Travels with Joy - Part 4 The Quilt Show
The main reason for this trek to Chicago was to take my mother to the International Quilt Show in Rosemont, Illinois. Rosemont is quite close to my sister's, and we planned to farm the girls off to my sister while we visited the quilt show.
The marathon began about 9:00 a.m. when we headed for Rosemont near the end of rush hour traffic. Traffic moved along smoothly until we got near the convention center at which point it slowed to a complete stop. We were stopped at a traffic light where cars from the tollroad were merging with the parking lot of cars headed towards the convention center. Each time the traffic light turned green, three cars made it through the intersection. For every three cars that made it through the intersection, another 6 entered the line up. I was glad to be near the front. When we finally made it to the convention center, there was no place to park. We rolled the window down and asked a police officer who was directing traffic. He pointed to the right. I was in the wrong lane and there was no way to get over to the other lane. As we drove past the parking entrance, we could see groups of women walking from somewhere in the distance where they had parked their cars. "Looks like a long walk," my mother said. "I wonder how much they are paying for parking."
I made a U-turn and lined up to make a left hand turn onto the street that led to the parking area somewhere in the distance. We waited and waited and waited some more. To our right and at the entrance to the convention center a small sign read, Valet Parking. "I wonder how much?" my mother queried. "Let's go to the valet parking." I put on my turn signal, crossed to lanes of traffic and turned into the convention center. My mother rolled down her window and asked the parking attendant, "How much for valet parking?" "$20, Ma'am" the attendant said. "I don't care how much, we're parking in the valet parking." I pulled into the valet parking lot. We gathered our belongings, exchanged our $20 for a receipt and got out of the car.
Happy to have our parking problem solved, we entered the huge convention center complex. There were women everywhere. In fact, I can't recall ever having seen that many women (without male companions) in my lifetime, and they were all quilters. They came with walkers, wheel chairs, canes and motorized scooters. Most of them had cameras, and all of them were on a mission--to see as many quilts as possible and to visit all 500 vendors.
We bought our tickets and entered the quilt show.
The portion of the convention center dedicated to the quilt show covered an area about the size of two football fields. On one end were rows and rows of quilts on display from the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. On the other end and taking up about 2/3 of the floor space were narrow rows of vendors selling quilt fabric, quilting supplies, quilted clothing, craft supplies, sewing and quilting machines and quilting furniture. To the far end was an eating area.
We walked through the aisles of quilts at first looking at each quilt carefully, and finally walking into an area and examining only those that caught our attention. By far, the most beautiful and moving quilts of the show were those done by true artists. One was made of a kimono that had been taking apart and reworked. The other depicted a soldier handing a pregnant woman the folded American flag from her husband's coffin. Her husband had died in the Iraqi conflict. It brought tears to my eyes. We saw a collection of quilts made in the early 1900s. To see so much beautiful work made me think of the women who over the years have spent numerous hours piecing together fragments of leftover cloth to provide blankets to keep their families warm. They could have thrown them together, but instead, they turned those fragments of fabric into works of art.
The marathon began about 9:00 a.m. when we headed for Rosemont near the end of rush hour traffic. Traffic moved along smoothly until we got near the convention center at which point it slowed to a complete stop. We were stopped at a traffic light where cars from the tollroad were merging with the parking lot of cars headed towards the convention center. Each time the traffic light turned green, three cars made it through the intersection. For every three cars that made it through the intersection, another 6 entered the line up. I was glad to be near the front. When we finally made it to the convention center, there was no place to park. We rolled the window down and asked a police officer who was directing traffic. He pointed to the right. I was in the wrong lane and there was no way to get over to the other lane. As we drove past the parking entrance, we could see groups of women walking from somewhere in the distance where they had parked their cars. "Looks like a long walk," my mother said. "I wonder how much they are paying for parking."
I made a U-turn and lined up to make a left hand turn onto the street that led to the parking area somewhere in the distance. We waited and waited and waited some more. To our right and at the entrance to the convention center a small sign read, Valet Parking. "I wonder how much?" my mother queried. "Let's go to the valet parking." I put on my turn signal, crossed to lanes of traffic and turned into the convention center. My mother rolled down her window and asked the parking attendant, "How much for valet parking?" "$20, Ma'am" the attendant said. "I don't care how much, we're parking in the valet parking." I pulled into the valet parking lot. We gathered our belongings, exchanged our $20 for a receipt and got out of the car.
Happy to have our parking problem solved, we entered the huge convention center complex. There were women everywhere. In fact, I can't recall ever having seen that many women (without male companions) in my lifetime, and they were all quilters. They came with walkers, wheel chairs, canes and motorized scooters. Most of them had cameras, and all of them were on a mission--to see as many quilts as possible and to visit all 500 vendors.
We bought our tickets and entered the quilt show.
The portion of the convention center dedicated to the quilt show covered an area about the size of two football fields. On one end were rows and rows of quilts on display from the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. On the other end and taking up about 2/3 of the floor space were narrow rows of vendors selling quilt fabric, quilting supplies, quilted clothing, craft supplies, sewing and quilting machines and quilting furniture. To the far end was an eating area.
We walked through the aisles of quilts at first looking at each quilt carefully, and finally walking into an area and examining only those that caught our attention. By far, the most beautiful and moving quilts of the show were those done by true artists. One was made of a kimono that had been taking apart and reworked. The other depicted a soldier handing a pregnant woman the folded American flag from her husband's coffin. Her husband had died in the Iraqi conflict. It brought tears to my eyes. We saw a collection of quilts made in the early 1900s. To see so much beautiful work made me think of the women who over the years have spent numerous hours piecing together fragments of leftover cloth to provide blankets to keep their families warm. They could have thrown them together, but instead, they turned those fragments of fabric into works of art.
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