It's been 4 years since I went to the Houston International Quilt Festival (sorry no blog post). This past week, the festival was happening and I made arrangements with my friend Joan to go. 

​I was up at 5am and out of the house at 5:30 and drove to Joan's arriving at 6am. She was ready to go and so we hit the road! Three hours later we arrived in Houston and stopped for a cuppa joe and a snack before heading over to the convention center. Afterwards we grabbed a bite to eat and headed home. I was asleep in bed by 930 pm, tired but happy.

As we were heading to the ticket booth a woman, who was a vendor, handed us some free tickets as she had some of her complimentary ones left over - that saved us $15 each. After a quick bathroom break, we entered the exhibition hall and went over to the far right side so we could go up and down each row in order. 

The number of quilts in each category was, at times overwhelming and we decided to browse the category and only focus on the quilts that caught our attention. One category that we 100% passed on was a challenge. The parameters were the quilt size, the same fabrics and subject. We passed on it because the major fabric was PINK and the subject was Princess Diana which both of us felt we could not look at 50 of them!  

There were two other things that got to us

• the first being the use of rhinestones and sequins as accents (I have an example below).  I asked at the info desk and I was told it started about 5 years ago and "thankfully" it was waning. I was also told that if the quilt has glitter, it is rejected!
• the second item was what I call "pictures on fabric" - I am not talking about quilts that are pictorial and made from lots of fabric that is pieced, appliqued, over stitched, etc. I am referring to digitally printed images which are the entire quilt top that are then quilted.

Overall it was a great show.

Below are some of my favorite quilts. Near the bottom, some of the pictures are from two sided quilts.

To prepare for The BIG WALK I have set some training milestones:

1. Increase the average miles I walk each month by 1 mile so I am walking 13 miles before I leave for Scotland in May 20, 2022. Note - starting in August, that gives me 9 months until that date so I pushed to get to 3 miles in August to stay on schedule
2. Sign up to do a 5K, 10K and half-marathon walk(s) to mark my distance accomplishments. For these events and my other walks, a specific time is not a goal, it is doing the distance; my time is just a indication that I am building stamina. 

Today I completed my 5K milestone. I went down to Gruene for the 5K/10K/1K run and walk. It was nice and cool and the course was flat. The 10K started at 7am, the 5K at 7:15 and the 1K for the kids started at 8 am.  I carried my own litre of water and I am glad I did as the "water station" was at the half way point and they were only handing out small cups - not even small bottles! I didn't drink all my water, maybe half of it but I do take lots of sips along the way and just ONE water station was not sufficient in my opinion.  

Here I am with my medals!
Plus below that is the tracker map I made which says I walked 3.3 miles in 1:04:17. 
In case you care about these things there were 8 women in my age group, I came in 8/8 and I was THE LAST person in the 5K to cross the finish line. 
​

When I was a wee lass, I loved camping, hiking and backpacking which of course is a combination of the two. 
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I did a lot of it when I was in the Girl Scouts and even taught camping skills, when I was in High School, to other troop leaders. During the summers I would go to camp for the hiking/backpacking and canoeing trips. It was during this time that I started to hike the Appalachian Trail and did large sections of it in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. I always had the dream to walk the entire thing, all 2,190 Miles through 14 states but alas it never was to be, though I have friends who have done it.

Fast forward 50+ years and here I am planning for my retirement, next year and my sister and I were exchanging emails about what we would want to do and I said that I really only wanted to travel to Japan as this was one place I really wanted to visit but have not, yet.  Another thing I wanted to do was to visit my friend Elisa, in Scotland, as we have not seen each other in almost 10 years; we were to visit almost 7 years ago and then I got shingles and when I was better and about to visit her she got them; then we moved to Texas so everything go put off. 

In the past when I would visit Elisa (she takes many pictures that you see here on the website, by the way) I would go for 2-3 weeks and then in the middle of the visit take a side trip - Inverness, Aberdeen, Montrose, as a way to see other areas. She lives in the Northeast of Scotland south of Peterhead if you want to Google it.  For the trip that got cancelled I was going to visit Glasgow and do a deep dive into Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art which sadly burnt down in 2018. 

Well, if I am going to retire next year why not plan a BIG trip to visit! So when I thought what would I want to do as a side trip? I thought about how when we started taking trips to the UK, I learned about Offa's Dyke Path which is along the Welsh/British border and thought it would be a great thing to do. Up in Scotland there are many walking trails and I started to research them.  I could walk around Loch Ness but there's not a lot of other things do along the way; I looked at a walk in the Orkneys to see Skara Brae and other neolithic sites but getting to/from there without a car is not easy with bus, train, and ferry connections. I then looked at the Speyside Way a walk along the River Spey and though Whisky country or should I say heaven! It's 65 miles excluding a few side spurs and loops and can be walked in about a week. 

And how does one do such a walk.. is it backpacking or something else? Well you can backpack it but you can also do it much easier via walking with what is called a self-guided tour. This you can arrange your self or contract with a company that arranges EVERYTHING - B&B's each night along the way and transport your bag from place to place; you are provided all the maps you need; a list of things to visit along the way; and you get breakfast at each B&B plus the opportunity to have them pack you a lunch for the day's walk if you can't get to a shop to pick up supplies.  After much research, I contacted several tour companies and started to get pricing.

BUT how many distilleries can one really visit.  

