What a totally AWESOME weekend!
Barb, Sharon and I left about 9am on Friday morning for our weekend trip to Kalona. We stopped in South Amana along the way and shopped at a really neat little antique/gift/fabric shop before eating lunch. Traveled further east and shopped in a very nice store in Coralville, another in Iowa City and then headed to the Ben Franklin in Iowa City where we were not sure what we would find. OMG - what a treasure trove!!! Absolutely gorgeous store filled with only first-quality quilt shop fabrics, TONS of samples, patterns, books, galore... It was VERY, very nice. Of course, we were time limited so only had a few minutes to shop around before heading over to the U for Barb's daughter's graduate student reception. We ate dinner at some little restaurant across from campus...nothing special really, but it was good. The food was a little pricey on the dinner menu ~ $23 for a plate of pasta ~ but we lucked out and got there early enough, they let us order from the lunch menu instead. Headed out to Kalona, checked into our hotel and headed to the evening presentation. Whoops!! I thought it started at 7pm...it actually started about 6:15 so we missed most of it. We caught just the tail end, tho and got to view some really beautiful quilts.
Woke early the next day and watched an Amish family pull in to the grocery store next door with their horse and buggy. In our area of the state, there is no Amish or Mennonite population so it's kind of neat to visit somewhere that the culture is different. We had "continental" breakfast at the hotel and then scooted downtown for a garage sale that we had heard about that was to have quilter's stuff. We HIT the jackpot!!!! We were the first ones in the door at 8am and all three of us got some absolutely fantastic buys. I came home with some sets of blocks (Grandmother's Flower Garden, Goose Tracks (I think), some sort of applique blocks that are similar to a Dresden Plate but aren't), a few new books (50 cents to $1 a piece) and a few new cookbooks. Barb picked up a whole new library for herself for $12!!!!! And Sharon got a little bit of everything. It was awesome!!
We shopped some stores following the sale since our morning meeting didn't start until 9:30am. I found the fabric that I'd been looking for that I was short (3 - 3" squares!!!!) on my Triple Irish Chain Colorwash. I think someone was looking out for us that day!!! That fabric was probably all of three years old and I NEVER thought I would find any more.
The meeting went well...great vintage show and tell in the morning, a fun tour of the Basket Quilt Exhibit in the museum, AWESOME lunch by the local church ladies with a yet to be identified chicken casserole that was really YUMMY, and afternoon basket quilt show and tell and identification. We even got out early and had time for more shopping!!! LOL We headed back to the Interstate and stopped at an antique/garden shop, a local Goodwill store and then the maternity store at the outlet mall on the way home. Got home early enough to enjoy the evening and prepare things for my TICC class yesterday afternoon.
Speaking of which, I got to be the 'anal' one in class yesterday. I absolutely HATE this pattern (Colorwash Irish Chain by Heatherworks)...I think it's written confusing and is difficult to follow. I also hate the way it's written so that when your top is finished, it's not symmetrical and looks like you've just decided to stop building it and put a border on. So ~ in my analytical way ~ I had to sit down yesterday and figure out how to rework the pattern so that my top WOULD end up being symmetrical. Of course, this meant that I had to frog off the last four or five rows, cut two of the "background" square in half, and totally redo those removed rows to make them go on the top of the quilt...but it's been sitting for two years in my WIP pile...what's a little more work?!!?! I guess the plus side is I KNOW I will like it much better done this way and won't have to roll my eyes at it every time I look at it on my bed. I'm hoping to get the top done this week...we'll see... LOL
Otherwise, everything's been going great. The baby is moving more now so I have been worried less. She can be an active little fart!!! The boys have soccer again tonight and tomorrow night (Wyatt's first game!) and tomorrow is Jim's birthday so I'll have to spend the day making him a cheesecake since that's his favorite. The rest of the week is pretty busy but uneventful...tax appointment on Wednesday, kindergarden health clinic, CCQ...
Here's to another great week!
Woke early the next day and watched an Amish family pull in to the grocery store next door with their horse and buggy. In our area of the state, there is no Amish or Mennonite population so it's kind of neat to visit somewhere that the culture is different. We had "continental" breakfast at the hotel and then scooted downtown for a garage sale that we had heard about that was to have quilter's stuff. We HIT the jackpot!!!! We were the first ones in the door at 8am and all three of us got some absolutely fantastic buys. I came home with some sets of blocks (Grandmother's Flower Garden, Goose Tracks (I think), some sort of applique blocks that are similar to a Dresden Plate but aren't), a few new books (50 cents to $1 a piece) and a few new cookbooks. Barb picked up a whole new library for herself for $12!!!!! And Sharon got a little bit of everything. It was awesome!!
We shopped some stores following the sale since our morning meeting didn't start until 9:30am. I found the fabric that I'd been looking for that I was short (3 - 3" squares!!!!) on my Triple Irish Chain Colorwash. I think someone was looking out for us that day!!! That fabric was probably all of three years old and I NEVER thought I would find any more.
The meeting went well...great vintage show and tell in the morning, a fun tour of the Basket Quilt Exhibit in the museum, AWESOME lunch by the local church ladies with a yet to be identified chicken casserole that was really YUMMY, and afternoon basket quilt show and tell and identification. We even got out early and had time for more shopping!!! LOL We headed back to the Interstate and stopped at an antique/garden shop, a local Goodwill store and then the maternity store at the outlet mall on the way home. Got home early enough to enjoy the evening and prepare things for my TICC class yesterday afternoon.
Speaking of which, I got to be the 'anal' one in class yesterday. I absolutely HATE this pattern (Colorwash Irish Chain by Heatherworks)...I think it's written confusing and is difficult to follow. I also hate the way it's written so that when your top is finished, it's not symmetrical and looks like you've just decided to stop building it and put a border on. So ~ in my analytical way ~ I had to sit down yesterday and figure out how to rework the pattern so that my top WOULD end up being symmetrical. Of course, this meant that I had to frog off the last four or five rows, cut two of the "background" square in half, and totally redo those removed rows to make them go on the top of the quilt...but it's been sitting for two years in my WIP pile...what's a little more work?!!?! I guess the plus side is I KNOW I will like it much better done this way and won't have to roll my eyes at it every time I look at it on my bed. I'm hoping to get the top done this week...we'll see... LOL
Otherwise, everything's been going great. The baby is moving more now so I have been worried less. She can be an active little fart!!! The boys have soccer again tonight and tomorrow night (Wyatt's first game!) and tomorrow is Jim's birthday so I'll have to spend the day making him a cheesecake since that's his favorite. The rest of the week is pretty busy but uneventful...tax appointment on Wednesday, kindergarden health clinic, CCQ...
Here's to another great week!
Labels: Quilting
posted by Shannon at 8:08 AM
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