If your idea of fun is taking large pieces of material, cutting them into small pieces and sewing them back together, you're a quilter.

Tens of thousands of quilters will converge on the Donald E. Stephen's Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., this week for the fifth annual International Quilt Festival.

And quilters from Northwest Indiana will attend, as usual, by the bus full. Pat Atwell of Valparaiso is a member of the String Along Quilters Guild in Valparaiso and the Heritage Quilters in Crown Point and has been in charge of organizing the Valpo bus trip for the last three years.

"Taking the bus is such a great way to go," Atwell said. "It's a relaxing way to get there and it's nice to be with friends."

Both groups organize bus trips each year and they fill them quickly, with members and nonmembers alike.

Although the groups travel together, they don't all stick together when they arrive.

"People go for different reasons," Atwell said. "Some go to see the clothes, or you are looking for that special fabric to finish a project (at one of the more than 500 booths). I go to see the old quilts and the old traditional fabric."

Atwell feels that creating a quilt is not just following a pattern from a book.

"Make every quilt your own," she said. "There are no quilt police."

And the same goes for one of the featured exhibits at the festival this year, the Journal Quilt Project.

Anyone who loves quilts or quilting knows that each one tells its own story. While larger quilts can take weeks, months and even years to complete, journal quilts are small playgrounds on which quilt artists can experiment.

Now in its fifth year, more than 900 quilt artists have created nearly 6,000 individual quilt "pages." Each of the small quilts acts as a window into the artist's heart, mind and life in the week or month that page was made. And each one is just 8-1/2 by 11 inches, the size of a standard sheet of copy paper.

The project was created by Karey Patterson Bresenhan, director of the International Quilt Festival, fifth generation quilter and author of the new book, "Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project."

Journal Quilts were designed to be quick projects so the artist could try something new without spending a ton of money or hours.

"Although, we did not invent Journal Quilts," Patterson Bresenhan said. "Credit for that should go to Jeanne Williamson, who, since 1999, has been making a quilt a week to document her life and her observations -- we are proud to have brought these quilts to the attention of the quilt and art worlds and to introduce them to many new fans."

Christine Predd, a retired registered nurse and of LaPorte, will have five pages of her quilt journals on display. Predd has quilted for about 20 years, although only "seriously" for the last five.

"I had no formal training in quilting, but I got an idea that I could do it and discovered how to quilt from books," Predd said.

She was a traditional quilter and wanted to move into art quilting but didn't know how.

"After many years of making traditional quilts, I found I was getting bored," Predd said. "I went to quilt university online and joined quiltart.com."

In December 2005, she committed to the Journal Quilt Project as a way of trying new techniques before applying them to larger projects. She feels honored to have five chosen to be on display at the convention.

She also will have a major quilt in the 2007 Houston show this fall. It will be in the Fabled Fibers Exhibit. This challenge was to create a quilt about a fairy tale or fable, and Predd depicted The Tortoise and the Hare.

The show, sale and quilt-making academy features more than 1,100 quilts, textiles and wearable art on display; more than 115 classes, lectures and special events; and shopping in nearly 500 booths for quilts, fabrics, books, notions, crafts, patterns, machines and sewing supplies.

Within the annual event is Make It University!, a mixed-media pavilion featuring the arts of scrapbooking, rubber stamping, paper crafts, textile arts and more. Developed in collaboration with Cloth Paper Scissors, Make It University! includes teaching showcases, workshop projects, vendors and special exhibits.

Other highlights include "Imagine That!", the Husqvarna Viking Gallery of Quilt Art; "A Page From My Book," the 2006 Journal Quilt Project; and "Magnifique!" a fashion showcase of the best wearable art from the Bernina Fashion Show. (Display changes daily.)

Some facts about quilters

According to the recently released Quilting in America 2006 survey, the art form with roots in the past and a vision of the future is not only alive, but more popular than ever.

* According to the 2006 numbers, there are more than 27 million quilters in the United States spending a total of $3.3 billion annually on their passion. This is almost a 100-percent increase in quilters since 1997.

* The survey also shows that 17 percent of all U.S. households report at least one family member who participates in quilting.

* The survey reveals the average "dedicated" quilter is a 59-year-old woman with a college education and a median household income of more than $87,000. She also has been quilting for an average of 13-1/2 years and enjoys both traditional and contemporary styles.

* The majority also have a room in their house dedicated to quilting and sewing, own more than $6,500 in quilting tools and supplies, and spend an average of 2.2 hours a week on quilting Web sites.

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The Spring International Quilt Festival

When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. April 13 and 14, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 15

Where: The Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 5555 N. River Road, Rosemont, Ill. (just off the Illinois Toll Road)

Cost: $10 general, $8 seniors 65 and older and students. Children 10 and younger admitted free with a paying adult, $25 for a three-day pass.

FYI: (713) 781-6864, shows@quilts.com or www.quilts.com