It was on one of the tour companies website that I found the Moray Way - one of the lesser known walks that combines parts of the Speyside Way, the Dava Way and the Moray Coast Trail. It's 100 miles round trip and it can be walked in anywhere from 7-9 days depending on how many miles you want to do per day which can be an average of 13.5m for the 7 day version or 10.5 miles on the 9 day version - 1 day at 14, 2 days at 13 and 12 and 4 at 9 miles or less. 

Looking at the trail and what is along the way, yes there are distilleries but also a cooperage, Caledonian woods, bag pipe makers, weavers, potters, standing stones, old viaducts and railway lines, shore line with dunes, caves, and more.  I was in and went for the 9 day/10 night trip.  Additionally Elisa and Mike (her shop elf) can drive me to and from the starting point YIPEEE. 

It took almost 2 months to sort this all but I have booked the tour and made my plane reservations for next summer with the hope that COVID-19 won't interfere by then.

Now I need to get my ass in gear and get walking! I plan on increasing my milage so I can do 13 miles a few times before I leave; possibly signing up for a half-marathon as motivation.

​Stay tune for more updates.

Quite a while ago, I stitched a temari with the shiny threads from Japan. This pattern is called plum blossom and because Elisa of Scotland has a Victoria Plum tree, I sent it to her.  Elisa is very into digital photog and today she sent this picture to me.

Today I finished sewing the second color bar on the 50+ quilt blocks; I cut the fabric strips over a week ago but did now sewing anything since my current episode of trigger thumb (a story for another time) was acting up. 
So now it is time to cut more strips of white and sew them which will happen over the weekend.

Earlier this week, I cut the white fabric for the next set of block pieces. Today I sewed and ironed them; all 52 blocks; 50 plus 2 extra. I am now 2/6th of the way through sewing the blocks. I have laid out the grey (gray?) and will cut those pieces tomorrow and possibly sewing.

This week I started to cut the fabric. I like to cut as I go that way I am moving around and not doing the same thing for hours on end. 

I started by cutting the 50 center squares and the fabric for the first bar (gold fabric); I did this Wednesday evening. Today, I was going to meet friends for a long walk and breakfast but since it's been raining it became a sewing day. After sewing the first gold bar, it's time to iron; then cut the strips for the second bar; then sew the second bar and then iron again.

Next up cutting more white and the gray/heather. That will happen later today and I will sew that set tomorrow.

Now that I have what I need to make the quilt, I have to clean up my sewing area and tables. 
Way back in the mists of time, I flew from California to Texas to attend the Houston Quilt Market and International Quilt Festival.  This is a massive quilt show and vendor hall that takes over the Houston convention center for a week. While I was there, I bought a cutting table and a sewing (machine) table that folds up and rolls, has lots of drawers and the sewing tables allows for the sewing machine to drop 'inside' for storage, when the extended table sections are folded up. It is way cool but weighs a ton!!

​Now, during the past year of the pandemic, I had made a mess of both tables because I had placed all my Temari and Yubinuki supplies on them; let alone the dust and other schmutz that gathered.  

It took a good 2 hours just to sort the yubinuki supplies that were on the cutting table and to put them away. The sewing table had to be sorted and vacuumed since there were rice hulls (the center material of a Temari ball) everywhere; this took another hour or so. 

The first picture is of the cutting table with just one leaf opened up; that is the width I need for cutting. 
The second picture shows the sewing table with my sewing machine and the ironing board to the side so I can press what I sew.

I am ready to actually start cutting fabric. 

Two weeks ago I identified 12 quilt shops between Houston, Austin and SA (San Antonio) that I would consider visiting for the fabric hunt.

The furthest east one, The Quilted Skien, is in La Grange (not all the way to Houston) and it is a 2 hours drive each way. I was there 3 years ago when I was driving around as part of the Hill Country Yarn crawl. La Grange is a VERY old town with the court house in the center square and big ol' Victorian style homes AND the Texas quilt museum is there so i figured that now that I was "fully" vaccinated, I would drive out there to look for fabrics and visit the museum as my first stop on the fabric quilt hunt

This weekend I went out to La Grange on local roads passing many classic large Texas ranches, big stone gates at the driveway, cattle grazing on the acres and massive ranch homes off in the distance; plus wild flowers dotting the fields. Along the way you also pass a lot of little towns of just a post office, gas station and market. The roads while in good condition are only 2 lanes but have a speed limit of 60 mpg; I was doing 50 so I could look and would be passed, on the double yellow line, by big ass dual wheel pick up trucks and getting flipped the bird; but what ever. 

I arrived in La Grange to find many shops around the square closed (out of business); I had called a head and knew the quilt shop was still open.   The shop was empty so I spend some time looking at the selection of fabrics before looking specifically for the quilt; so I knew where to focus. The shop owner asked about what I was looking for and I explained the quilt and showed here the pattern. She agreed that a tone-on-tone would be good for a modern quilt and pointed me to some fabric collections that I like. During this time we also talked about the Snowmageddon, from last February and the hail storms just 3 weeks ago.  I looked at several other collections to see if I wanted to mix up the fabrics but never found anything as good; I then selected a white-on-white. She carried the bolts to the cutting table, I got a package of needles for my machine and bought 3 spools of 100% cotton sewing thread and checked out.  1.hours later, I was done with the fabric hunt then I was done with the "great" wedding quilt fabric hunt. I did not think it would be that easy. I was expecting to visit at least 2 or three quilt shops.

I then wandered over to the Quilt museum and saw an exhibition of blue and white quilts. Unfortunately no photography was allowed but I saw some really nice quilts.  

I have completed the fabric hunt in one weekend thinking it was possibly going to take at least 3. Now to clean up my sewing area and get to cutting.