Home from Houston

Thanksgiving is over and life is settling down so here's the first part of my trip to the Houston Quilt Festival.  It is one of my favorite mini vacations.  This year, I went with my friend Brigitte. We flew in on Wednesday and Diane picked us up at the airport. The first stop was a quilting shop with a small purchase.  Next stop was lunch at Benjy's.  I think this was my favorite meal.  I had the most delicious Fall Cobb Salad.  It had crab, guacamole, shrimp, sunflower seeds, hard boiled egg, couscous and blue cheese.  I'm going to try to recreate that at home.  (Not with those prepackaged eggs though).

I found my holiday outfit at one of the nearby stores and then we went to the Yarn shop.  I know, it's a quilting vacation but if you could see the yarn you would understand.  Four skeins later, we were hungry again and it was off to the Red Onion for dinner. We split a lovely fish and Cuban Pork and, of course, dessert. Then, we headed back to the hotel and off to bed so we would be ready for Thursday.

Thursday started with hazelnut French toast Zucchini's.  We got to the Convention Center where we met my Aunt Elaine, Uncle John, and cousin Ellen.  Finally, the doors opened and we were off.  We spent the morning wandering through the vendor area.  After lunch, it was all about  the quilts.  

This quilt is Mary Manakee Revisited by Nancy Kearns.  She is a New Jersey girl and she won the Founder's Award.  By the way, this quilt is huge and is all hand appliquéd and hand quilted.  I've taken a couple of classes from her and she is also an excellent teacher. 

There was a wonderful Baltimore Album Exhibit, but no pictures were allowed.  I really enjoyed looking at all the beautiful work.  Most of the quilts we saw on Thursday were special exhibits with no pictures, but here is another prize winner.  Royal Amethyst by Rachelle Denneny.  

 Here is a close up of the quilting.  Amazing!

We were exhausted by the end of the day.  We had dinner at Guadalajara's with my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin.  We had to rush out and made a quick stop back at the mall before they closed.  There may have been some very cute shoes in one of the windows we saw when we had breakfast.  In fact, a pair of those very cute shoes may have come home with me.