Top 10 Shop Hop

Autumn in Illinois

Shop Hop finds! Christmas fabric, for a couple of Christmas presents.  Need to get a start on a few ideas.  I did find some 30's fabric, but not much.  I think it has about run its course.  Not a lot of shops are carrying it.

My friend, and roomy, Jan, on our overnight top 10 shop hop.  We left by bus at 7:30 am on Thursday.  We were going to visit  8 shops that have been featured in the Quilt Sampler, by Better Homes and Gardens.  Our local shop Prairie Stitches is featured in the current issue and has their quilt on the cover.  We went to shops in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Kathy Winkler, was our bus Mom.  She did a super job.  She is out front of "Life's a Stitch" in Madison, Wisconsin. Every shop had lots of samples and wonderful fabric.  Plus, there were great food treats.

Even found a Barn Quilt!

Ye Olde Schoolhouse in Cedarburg, Wisconsin

The Woolen Needle in Williamsburg, Iowa.  They had a "Wall of Wool".  Could not believe how much wool they had. They dye it all themselves and they had some wonderful kits!  They even  had a fabulous box lunch set up for us. We were at this shop on Saturday.  We spent the night in Dubuque, Iowa

Yellow Creek quilts is in Pearl City, Illinois. It was the last stop on our road trip.  This was just a few of the shops.  We also, went the Millhouse Quilts, in Wanakee, Wisconsin,Vintage Threads in Dyersville, Iowa  and Quilt Merchant, in Wayne, Illinois.  No pictures.  I was too interested in looking at fabric, and forgot to take them.  My bad!

There was even a barn quilt in Pearl City. (It was on the quilt shop.)

Low tressel!  Our bus driver Martin, was great. He used a GPS to get us from one shop to another.  After we left the shop in Pearl City, we were on our way home and came to this low bridge.  Martin, stopped the bus, got out and surveyed the situation.  There was no way our bus was going under that bridge!!  He did a super job backing up and turning us around.  We did not have to make too much of a detour. 

We had a wonderful two days.  Shop til you drop!!  When we arrived back in Oswego, Kim and Susan, the owners of our shop, were there to meet us.  They wanted to hear all about our trip.  As an added surprise, their shop was still open and had supper ready for us.  They had a taco bar set up in the classroom.  It was so nice.  Naturally, we had to check out all the latest goodies in our own local shop before heading home!!

Road Trip to Calhoun County Illinois

Sunday my husband and I went on a road trip to Calhoun County, Illinois.  It was about a 5 hour drive down toward St. Louis, Missouri.  I had heard about this area and thought what a fun thing to do in the fall. I had a book showing 62 barn quilts.  This county is 5 miles wide and 34 miles long. It is a peninsula between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.  The population of this county is only 5000.

This barn was # 36 located in Mozier.  The pattern is called Goosetracks. The catalog I have is wonderful.  It gave information of the quilt pattern used, if there is or was a quilter in the family, how old the barn is and gave directions of how to find the barn.

This pattern is called Nossegays, and is in Hamburg. It is actually on the side of a garage. The owner Rita Knight is a quilter.

Drunkards Path, is in Harden The family that ownes this owns several Centennial farms inyt DeGerlia Hollow were this barn is located.

This is one of the lift bridges that cross the Illinois River.  They do lift it straight up in the middle to allow the tugboats under depending on ythe height of the river.

This one is called Triangle Magic and is in Hardin.  The log struction was used as a corn crib and was built around 1920.

Lonestar of Texas quilt is located in Hamburg. This barn is on the Hurley property, and is an orchard for Apples, peaches, plums and pears.  The orginal quilt was family owned with fabric purchased in Alton, and was pieced together for $20.00 by a woman in Kentucky.

View looking toward the Illinois River from the top of one of the hills.

Wild asters were in bloom along the roadside.

We took one of the ferry's across the Illinois River. It is big enough to hold 15 cars, runs 24/7 and only takes about 10 minutes.

On Tuesday morning as we left Jacksonville, we saw the Eli Bridge Company that is home of the Ferris Wheel.

"Ma's Got a Notion" was a wonderful quilt shop in Havana on our way home.

A Heron that was kind enough to pose for me at the Emiquon Nature Perserve just North of Havana.  We even saw the white pelicans, but were not near enough to get any good pictures.

Our last stop was at the Tanner Orchard in Speer.  Could not resist taking a picture of the gorgeous mums in bloom.

The trip was three days of great weather, sunshine and blue skies,and  60 degrees.  We did hit a bit of rain just before we arrived home.  It was a fun road trip.  You never know what you will find along the way. 

