PIQF

For the first time in fifteen years, I missed Pacific International Quilt Fest. I spent the weekend with family, so no feeling too sorry for me. Today I figured out what I missed the most about not attending.

First let me tell you that PIQF is a enormous quilt show with hundreds of quilts from all over the world (hence the International part). There is wearable art and plenty of creativity on display. Tens of thousands of quilters descend on the Santa Clara Convention Center for four days of classes, lectures, exhibits. And shopping. There are rows and rows of vendors, selling all things quilt-related. Even fiction, thankfully.

For a fictionalized version of this extravaganza, see my first book Wild Goose Chase. Dewey sets up a booth in a similar setting. Someone is killed with a rotary cutter in a place where at least a thousand identical rotary cutters can be found. Murder and mayhem.

But it wasn't the array of quilts that I missed, nor the decent soup in the luncheonette, or even the disseminating of my carefully hoarded PIQF spending money. It was my peeps.

For you see, I'd spent the weekend with folks who love sports. Any kind of sports but mostly soccer and football. I believe an important baseball game was going on, too. The TV was always tuned to sports. No HGTV, no Glee DVD. Not even The Good Wife. Did you know soccer starts at 8 AM on Saturdays? Those rabid British Manchester United fans have nothing on my family. Not a thing.

Conversations revolved around penalty kicks and trades and downs. My ears bled from the yelling at an interception. Dinners were rearranged to catch all the action.

Meanwhile at PIQF, women were dressed in colorful garb with hand made necklaces and bulging tote bags. They were talking about shot cotton and raw edge applique. People were buying ribbons, and new books, and patterns for purses they will never make. And I missed it!

These are women (and men, too) who think like me. Who are gobsmacked by a display of quilted table runners. Who swoon over a single pearl button. Who are convinced that they will never, ever, see this particular shade of rose hand dye again.

They are me. And I missed them. But there is always next year. For PIQF. And the Yankees.