillers.

"Roses for Ms. Alice" pieced and quilted by Diane Wingo

This memorial quilt was made for Ms. Alice's granddaughter. I love how Diane incorporated so much of Alice's history into this quilt. The tree of life was made with Alice's clothing. Diane used the quilting to write in her name and the years of her birth and death. My favorite part of the quilt is the roses. Alice's favorite flower was the rose, so Diane quilted a rose for each of Alice's children.