Twenty years ago: the first PieFest

Twenty years ago the Magpies met up in Ruidoso, NM, from May 20-22 for the first PieFest,  We became acquainted a couple of years earlier on the UseNet newsgroup Rec.Crafts.Textiles.Quilting and collaborated on a "hug" quilt for Sarah (second row, farthest right). We liked to talk on topic (quilting) and off topic (life and opinions). We spun off from RCTQ so we could chatter like, well, magpies.

We still chat on our YahooGroup. Many of us are Facebook friends.  We've had meetups in 2001 (Kansas City), 2004 (Vancouver, BC), 2006 (Lowell, MA),  2008 (Las Cruces, NM), 2010 (Chicago --here and here), 2012 -- Santa Clara, CA (no blog post), 2014 (Australia), 2016 (Fort Worth), 2018 (Maine).  [There have also been smaller meetups with fewer of us.]   We've shared births of children and grandchildren, deaths of spouses, parents (and two Magpies), illnesses (cancer that's reappeared, several surgeries), jobs obtained and lost and retired from.   Oh, yes, and we've made a few quilts along the way!