Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt - Tejas Block 2

Since Austin is only about 90 minutes' drive up the highway from San Antonio, it doesn't surprise me that block #2 of the Tejas row has checked in.

Barbara of MurphysHouse has added her block to the row.

Residents of Austin are known as "Austinites," and include a diverse mix of university professors, students, politicians, lobbyists, musicians, state employees, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers, and white-collar workers. The main campus of the University of Texas is located in Austin. The city is home to enough large sites of major technology corporations to have earned it the nickname "Silicon Hills." Austin's official slogan promotes the city as "The Live Music Capital of the World", a reference to its status as home to many musicians and music venues. In recent years, many Austinites have also adopted the unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Weird"; this refers partly to the eclectic and progressive lifestyle of many Austin residents, but is also the slogan for a campaign to preserve smaller local businesses and resist excessive commercialization.

Something you might not know about Austin: The world’s largest urban bat colony resides on Austin’s Congress Avenue Bridge in the summer. By largest, we’re talkin’ 1.5 million bats. The Mexican Free-tailed bats migrate from Mexico every spring and bat watching is a popular Austin warm weather pass-time. People gather to watch the entire colony fly out at sunset.

Barbara has been sewing over 50 years. In 1976 she and her sister took a fateful class in quilting, and Barbara's been perfecting her craft ever since. While she gains much satisfaction from hand quilting, most of her quilts now are machine quilted.

I know you've been wondering about the namesake of Barbara's shop. Murphy is Barbara's 5 year old Cairn Terrier. The pair of them can often be found participating in Barbara's other passion out on the Jimmy Clay Golf Course in Austin. In fact, Barbara assured me that is where we would have seen the Sisterhood row had she taken it with her. Texas has over 800 golf courses, and Austin is consistently ranked as top golfing destination, so Barbara pretty much lives in a wonderful place to practice her passions!