HOUSTON – An old standby from 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 downtown. houston this weekend.

If you have an old quilt at home, it may be a family heirloom. Maybe it will keep you warm at night. These are all good things, but as you walk through the International Quilt Festival, you discover there is so much more. There are also many more. More than a thousand quilts are on display, of all shapes, sizes and colors.

SUGGESTED: The 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup final will be in Houston at the NRG Stadium

“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 world and it’s held here in Houston.”

For 50 years, quilters and their fans have gathered for the exhibition in Houston, as the art form has been elevated to something more homey hanging on a wall than something to keep out the cold.

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

“I’ve used every medium you can imagine: wet, dry. I’ve used them all, and nothing has been the same, which in my soul makes sense as a fabric. I’m a fabric girl through and through.”

Get news, weather and more on the new FOX LOCAL app

The stories that emerge from the fabric are limited only by the imagination. From festive to futuristic, patriotic to inspiring, from classic to modern. The details, up close, tell the story of the work that created them. It’s an inspiration to festival-goers, who are often quilters themselves.

“I think I’m amazed,” one woman says as she takes photos of the quilts. “It’s refreshing to see the time invested and the end result is incredible.”

“It’s just amazing what people think to do, you know,” says another. “I didn’t think about doing that, but I’ll try it. It’s really cool.”

As she shows off her mother’s decades-old pieces and greets her fans, African artist Oluwasewi Awoyomi says, “Here you have more than a thousand pieces, and each person speaks their language in a unique way, their creative language in a unique way , and it is simply a beauty to behold.”

The International Quilt Festival will run until Sunday. Admission is $18.

For more information about the event, Click here.