Houston bound!

Houston, here I come! Well, here comes my quilt at any rate. Still not sure I'll be able to visit it since that's the weekend before the Congo Square festival in New Orleans. Speaking of Congo Square, we (Anne and I) got the official notification last week that we've been juried into all 3 New Orleans festivals that we applied for. Blues and BBQ in Oct, Congo Square in Nov and Treme' in Dec. We did well at the 2 we were juried into last year and we always have a ton of fun! The music at the festivals just makes it 100 times better than the money!

OK, back to the Houston quilt. A call for submissions went out a while back for NOLA: Still We Rise Again and I put it off and put it off submitting anything until a friend mentioned it in passing and I went back and read the guidelines. A full-blown design immediately popped into my head and off I went with it! Two days later I was overnighting the CD so it would get there on time. Nothing like last-minute scrambling. After all that, the notifications were 5 days late, but I was juried in so at this point I don't care! Marilyn Rose was also juried in with the Katrina quilt she made right after the storm with the NOAA hurricane maps on it.

A little about the inspiration of the design. The traditional jazz funerals in New Orleans have what are called second-lines, which follow the casket, the family and a brass band. The funeral procession to the burial is somber, with dirges being played. After the burial, the music is upbeat and faster in celebration of the life of the deceased. The second-line consists of friends and acquaintances and mere observers, who join in the parade. Umbrellas and handkerchiefs are often used by the second-liners. The call for submissions specified the theme as: A juried exhibit featuring quilts that celebrate the unwavering spirit of New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, rebirth, renewal and the recovery of a city devastated five years ago by Hurricane Katrina. I can't think of anything that personifies the spirit of New Orleans more than the second-line. What most people consider one of the saddest times in their lives is instead celebrated as a new beginning. After the devastation of Katrina and now the bleak future of the coast and wetlands due to the oil guyser, many people across the country expected her residents to give up. I never expected any less from them than to throw a party.

I used commercial batiks for both the coastline and the Gulf, and black Kona for the silhouettes. Hand-beaded umbrellas, mixed Angelina fibers for the "oil slick" and free motion quilting on the whole thing. Finished size is 36"x40" and there is a beaded spiral (hurricane) just below MS on the coastline.

So without further ado, New Second Line.