Sweet Bob, who is the more camera-literate in our house, once said that "If you didn't take a picture, did it really happen? After blogging for a year, I had glimmerings of the same thought. If I have an experience and no one reads about it, did it really happen? Well, I do know that I remember the stories I document longer than the ones that go unnoted. Maybe it's the grinding of the frontal lobe creating each of those little words that stamps the time and place into  permanence like an internal camera.

Anyways, (as Shawnie Yost said in John from Cincinnati), my trip to Knoxville came and went but the flashes, colors and sounds are fresh in my mind. On my way home, lightning in Dallas rerouted me to Chicago then to Seattle with a four-hour delay—the perfect time to nurse a triple latte, turn on the computer and start a permanent record of the memories and mental pictures of Knoxville.

I've wanted to attend a full-blown national quilt show for years, so the American Quilters Society's Quilt Expo in my daughter Bridget's hometown of Knoxville was too good to pass up. The quilts and classes surpassed my expectations and the vendor booths provided the perfect place to buy a good thimble. The quality of the quilts and the quilters stunned both Bridget and I. Here truly were the Tiger Woods and Michael Jordans of the fabric world.

Vendors and retail booths favor the machine quilter as the real money lies in the quilting machines, not in thread, needles and fabric. Bridget and I watched with eyes popped and jaws agape as the experts in the machine quilting field created beauty and magic in thread, their hands dancing over their looms. I recently read that an expert in any field will have dedicated at least 10,000 hours of practice to their chosen medium, whether it is basketball, sewing, cooking, or playing a musical instrument. These machine wizards had years of  practice and could put away the sheet music and just play.

That night Ronnie, my son-in-law, borrowed a two-disc DVD of the PBS special, 100 Best Quilts of the 20th Century (or something like that) from the library. Th whole family watched with me as the present-day quilters were interviewed and their chosen quilt shown in detail. While I was engrossed in the design details and stories of my quilt-heroes, I looked around the room and everyone else was napping! But with me in spirit, I know. Thanks to each of them for indulging me in my favorite subject.

My trip was short but provided an opportunity to become immersed in the quilt world, spend the mornings sitting around the kitchen table with the Batchelors, and catch up with nine of my favorite people. So here's a written record in words and pictures to prove that something special really happened. Sorry I didn't note the name of the quilt or the quilter.