Tehachapi Mountain Festival Quilt Show

Herman and I decided to leave Palm Springs this weekend to escape the extreme weather (120 degrees heat, 55 percent humidity.) We drove northwest for three hours to Tehachapi where our friends live in the hills. As luck would have it, the town was having their annual Mountain Festival, complete with carnival, antique car show, rodeo, parade, and, of course, a quilt show.

It was a small town affair, decidedly quaint, but that enhanced the fun and charm. We had a ball checking it all out. The people were small-town friendly. The highlight was the quilt show, since the friends we were staying with are into quilting.

Quilts are something I’ve always love, both from an artistic point of view, but also from a love point of view. My mother used to quilt, and I know from watching her how much care and work goes into each quilt. To me, they are all works of love, enjoyed by the lucky person who owns one, but quilts are passed down through generations, so that many people over many generations can wrap themselves up in this colorful artwork.

My mother has given me two quilts, and I cherish them both. I even have them in my will, indicating which of my sibling’s grandkids will inherit them.

We had a funny experience walking into the quilt show. It was inside the local high school gymnasium, and at the door were three women seated at a table charging a $7 admission fee. The sign behind them said, Admission $7, husbands and kids are free. We were three gay men, and when the women at the desk saw us, they looked at each other in surprise and didn’t know whether to charge us or not. They had a quickly whispered conference and then waved us through without charge. I guess they had never encountered men, gay men, who were interested in home crafts.

There was approximately 150 quilts on display, in all shapes, sizes, and designs. I took a few snapshots of some of my favorites: