International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX, always seemed as accessible as Mars. I just assumed the amount of money involved would make the trip out of the question. And then my friends on Compuserve all began talking about going and encouraging ME to join them.

The people who talk about how dangerous computers are for our kids don't know where the real danger lies. It was so easy to sneak a little peak at airline fares. Imagine my surprise when I realized a round trip ticket was only about $200! Hmmm....I could do that. And I could share a room....Well, you guessed, of course. I was going to Houston!!

October 20, 5:30 a.m. - in the dark and the pouring rain, my husband and I headed out to the airport! I was really excited to be taking off in the rain, let me tell you.

Miraculously, the flight left on time and I struck up a conversation with the woman across the aisle. She scooted over to my row, saying "I'm a chatty Kathy." Boy, she wasn't kidding! She talked non-stop for 2 hours - at which time, I closed my eyes and feigned sleep just for a break.

I arrived in Houston at 8:30 their time and there was one clerk at the Express Shuttle desk. It took forever to get a ticket and I was near the head of what became an endless line. International Quilt Fest is the largest convention in Houston didn't anybody tell the guys at the airport?

Finally the shuttle comes, nine quilters pile in with all their paraphernalia, and we head into town. First stop, the Doubletree Hotel downtown. Excuse me, I say, you ARE going to the Club Hotel by Doubletree, aren't you? Oh, no, not on this route, he says. Oh, yes, I assure him. Not my fault that the Shuttle desk sold me the wrong ticket. Eight other women get very quiet as we discuss this. I have to pull my schedule out of the suitcase so he can have the address. Happily it is in the outside pocket and we are spared the sight of my underwear tumbling out on the sidewalk! Arrive at last at hotel around 10:30.

I get my stuff up to my room, fight with that durn electronic key (geez - who thought of those?) and unpack. My plan is to spend the day sightseeing in Houston before meeting friends for dinner at the quilt show.

The desk calls me a cab - I get in - clutching the pages of the tourism book and show the man that I want to go to the Bayou Bend Collection - a 28 room mansion on 7 acres of garden - and he never heard of it. Even with a street address, he has no idea where it is. He tries calling the listed phone number and it is out of service. We even stopped a bicycle policeman and he never heard of it either. I give up and go to the Butterfly Collection at the Nature and Science Museum.

This is an enclosed area with hundreds of butterflies. It is quite beautiful but after a while, it is a little creepy that they keep flying in your face and landing in your hair. Suddenly I realize how much like bats they are and really HAVE to leave.

After a refreshing nap at the hotel, the shuttle takes me to the Convention Center where I meet my friends. Brilliantly, they arranged subs from a local shop and we all eat dinner for only $3!! This is, without question, the least expensive meal I eat in Houston.

And now the moment has come we can enter the Holy of Holies the biggest quilt show in the United States ladies and gentlemen, without further ado the Members' Preview!!

The sheer size of it is overwhelming the George R. Brown Convention Center is one full city block. The ground floor is basically one stupendous room about the size of a football field. If you enter at the main doors, the IQF Judged Quilts are in front of you, covering the area from row 1800 to row 1100. There are 28 rows in all!

Four rows to the left is the 100 Best Quilts of the Century. These are displayed museum-style, with no overhead lighting and spotlights for each quilt. No photos are allowed in this section but a beautiful magazine is available with each quilt getting a full page picture. I gladly pay the man the $10. This magazine is available at newsstands and quilt shops. It is amazing how many of the modern quilts I have seen when they were first hanging. It is like visiting old friends.

There are FORTY-TWO named exhibits! The most touching is "Remembering Doreen Speckmann" which includes a dozen or so of her quilts and a lovely book for people to write their memories of Doreen. The book will go to her family.

Some of the exhibits are hands-on like the Let Kids Sew area and the LoveQuilt Connection sponsored by Kaye Wood. In this section, there are a dozen sergers and people can sit and sew quilts for children in need. If you sew more than 10 minutes, you get a LoveQuilt pin. I find time for this on Thursday and am convinced that I do NOT need a serger.

My plan is to see the quilts first but I am sucked by vortex into some of the vendor stalls. Still, I manage to see about 20% of the quilts.

Friday morning, I take my camera and make my way through the rest of the quilts. They are amazingly beautiful - I don't know whether to be intimidated or inspired. Mostly I wonder how I have the nerve to buy any more fabric. I cannot compete with these people!! One way and another, I meet several of the winners - and a couple of the 100 best people - remember the one of the folk dancers that was in QNM a couple months ago? Wow - what a nice lady - and she doesn't think she is creative. I have no imagination, she said. I'm not like Caryl Bryer Fallert - which just goes to show that we are all ridiculously insecure!

The two top winners are both Baltimore Albums. To my untrained eye, they look very similar and I wonder how the judges arrived at their decision. My personal taste runs to more adventurous designs. In fact, if you looked at the 80 pictures I took at the show, you would think there were no traditional quilts on display.

There were, of course, including two special exhibits of Amish quilts. There were also Japanese quilts, dolls, quilts specializing in using Sulky thread, the Hoffman Challenge, the Jinny Beyer Challenge, quilts with a message (my favorite was the one with empty bowls from all the countries that have hunger problems each done in the ethnic style and fabric of that country). Another of my favorites was a double wedding ring so artfully colored it looked like some unique design it took close inspection (and reading the artist's notes) to realize it was the DWR!

