Who Would've Thought There Were That Many Quilters Out There, or, An Opportunity Comes Knocking?

Here we are again, another blog (whatever that is). Tonight we have something to discuss that absolutely amazes me, astounds me; an epiphany, if you will. I'm amazed. We need to talk about it but, me being me, we're going to take the long way around before we get to any sort of point so without further ado, but with some modest delay, let us begin.

Point the First: I have hobbies too. I don't quilt, don't paint fabric, don't sew (if you don't count the occasional button during my various stints as a bachelor), don't bead, or any of the myriad of other things that we support here at FTDF. Jenny assures me that some day I will be exposed to those aspects of the business and will indeed participate in the festivities, but for now I'm a veritable Babe in the Woods, so to speak. All that stuff is still pretty foreign to me. My own hobbies tend to go off in other directions---I raced motorcycles in my younger days, I piddle on guitar, I reenact, and I build model airplanes. It's the model airplane part we're going to discuss today. The ones I build don't fly, but are for looking at. They're heavily researched, pretty highly detailed, and I can immodestly claim that a couple of my pieces have ended up in museums even if that did happen a very long time ago.

Point the Second: I know a lot of people. Some of them used to race motorcycles with me, a few are musicians, and a whole bunch of them date back to my days in aviation journalism and heavy-duty scale modeling. They've all heard about Jenny, and they've all been told about FTDF and what it does. They've been informed. They know.

Which takes us to what could have been Point the Third, except I don't think it would make journalistic sense to do it that way so I'm not going to---I'm just going to come right out and say that a lot of the folks I know have spouses or significant others who quilt, and a few of those individuals also paint fabric. I am amazed!

It all started when I was still working in aviation, and had just met Jenny. It was a low-key relationship because, even though it may not seem like it from time to time, I'm a low-key kind of guy (mostly). When I finally sprang Jenny on one of my friends at work, I found out that she (the friend, although this applies to Jenny as well) was a knitter and wanted to quilt. The lid was officially cracked on the quilter jar. After that, it was a steady stream sort of thing; it seemed like almost everyone I knew was either a quilter, wanted to be a quilter, was dating a quilter, or was married to a quilter. Just this past weekend Jenny and I were talking to one of the Shakers and Movers in the Austin scale modeler's club and, yep!, his wife was a quilter. They're everywhere! Everywhere!

We might want to assess what this means, because there's something happening here. Think about it: We have a national election presently in its nomination stages. We have two Democrats and a Republican who all want to try to run the country. They're going after every special interest group they can muster, wooing and courting and doing all the things politicians do to get votes, but they don't seem to be targeting the quilters of America! It seems to me, as it probably seems to you at this very moment, that there are a LOT of quilters out there, and most of them are a potential vote for somebody or other. It's my guess that none of the candidates quilt, but if my recent personal experience is any sort of indication, they all know at least a few quilters, or more likely (considering that they're politicians) a whole big bunch of quilters. Think about that for just a minute---if properly approached, the quilters of our fair country could be the deciding force in the upcoming general election. Come to think of it, they could even form their own party and be the general election! What a concept! We don't need to worry about what happens if the phone rings at three AM because everybody will be happily sleeping under their very own quilt! Is that cool or what?!

The pragmatist in me says it couldn't work, but you just never know. Anybody out there want to live in DC for a couple of years?

   hasta bye bye,

      phil