Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt Goes to the Rodeo!

Happy Birthday Texas! The 175th birthday of the Republic of Texas' founding coincides with the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. With 27,013 livestock competitions and horse show entries in 2010, the Houston Livestock Show is the largest in the world. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a charity which benefits the youth of Texas. Since the Show's beginning in 1932, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has contributed more than $265 million to scholarships, research, endowments, calf scramble participants, junior show exhibitors, the Rodeo Institute for Teacher Excellence, School Art participants, and other educational and youth programs. Currently, 1,934 students are on Show scholarships. Enrolled students are attending 88 different Texas colleges and universities. The value of these scholarships is nearly $24.8 million.

Nothing brings to mind the Old West like a modern-day trail ride. Pioneers created trails as they moved west in search of a dream and cowboys created trails to take cattle to major market centers. While these routes are no longer a necessity in daily life, more than 3,000 riders saddle up each February to relive the Old West as part of 13 trail rides leading to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

In January of 1952, several men formed the very first trail ride as a way to increase awareness of the Show. Though only four men made the first journey from Brenham, Texas, the attention they raised attracted more publicity than ever expected, as more than 80 men signed up the next year. The trail rides are a signature tradition of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo today.

Today’s riders hit the trail in an attempt to recreate the Old West, and in doing so, find a common ground that links us all to the Show. A sense of history and pride resides in each rider; igniting envy and intrigue in each child as they watch the trail riders and hope to one day join them. It's so fun to drive down a highway this time of year and come across a Trail Ride making its way to Houston for the big meetup before the big Rodeo Parade through downtown Houston. The Trail Rides and Parade signal the start of Houston's 3 week Rodeo season.

What better place for a Houston block of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt? I bundled up my nearly 2-yr old grandson (for his first ever Rodeo Parade) and we had a great day watching the bands and trail riders ride through downtown Houston.

Then we visited the nearby campus of the University of Houston. Here Tris is pointing to my quilt block at the Statue of the Four Lies.

In front of the administration building is the U of H mascot, the Cougar.

Block Tejas-3 is pictured above with my honeysuckle hedge, which is in full bloom now, as you can see. The azaleas are also starting to pop. I just wanted to show all my fellow quilting Sisters who live farther north in colder climes that Spring really is on its way!

Which is an AWESOME segue into the Tejas Row's next stop -- Spring, Texas! Stay tuned, y'all!

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!

Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt - Tejas Row Begins!

One row in our Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt will come from a single state. With over 25 million residents, it stands to reason that our Quiltsy Team population also reflects many members from the Lone Star State.

The name Texas comes from the Spanish translation (Tejas) of a native Caddo Indian word that means "friends" -- therefore Texas is "the Friendly State."

It was not coincidence that Ann of QuiltingFrenzy begins our row with her beautiful block. She hails from San Antonio, a place that figures prominently in the early history of Texas. It is also where I was born and since Ann and my mother share the same name (first AND last names), it just all adds up to Ann starting out our Texas travelog.

Ann wanted very much to photograph her block in front of that most hallowed symbol of our state, the Alamo. Unfortunately she pulled her back out and was unable to get over for the photo shoot. We'll just have to pretend! :)

This Spring marks the

175th anniversary of Texas independence and many of San Antonio's special events will center around the famous Battle of the Alamo. Click here to learn more about them.

Ann has been sewing for over 30 years and quilting for nearly 20. She likes to let the fabric speak to her to guide toward the finished products. Recently Ann has been making a lot of custom quilts, including photo memory and memory quilts made from clothing.

Ann has pieced quilt tops for quilting icon Eleanor Burns of "Quilt in a Day" fame -- one of which was used in her Victory Quilts trunk show. Ann also tested a new quilt pattern by piecing a quilt top that was quilted by Judy Jackson and featured on page 52 of her "Lover's Knot" book.

Having had the privilege of participating in a holiday show with Ann, I can attest that she is a very accomplished and prolific quilter. Do check out Ann's shop Quilting Frenzy, and stay tuned for the next installment as the Tejas Row travels up I-35 to our lovely capital.