By Chris O’Toole

If I were to ask you what the largest convention in the world is, what would you answer? The Comic-Con in San Diego, perhaps? An Auto Show?

Surprisingly, one of the largest hubs of annual commerce is at the National Quilt Show in Columbus, OH. These are not your grandmother’s quilts with kitties and log cabins. This is the quilting big league. The Super Bowl of the Knitting Committee. In fact, a typical quilt displayed at this national convention can cost as little as $8,000. A top of the line quilt will require a trust fund as most of these can cost upward of $35,000.

Now, with an industry as competitive and prestigious as this, a little theft can happen here and there. However, in the years past, the National Quilting Convention has been host to needlepoint heartbreak and agony. Inexplicably, it’s not just a Christmas patch here or a Snowman patch there, but grand larceny of quilts.

The problem has escalated to such an unbelievable degree that it necessitated the creation of an unexpected website: lostquilt.com. That’s right. The poor quilters have been plagued with such thievery that they must unionize and crack down on missing artwork (made with love of course) by using the internet.

This coalition of the obsessive is a good start, but there is only so much that the neighborhood gossip circles can do. With GPS anti theft devices, this problem could be instantly fixed. No longer would the elderly quilt aficionados have to rely on good faith that their blood, sweat, and tears will be returned to them. They can know their unique “log cabin” quilt is on its way home to its rightful owner. With the GPS tracking devices, the quilt crook won’t drive away with a quilt worth more than a luxury car. The police (and sweet Mrs. Hutch) will be waiting for him.