My roommate, Laura, is a woman I met online and whom I have never seen in person. Miraculously, we get along as though we were lifelong friends. The first night, we lie in bed talking until 2:30. This sets the stage for a week of sleep deprivation.

Rather than try and see the show together, we set times to touch base and this seems to work well. We meet for lunch with several other online friends. We all call ourselves CISters (from Compuserve Information Systems). Prices in the café area of the convention center are astronomical but the food isn't actually too bad. In the hotel, we have a franchise bakery called Au Bon Pain and they offer sandwiches, croissants, bagels, fruit, desserts and juice, so I know I can make it through without starving to death. This is a great comfort.

The hotel has trouble providing us with two keys that work. Laura and I take turns being locked out. It takes 3 sets of keys before we can both get in.

By Thursday afternoon, I am laden with purchases and feel like a pack mule. We take the shuttle back to the hotel and meet at 8 to have dinner at a Thai restaurant. This is my first Thai experience - also my last - but we won't go into it. Apparently, if you like this sort of thing, it was a good place to eat.

Friday, I plan on serious shopping and take my roll along tote - I am successful in filling it up. Tough work but someone has to do it. Thank heaven for those totes. I try and keep it close to my own heels to avoid running over other people.

I manage to find a number of people I wanted to meet - Marti Michell whose templates I used in my color articles, Barb, Fran and Penny at EQ, Mickey Lawler (love that new book! Found the paints at the Pro-Chem booth and can't wait to play).

The weather is gorgeous and miraculously, the convention center is cool, despite huge crowds. This is a wonderful change from shows where the rising body count cause rising room temps. Don't these guys understand that a room with 2000 women in it will be warm?

I continue to run into CISters and we arrange to meet at the Hyatt on Friday evening. Laura's daughter is coming in from Galveston and they meet to spend the afternoon together - then drive to the Hyatt. I take the shuttle. The bus drivers are terrific - often dropping me at places NOT on their route - which saves me having to transfer.

The CISters are on the 21st floor at the Hyatt. You take a glass sided elevator - I don't know which is worse - my acrophobia or my claustrophobia! We manage to get 17 people into a hotel room - one of the locals brought wine and snacks and we ordered pizza. There are only 4 glasses so we appeal to housekeeping and they send us a stack of plastic cups. The noise level is NOT to be believed. It reminded me a lot of being 18!

By 11, I've had enough - my eyes are drooping and I keep yawning, so Laura, her daughter and I leave. We don't know how to get back to the hotel - so we have a little adventure. I keep my mouth closed (a fairly novel experience) and let them work it out. As my contribution, I lock the car doors.

Saturday I am scheduled for a 3 hour lecture class on being a professional quilter. Traffic is terrible and I am a little late. The room is in the far back corner of the center on the third floor and overhangs the highway and the loading dock. It sounds like the trucks are coming through the room. I listen for about 40 minutes - the noise is giving me a terrible headache. I duck out of class and meet Judi - who has also ditched her class.

The truth is that by the fourth day, you are suffering from severe sensory overload and complete sleep deprivation. It is hard to remember your own name, much less concentrate on a class.

Saturday night, we eat at a Japanese restaurant me, Laura, Judi and her two roomies. Then we stand on the street and watch an unbelievable fireworks display. The Power of Light is put on as a finale to a local event called a Taste of Houston. Fireworks are set off simultaneously from the tops of 10 skyscrapers. It is all choreographed to a musical score. During the "Theme from Top Gun" there was a flyover by a jet plane! For some fabulous photos of the event go to Susan Druding's quilt page at http://quilting.about.com/library/houston99/n-houstonfire.htm

We stand in the middle of downtown, triangulated amont the bases of 3 of the buildings. It is like being at ground zero for a war. I only know about the music because others told me later. All we can hear are explosions. We also miss the laser show since we are at the base of the building that is beaming the lasers. On Monday I am still finding bits of used gunpowder in my scalp.

There are hundreds of thousands of people watching and when it ends, the streets erupt in cheers. Then there is gridlock like you can't believe. No cabs to be had. The bus on the pink route picks us up - even though our hotel is on the green route - and takes us home. He is VERY creative - even driving the wrong way up one street because that lane is empty! The passengers cheer!

Sunday was the sampler 37 teachers, each at a table in the large ballroom. As we wait outside, we receive a booklet, one page per teacher, outlining what they will demonstrate. This way you can choose what you most want to see. Then the doors open and it is like the Oklahoma Gold Rush! Lots of fun and actually learned a couple of things I can't wait to try. I buy a new kaleidoscope ruler from Marti Michell which also figures the corner pieces. What a good idea!

And then ... it's over. Time to go back to the hotel and shuttle off to the airport. Can't wait to see how helpless my husband was without me.

As soon as I catch up on my sleep, I'll go pat my purchases....

Carol Miller can be reached at webmistress@vcq.org the page she runs for her state quilt guild. Check there for a new North American Quilt Teacher Registry.

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