I Like #319

Sadly I've missed a few weeks of I like posts.  Last week I was out of town, but the weeks before that were just absolutely crazy.  It's been a tough work month here, but I'm coming out of the fog here.  And there have been things to like in the interim even though I didn't have time to post about them.  

Most recently, I made a whirlwind trip to Houston for the International Quilt Festival.  I was only there for one day, during which I volunteered at the SAQA booth, gave a gallery walk about the SAQA exhibit Color in context: Red, gave a lecture on Quilting and Science, and had some meetings and a SAQA reception and dinner.  It was a very full day, but I found time to run through the quilts and booths.  I wasn't particularly in the market for anything, but this yummy yarn did find it's way into my sstash.

There were of course wonderful quilts.  My favorite special exhibit was a solo show by wonderful, new-to-me artist Galla Grotto, whos series of abstracted quilts of women's faces really resonated with me.  Here are just a few I really loved.

There were also wonderful quilts in all the other exhibits. Just a few I took pictures of:

I found this mouse treehouse quilt to be very charming.  It's called Boscodirovo by Italian quilter Laura Gamaleri.  It reminds me of the Berenstain bears tree house.  I've always loved the idea of tree houses.

I loved this Art Deco-inspired quilt by Claudia Myers (called Going Up because the design reminded her of the doors of an ornate elevator).

And I loved the bright neon colors of this more traditional pieced quilt called Tropical Stars by Laura Hirotsu Gates. 

One last silly picture from Houston- a friend took this of me talking excitedly about Paola Machetta's wonderful quilt "Heat Map"

Of course there were many more and I didn't have a chance to do more than whiz through them once, but it was still lovely.

On the way down to Houston, I stopped for a few brief hikes at Big Thicket National Preserve.  They are known for carnivorous plants and boggy terrain.  It was fairly dry, but it was still fun to see the "knees" in the bog, and a field of carnivorous pitcher plants.  And definitely so good to get out and walk a few miles after many hours in the car.

On the way back from Houston, I stopped in Dallas and spent the weekend with my sister and her family.  It was so wonderful to see them.  We hung out and rennovated furniture and roasted marshmallows and played games.

Unfortunately before Houston, we had several days of deep freeze/cold front.  Right before that happened, I went out and cut all the remaining flowers in the garden and harvested all the remaining ripe tomatoes and jalapenos.  It was a good haul, but I was sad because there were still tons of unopened buds, unripe peppers, and green tomatos.  And then after the cold front killed everything, we've been back up in the mid 80s for the last week.  Today at least has normal fall weather. 

Anyway, that's the end of this year's garden because now it looks like this!  I'm going to go out and clean it up this weekend.  I know sometimes they recommend letting the stuff stand over the winter, but the dahlias get slimy and gross and most of the tall flowers had a weird leaf mold by the end of the season which I really don't want to sit in the garden over the winter.

The pups are doing well, very snuggly and wonderful.

I hope there have been good things to like for you all!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more!