Yo-Yo mat and Christmas decorations!

Since arriving back from Houston  quilt Festival, I have  been trying to finish some UFOs. This yo-yo mat has been going for some time now and is finally complete and on the bathroom floor. Just yo-yos hand sewn onto a pre-quilted background.
also some quick  little Christmas decorations, machine sewn, stuffed and embellished with beads.

My resolutions on arriving back from Houston-
1. Watch lessTV at night. It is amazing how little you miss shows like "Hoarders" and "Selling Houses" and how much you get done, like hand sewing, reading , thinking about garden design, decluttering,    patting the dogs, and talking to my husband.
2.  Do a daily entry in my art journal,  an A4 page of drawing/colouring/cutting and pasting  , anything basically. I make a cup of tea in the early morning and head to the sewing room where I have coloured pencils, glue, fabric scraps and just create something. It does not have to look any good.

a little heart.

Beaded Christmas tree

My yo-yo mat-  showing brown earth colours grading to green grass and then flowers then sky.

yo-yo close up

A souvenir from Houston. 

a beaded star.

two yo yos sewn together, stuffed and embellished with beads.

3. I hope to explore some rug making.

Houston -had a great time!

My friend Kathy, of Koolkat Quilting,  and I visited the Houston Quilt Festival.  What a wonderful event! The quilts were spectacular and the Texans are friendly and welcoming.
There were many aisles of quilts and hundreds of booths selling everything the quilter could desire. I felt the quilts  had a strong conservative trend with  the major winners all being  traditional in design and heavily, intricately machine quilted.  There was a lot of "bling" with  use of crystals attached to the quilt surface and use of metallic threads.
As for the booths,  the Americans are strongly into the country look with dark reds,  blacks, khaki greens and mustard, and plenty of booths selling wool fabric for applique. Compared to American quilting,  our Australian quilters tend to use brighter colours.  I had trouble finding any "cowboy" or Texas " fabric as a memento of my trip. Maybe American quilters find it a bit "kitschy" in the same way that we  feel about kangaroo and koala fabric in Australia.

  We attended the Quilt Market also, and I think the general feeling was that   sales were down in the wholesale  Market but   that the Festival retail market  was very strong. One booth holder told me that there may not have been so many quilters attending but they spent a lot of money!
There were quilting ladies  all over Houston, filling the hotels, riding in the elevators, beating a  path to the George Brown Convention Centre every day with their handmade tote bags  and their enthusiasm. There were  a  small number of men, most of whom took refuge in the Husbands Lounge with armchairs and sport on the TV.

I came back refreshed and full of new ideas for all sorts of projects.Every quilter should try to get to Houston at least once in a lifetime.
You can view Kathy's blog at
http://www.koolkatquilting.blogspot.com/