Houston koi (Japanese carp) society offers a tour of selected pools and ponds of its members every year in June. It is a lot of fun not only because some of the pools and gardens surrounding them are truly spectacular, but also because they draw their members from all strata of society and over a weekend one gets to see everything, from working class house with a small pond in the backyard to a lush tropical arrangement on five acres of land.
(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) The refreshing thing all these people have in common is that they spend lot of time outside, accepting the Houston climate for what it is and not hiding inside air conditioned boxes like 98% of the population. Because the association members are spread over the entire giant footprint of the city we get to go to areas we would not normally visit and sometimes see things we would not normally see. Still do not understand the presidents’ heads that are simply standing in a field near one of the highways, nor the selection of these particular individuals. But unpredictability is one of Houston’s charms’.

So far (about 6 weeks now) we have had no rain and so it is hotter and drier than usual, quite reminiscent of the summers in Dallas. That is why it was good to take a little break by traveling to London for a few days to finish the project I have been working on for the last 3 years. The flight gets in early in the morning on Sunday and so I headed out to fill in one of the few holes left after our stay in the U.K. – that is to visit Rochester. Conveniently located close to London and having seen it from the train on the way to Canterbury I always had in the back of my mind to pay it a visit. This time Alice came along and it turned out to be a very good trip. In my ignorance I did not realize that Dickens grew up not far from here and spend the last years of his life in Rochester. Many of the buildings and localities in his books can be found here. In addition we stumbled on a free guided tour run by a retired history teacher and that made it even more interesting.

Meanwhile, back in Houston Kumiko was completing a spectacular year of quilting success. The quilt which won the 3rd prize at the International Quilt Festival (Houston) show last year, went on to pick up a first prize at the Dallas Quilt Celebration Show, the Best Miniature Prize at the Road to California Quilters Conference and finally collected a second prize at the American Quilter's Society Paducah show in Kentucky. I was not really sure where Paducah is but in the quilting universe, the Paducah show is equivalent to the Oscars and it made Kumiko very happy. However, a bigger surprise came when we received the show catalogue and found that Kumiko’s quilt was in the center of the front page. And then one of the people who attended the show brought a copy of the local paper and we saw that they chose the quilt for the entire front page. And to finish this successful run Kumiko was invited by the Woodlands Quilt Association as the featured artist during their annual show (The Woodlands Area Quilters Guild Show)– basically a retrospective of her 20+ years of quilting. Shortly after that she presented her works at the Houston chapter of The Appliqué Society.

Here is another look at the miniature from last year. The miniature for this year’s show is already finished and it is even more impressive. But you will have to wait till October.