Quilting and Probation Hearings?!
It’s a small world for us quilters-you never know where you’ll meet another quilter.
Today I drove about an hour each way to be a witness in a Probation Hearing. I recently attended the Northern California Quilting Council’s Meet the Teacher event in July and I had $80 stolen from my purse.
While I was on-stage to present, I witnessed this surreal scene: a woman walks boldly and purposefully into the back of the room, directly towards my table. She walks right to my purse, reaches into it and walks out-all this in a large room with 220 people present! I witnessed all of this from the stage and I was so shocked I did not call her out.
When I returned to my table, my purse was askew, my wallet out and my cash gone! I notified the center, identified her on the security tape and also filed a report with the authorities. I was subpoenaed to testify today.
When I arrived there were five other witnesses with similar stories of brazen theft. This woman joined up with an ongoing exercise class, participated for about 5 minutes, then walked to the back of the room and stole from the purses. She also joined up with a charitable event, helping unload a truck, and then proceeded to pilfer from the purses!
Each of us were at different events and mine was the only quilt related event. Yet, when we got to talking, 4 of the 6 of us were quilters or quilt spouses! So we got to talking about the Paducah show, Amish quilts, wholecloth quilts, midwestern quilting locations, trapunto…..
Quilting really is a sisterhood-you meet another quilter and it just feels like we’re long-lost sisters. I know there are nasty quilters out there but they are few. Sewing and quilting is a thread that connects us. I actually left the Probation Hearing with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Oh, you want to know what happened at the hearing? Lawyer games were played and we all came for naught. The hearing was postponed pending some other legal actions against her. But I got to meet some of the nicest people.
I hope now I can get back to what I love to do-quilt and sew!
I’m glad you shared this story as I think many of us are too trusting with out purses. I hope you eventually get some restitution but for now, at least you met some lovely new quilting sisters.
Really though, who’d a thunk it? Someone walking boldly into a room with over 200 people and digging in someone’s purse? But it did lead me to some lovely people!
I can guarantee you SHE wasn’t a quilter! Thanks for sharing your story.
Nope; unless she took it up while in Chowchilla (Ca prison for women).
Wow! Sounds like that’s her chosen career path…but not much chance for advancement there! Glad you were able to identify her, even though the lawyer games are frustrating. But it’s a good warning to all the rest of us to be a bit more careful.
You hate to be that suspicious! Learned my lesson though.