Quilt festival draws tens of thousands to enjoy unique art form

International Quilt Festival underway at George R. Brown Convention Center

FOX 26 Reporter Tom Zizka has more on the festival.

HOUSTON - An old standby at your grandmother's house has been elevated to an art-form that will draw tens of thousands of people to the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston this weekend.

If you have an old quilt at home, it may be a family heirloom. Perhaps it keeps you warm at night. They are all good things, but walking around the International Quilt Festival, you find there is so much more to them. There are, also so many more of them. More than a thousand quilts, in every shape, size and color are on display.

"We have people from all 50 states and 30 countries coming to this," says the festival's Bob Ruggiero. "It's the largest annual quilt show in the entire world, and it's right here in Houston."

For 50 years, quilters and their fans have gathered for the show in Houston, as this art-form has been elevated to something more at home hung on a wall than something to ward away the cold.

Artist Kestrel Michaud's award-winning quilt is the product of months and hundreds of hours of work.

"I have used every medium that you can think of: wet, dry. I've used all of it, and nothing has been the same that just makes sense in my soul as fabric. I'm a fabric girl all the way."

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The stories that spring from the fabric are limited only by the imagination. From the festive, to futuristic, patriotic and inspirational, classic to modern. The details, up close, tell the story of the work that created them. It is inspiration for festival goers who are often quilters themselves.

"I think I'm amazed," says one woman between taking pictures of the quilts. "It's heartwarming to see the time spent, and what they end up with is incredible."

"It's just amazing what people think to do, you know," says another. "I didn't think to do that, but I'll try. It's just really neat."

In between showing her mother's decades-old pieces, and greeting fans, African artist Oluwasewi Awoyomi says, "You have over a thousand pieces here, and each person is speaking their language in a unique way, their creative language in a unique way, and it's just a beauty to behold."

The International Quilt Festival runs through Sunday. Admission is $18.

For more information on the event, click here.