What a Thrill!!

  

My week was chugging along in a satisfactory manner - teaching locally and managing to spend all day on Tuesday writing articles and emails on the new Macbook without incident when I received the following amazing and thrilling message by email...

"Dear LINZI UPTON

On behalf of Stevii Graves and the entire IQA Board of Directors, I would like to congratulate you! Your entry, Odin's Trilogy, has won an award in this year's Judged Show! It will be hanging in the Merit Quilting Machine category. Due to the efforts of our talented members, the 2012 IQA Judged Show promises to be beautiful! It's great to know that all the time and hard work you've put into your piece has been rewarded."

I am delighted, elated, stunned and absolutely thrilled!!! It's a good job that I had already booked a flight and made plans to visit Houston for the first time this year. It will be a really busy week fitting in extra events for prize winners, talking about the Quilted Yurt which will be in the special exhibition, "Tactile Architecture", viewing wonderful quilts, doing a little shopping and maybe even making a trip to NASA!

The email from Houston made me take The Ostrych series out of its shameful brown paper sack provided by FOQ and hang it all up in my studio. I had been a bit worried about the gold snakeskin snakeskin panel that went to Houston as I felt that the quilting did not show up as well as on the original plain lame but it obviously impressed the judging panel well enough.  This result means so much to me since I now feel like I have been validated as a bona fide quilter at the world's biggest and best quilt show.

My enthusiasm for quilting returned at last so I was keen to finish and attach the borders to Oz Bewitched. I even scribbled out some preliminary sketches for quilting designs that are influenced by Aboriginal art. I wished I had made the outer borders wider to show off the chrysanthemum fabric as I had been considering adding prairie points along the binding. 

I even enjoyed piecing a couple of the house blocks that live in a shoe box as an in-between project. 

North East Open Studios began at the weekend and got off to a sunny start so everyone wanted to know why The Quilt Quine had not bothered to put the Yurt up. I was able to hang quilts outside on the washing line and on a ladder but the next day the weather changed back to normal so everything had to be brought inside. I took the laptop out with me and made an effort to write a small blurb about all of the Yurt panels that will be displayed at Houston. I struggled to embellish my brief descriptions with arty-farty phrases so it looks like I may have to work on that skill. I really ought to make a note about my inspiration every time I have a bright idea just in case I ever have to explain myself. Visitors to the studio keep asking me how I first got into quilting and I flounder a bit saying it just sort of crept up on me - I will have to come up with something more exciting than that!