The RBQS* comes to town

* RBQS = Really Big Quilt Show -- that is, the International Quilt Festival -- is at Rosemont this week.  ("Rosemont" is Chicago-speak for the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the village of Rosemont, Illinois.  Here is more than you thought you needed to know about the eponymous Mr. Stephens.)

I've been to the RBQS, hmmm, eight times.  I remember the inaugural show in 2003.  The exhibits were squeezed into the upper-level exhibit halls and I heard that the convention center people didn't believe that a quilt show would draw 20,000 people. Subsequent shows have been in the larger first-level hall.  For a few years there was no Chicago show and for a couple of years I had ALA obligations that weekend.  When I dreamed of retirement I thought I would gorge on quilt shows for a year and go to all of them. That hasn't happened.  Paducah and Houston are on my bucket list.

This year's show began Thursday and ends Saturday.  Friday was the day Irene and I could go. We met my online friend Ellie and my Magpie friend Anna at lunchtime. 



But before that were quilt exhibits and after that was shopping!

Only two exhibits had "no photography" this year. (In the past there have been too many no-photo areas.)   I didn't get all the quiltmakers' names (sorry).

These quilts were in an exhibit called HERstory. The women honored are artist Emily Carr (a long-time favorite of mine), Julia Shepherd who successfully fought for women's suffrage in New Zealand in 1893, the Abbott sisters of Grand Island, Nebraska, who were pioneering social workers at Hull-House, and Rosa Parks.









There seemed to be less fabric at the vendors at this show.  I wonder if the closure of Free Spirit (Kaffe Fassett, Tula Pink, etc.) made the difference?  Those designers are moving to other companies but that's still in transition.  I bought 23-7/8 yards and spent $159.  That's discipline!