A fall day in the country

On Wednesday my husband and I took a drive in the countryside north of where we live.  I had heard there were some quilt barns in McHenry County, and had a scary map (yes that is scary) to find them by.  It was a too small map covering a too wide area.  We had  a Illinois County map that did help. Anyway, here is some of what we saw!

This was a metal bull, on Bull Valley Road in Woodstock.

This one was called Watermelon.

Who knew there was the Notre Dame Monestary on a country road. 

Or that we would see a pair of camels walking down the road!

This Crown of Thorns on a barn in Woodstock.

Milkweed by the roadside.

The quilt block, Just Off the Square, on the side of a quilt shop!  Woodstock Quilts, is at 216 S Seminary Ave,  just off the town square in Woodstock.  Debbie Best, the owner, and I had a great conversation.  I picked up a couple "Bird Brain Designs" that will make into cute wool ornaments. ( She has lots of great fabric.)

This one at Countryside Flower Shop in Crystal Lake was called St Louis.  As you can see by the sign this was all part of the Northern Illinois Quilt Fest.

The Quilt Fest ran for 3 months, July, August, and September.  There were all sorts of activities scheduled during that time that were quilt related.  There was, also, a Shop Hop with 22 shops during that whole time. It spanned 6 counties across the Northern part of Illinois.  As you can tell I was a little late in checking it out!
Hopefully they will do this again next year, and I can plan my time better.

Have a great day in whatever you are doing. 

From Mary on another beautiful Fall day.

Trying a new way

Trying a new way to post and add pictures, and seeing how it works.

Holycow this is working out. I think.

Oh, what a weekend!

My husband and son went to Ann Arbor, Michigan to meet up with Andy's cousins, Matt, Bob, and Scott for the U of M game with Minnesota. This was the first time Andy has gone to a U of M game and you would have thought it was Christmas Eve! He was like a little kid having to wait until Christmas morning to open presents! All 4 "boys" are huge Michigan fans. This left me home, all by myself!! (Some day I will figure out how to get the pictures in the right order, so bear with me!) We have Wild canaries in our yard, (American Gold Finch). Right now they are darker because winter is coming. What a wonderful racket they make. One of the feeding socks is outside the window where the computer is, so I can watch and hear them. This morning there were at least 5 on the sock and 4 more, on a wire plant support, waiting for their turn. This picture I got leaning outside the patio door.

On Monday I took a workshop with Judith Baker-Montano through the Prairie Star Quilt Guild in St. Charles. She has an interesting way to work with the crazy patches. This is my block. So far it only has fabric on the muslin base. I have ribbons, and thread picked out to embellish it. I would the only one from our quilt bee that took this class. Three of our bee members took the second day class about stitches used in crazy quilting. It was a fun day! Always something new to learn

This is a little quilt I bought at the big quilt show at Rosemont in 2007. It is a miniature that I fell in love with. The piecing got done, but embroidery not. About a week ago I decided it was time to finish this one up. (picture is on its side) I have a couple more flowers to embroidery, then the quilting on the border. I had forgotten how I loved to do embroidery. I think with all the blogs showing such great projects using embroidery, has peaked my interest again.

Here it is the first thing I completed this weekend! Apron Strings. This is the quilt I worked on at the retreat with my friends from Michigan. My design wall is my carpet, so the quilt looks like a rectangle. It is square. I am so pleased with how it turned out. Again there was a learning experience. I had never squared up a block as big as this, (15 inches). I used way more fabrics making this then what Judy Martin's book (Stellar Quilts) calls for. Those 2 1/2 inch strips and squares, that I have been cutting using Bonnie Hunters ideas, came in handy.

Then I had 16 blocks to make for a Basket Block Swap. They are 6 1/2 inch blocks. They need to be to the swap hostess by the 15th of October. I had kept telling myself I need to get them done, but somehow other things got in the way. I agonized over putting those handles on. I wanted them to be as perfect as possible, as 16 other ladies were going to get them. So in the mail they go today!

Lat but not least. this is the last project I worked on. In January the Plainfield Quilt Guild had a basket block swap. We supplied the background fabric and a dominate fabric that we wanted in each block. I chose purple 30's fabrics, and a white on white background. The quilter making the block could add another fabric if they wanted. Three of my blocks came back with yellow as an added color. I finally put all these blocks together. The border is a 30's with yellow and purple in it. Tried something new and added the little yellow flange to the border. I am loving how this turned out. One more project done!!

This past week I also picked up 3 more quilts that now need the binding put on. I feel good about what I got accomplished while the "boys" were gone.

In my attempt to stay organized I filled zip lock baggies with wool projects. I can pick up a bag, that has all I need, and take it with me to work on. Thank heaven for the person that invented zip lock bags.

Hope you had as productive a weekend as I did! It sure feels good to have a couple more things done. What to work on next??

Have a great quilting week!