Was it a great day? Well, we set out before 8 am and got home around 9 pm. So, oh yes!

We showed up in time to get primo parking and participate in a lively, though very chilly, flash mob! That meant we marched behind an honest-to-goodness Paducah high school marching band right into (and around) the prime AQS floor to great cheers from the personnel and vendors inside–and daggers from the thousands of folks still stuck in lines outside. Yay, us! This meant we got a sneak peak of the prize winning quilts in a near empty hall.

On Day 1, we managed not to freeze and to see all the quilts, about 3/4 of the vendors, the National Quilt Museum, a great & funny lecture/trunkshow by prizewinning quilter George Siciliano, and find the “hurt books” sale. We snuck into the vendor tent before it opened, made ip sad backstories for the Paducah Sun newspaper mascot Sunny, ate pulled pork sandwiches for breakfast, had about a half-dozen “quilt celeb” sightings, and saw the cops pull over an old guy.

So far, so quilty!