Houston, my quilt shoes

When I went to IQA quiltshow Houston in 2007 I was warned, just as I will warn you in my to come Houston preparation logs: wear comfortable clothes, especially comfortable shoes. I was packing my suitcase and remembered to take a vest, to take a back pack, to wear easy trousers and I remembered fashion stops below the knees at show.

Well I could deal with that. So I looked in my closet and checked the shoe department. Ouch. I needed shoes to walk the aisles up and down, and that's 15 miles a day in my pace. In my closet were great pairs of high heels for office, more pairs great for business meetings and sandals with an open toe. No comfortable shoes. Ah well, there were two pair of Birkenstocks. One pair of open toe sandals, not too smart when 50.000 people will be wanting to pass you when you are checking out a sign in the middle of an aisle. Unless you are particularly font of blue toenails. But I do advise nail polish for that.

And there they were. A pair of clean white nursing shoes. Bought them when I thought a training as a pedicure would be the greatest thing in the world. Well yeah, I took the class two years and then my career at work was booming. So much for being a pedicure. But the boring pedicure clogs were still in the closet. And I could walk for hours on them. Thinking about wearing them gave me the strangest ideas. I thought if I would enter the George Brown convention center in these, I would immediately be referred to the Red Cross desk to offer my services for first aid.

I had 3 days to think of a plan. It took me 2 minutes. I went to the Office Store round the corner, bought permanent markers in every color I could get and just started decorating.  Everybody around me thought I went nuts. Decorating a close to new leather pair of Birkenstocks is generally not acceptable. We are Dutch, so we're a bit tightfisted...

They ended up like this, and I was happy to wear them. NO WHITE Birkenstocks!!!!
These shoes became my quiltshow shoes. They have seen Houston, they have seen Paducah. And I meet the greatest girls on show, just because of these shoes. As these shoes are getting close to the end of their technical life cycle, I plan on making a new pair. I will show a picture when they are finished!

Have fun quilting!
Anymart