Back home after a whirlwind visit to Texas

I’m not sure how to capture two busy and exciting weeks in a single blog post, but I’ll give it a go.

Jenn and I arrived in San Antonio in time for dinner on the Monday evening (the 22nd ), having left Sydney just prior to Monday lunchtime!

It’s always a pleasure spending time with our good friends Sherry and Darwin, their home has become quite the home away from home.

America was getting ready for Halloween (and Thanksgiving too going by the amount of pumpkins I saw), it was neat to see as we don’t celebrate that here in Australia.

Of course the reason Jenn and I were there was to attend Quilt Market, arriving on the Friday morning to help set-up the booth.

We had to set off early in the morning from San Antonio to get to Houston, and because I am pathologically punctual we set off at 5.00am which allowed plenty of time.

It was great to meet up with Marianne again and also to meet her ‘girl Friday’ Judy, we all hit it off really well and the time together just flew by.

First up was ‘Schoolhouse’ which I knew nothing about, but now I do know… 30 minutes (that’s 30 minutes, not 31) of manic activity showing attendees what you will be showcasing at Market.  Marianne spoke and watched the clock ticking, Judy and I held up all the quilts and Jenn handed out flyers and photographed the whole affair with three cameras as of course we all wanted our own record!!

Then it was racing back downstairs to start hanging the quilts in their places on the booth.

At Market there is always a well known face or name going past.

The next day, we and the booth were READY.

 We also caught up with quite a few friends at Market, dinner with Mary and Joe Koval, Petra Prins and the Quiltmania crew. We all went to Mama Ninfa’s  which was fantastic.  Really good Mexican food and with a wonderful vibe to the place.

I had a couple of real highlights to this trip, the first was finally meeting a good blog friend in person.  We had tried to meet up earlier this year but the gods were against us that time.  But this time Michele from Betwixt the Betweens and I met up, along with another friend Gina (whom I always knew as Janet!!) and we had a super time together, as if we had known each other for years.  We were so busy talking and laughing that we didn’t get photo’s sorry.

And there was a perfect deja vu moment on the streets of La Grange, just outside the Texas Quilt Museum, literally steps from where Irene and I had met Kathy in April…

… Kathy and I locked eyes and grinned like cheshire cats in November.

We were thinking “were we wearing the same clothes last time”? No, phew.

And a big, big thrill was seeing a Mid 19th C Star Quilt hanging in the European Championship section of the Houston Quilt show.

I can’t really describe how it felt, I guess the only thing better is having your own quilt hanging there.

Kea has used beautiful Dutch Chintzes in her quilt, it is stunning.

I will be back with some other quilts to show.

Thanks for visiting,

til soon

Margaret