Houston’s International Quilt Festival celebrates 35 years incredible quilts

Each October, thousands of quilters, aspiring quilters, and fabric art aficionados from all parts of the world travel to Houston to celebrate the artform at the fall edition of International Quilt Festival. And this year, they’ll have an even greater reason to celebrate—Festival’s 35th anniversary.

“It’s hard to believe that we have been doing the show for 35 years now,” says Festival Director and fifth-generation Texas quilter Karey Bresenhan. “It may have started small, but today, Festival draws close to 55,000 people to our city each year. And while it may be near ‘heaven’ for quilters, anyone who loves art, shopping, and new experiences will truly enjoy the show—even if they’ve never picked up a needle and thread!”

The 2009 edition of Festival will be held October 15-18 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, Texas. Classes and events will begin October 12, and Preview Night will be October 14 from 7-10 p.m.

This year’s show will feature more than 1,100 vendor booths offering all things quilt-related—antique and contemporary quilts, fabric, patterns, notions, and books. Additional Festival vendors will be selling everything from antiques, crafts, and home décor items, to clothing, jewelry, bags, and other accessories and gifts.

Visitors to Festival this fall will also get a firsthand look at close to 1,500 incredible quilts, dolls, and works of fabric art on display in 40 different special exhibits. These textile artworks range from 19th-century American signature quilts to the very latest and greatest in contemporary fabric artistry.

Among this year’s highlights will be several exhibits with international flair, including “The Festival Gallery of Quilt Art: Fabric Forest,” a display of suspended quilted “trees;” “Indigos of China,” featuring both new and antique Indigo fabrics from the Chinese culture; and “Quilting in Russia Today,” a very special showing of 20 quilts, dresses, and dolls made by native artists in Russia.

Festival attendees will also get the first look at the finalist and winning quilts from the 2009 edition of “Quilts: A World of Beauty,” the fall Judged Show of the International Quilt Association, which awards $96,250 in cash prizes in 22 categories. Additionally, making its debut this fall will be “The Eye of the Quilter,” a fantastic new exhibit of digital photos—taken by quilters—interpreting this year’s theme, “Inspiration.”

Other exciting artworks and exhibits at Festival this fall include the 80-foot wide “Pittsburgh Friendship Quilt,” the first edition of “Text on Textiles: Words as Design in Antique Quilts,” the rib-tickling quilts of “SAQA: A Sense of Humor,” and the awareness-raising exhibit, “Faces from My Heart,” featuring quilts from artist and AIDS activist Mary Fisher.

In addition, vendors in the special Make It University!™ area of the show floor will be offering a variety of mixed-media art supplies including paints, dyes, beads and embellishments, specialty paper and bookmaking materials, rubber stamps, kits, and more. A collaboration between Festival and Cloth Paper Scissors® magazine and its editor, Patricia “Pokey” Bolton, Make It University! ™ also features colorful, fun special exhibits, hands-on workshops, and “Open Studios” session in which artists will be demonstrating things like fabric dyeing and painting, book altering, and jewelry making.

Festival’s Quiltmaking Academy will be host to more than 365 hands-on classes, 27 lectures, and numerous special events with a faculty of 119 of the quilting world’s most well-known and respected teachers. Among this year’s lineup of classes are those covering everything from basic hand and machine quilting to advanced appliqué and piecing, and silk and fabric dyeing to digital quilt design.

There will be a number of mixed-media art classes, including those on book and journal construction, working with handmade paper, painting on fabric, and needlefelting. Students can also choose from a variety of classes on longarm and free-motion quilting, surface design and color, garment, bag, and jewelry making, and an array of traditional quilting techniques and patterns.

“A lot has changed in the world—and the quilting world—since we began doing this show,” Bresenhan adds. “During that time, quilting has grown tremendously as an artform—the things that quilters can do with just a little fabric and thread is astonishing. And our show has certainly changed and evolved too. Even after 35 years, each Festival is an entirely new and different experience than the last, and we strive to keep it that way.”

For more information about International Quilt Festival, please call 713-781-6864 or visit www.quilts.com Show hours are 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Thurs.-Sat., and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. Preview Night is 7-10 p.m. on Wed., Oct. 14, and admission allows one free additional day. Tickets are $10 regular daily and $8 students/seniors.