What's on the line?

Early in September, I took a few of the older quilts that my mother and dad bought at auction and took photos for days when it was too cold or windy to actually hang something on the line. That was the case this past weekend here in Minnesota. It was very windy, so here is one of those quilts taken on a lovely early fall day..........

I find this one very peaceful. Makes me think of looking up into the sky on a night when there are no clouds and only soft stars light the sky. The quilt is a bit worn and stained but still soft and so comfy. The hand-quilting is very nice...........

In addition to wind this past weekend, it finally became necessary to turn on the heat. And yes, I added a quilt to the bed, too. :-) I am pretty sure that summer is gone and I am going to pretend that I did not hear our local weatherman utter the words......possible snow flurry!

And so, the autumn leaves have blown off of many of the trees here in the Minnesota River Valley but I have a few pictures I took that I had never shared. This photo below is Main Street of Henderson, MN looking east. It was was taken on October 3rd. The Minnesota River is at the east end of Main Street.  Notice that pretty red bush in the lower right corner.........

This photo below is looking west and when I take the photos of Henderson's Main Street, I am standing next to that flagpole looking east.

Many of the buildings on Main Street are on the National Historic Register. Henderson is a lovely town, well-cared for by it's residents.

 I've shared this before but I love this big tree that sits next to City Hall........

This line of trees is along the ridge at the back of our house. I took this photo from "down below the ridge".

More trees along the ridgeline...........

And this is the view from our deck..............

The photo above was taken on October 3rd and just three days later on October 6th, I took the one below. The colors change so fast!

That same day, I took one last photo of Henderson's Main Street. Remember that pretty red bush in the first fall photo in this post? Notice that the pretty red leaves are almost all gone now.

And after the wind of the past few days, many of the trees in our backyard have almost no leaves on their branches! The nice thing about that wind, though, is that it blew the leaves off the trees and down into the woods!  I do hope it's a few weeks before we actually get any snow. After all, Halloween is coming up and who wants to Trick or Treat in a snowsuit?!

Tomorrow is my day to share my block in Michele's Quilting*Gallery "Christmas Quilt-a-long" so be sure to stop by and see what my design will be. It gave me JOY to make it and I hope you will enjoy adding it to your quilt if you are making the blocks in the "Quilt-a-long"!  
Have a great Monday!
Sandi

A visit to the Kalona Quilt Museum

Our "Quilting Day-Out" was outstanding thanks to my sister, Judy. Just the weekend before my mom and I came to stay, she and her husband had visited Kalona, Iowa and she knew she needed to bring us back to see the quilts. Kalona is considered the "Quilt Capitol of Iowa" according to tourist info and I would agree! If you are anywhere near this town, you must stop and see the quilts, shops, bakery, etc!
The Kalona Quilt Museum features rotating quilt exhibits and permanent displays of spool cabinets as well as a rock and mineral exhibit. Two exhibits of quilts were on display. One room contains the quilts of Thuy Nguyen and they are exquisite. She is originally from South Vietnam but came to Iowa in the late 1970's. To read more about her story and her quilts, you can check out her website here. The other exhibit was Amish quilts as many Amish farms and families are nestled in the rolling hills of southeast Iowa. It was a beautiful drive the day we were out. It was just too windy for picture taking outdoors!  Photos were allowed at the museum so I will share a few with you......

I believe there were about 18 appliqued quilts on exhibit and mingled in with the quilts were an incredible collection of spool cabinets. I remember the spool cabinet that sat at the back of Ching's Clover Farm Store in Lehigh, Iowa.  I can remember purchasing thread there in the 1960's and often wondered what became of that thread case when the store closed. I have never seen such a collection of thread cases and was absolutely fascinated by them!

I was also fascinated by the detailed work in the quilts that Thuy Nguyen made. My mother and sister and I each had a favorite. I cannot imagine the hours of work that went into the applique. Thuy does all the applique and then Amish women do the hand-quilting and follow the design that she creates for the quilt.

The intricate applique work was just incredible!!!

In contrast to the applique quilts, the Amish quilts were beautiful in their simplicity. I was reminded that I want to make just one Amish style quilt in my lifetime.

I found this one to be especially lovely......

This little vintage baby walker was displayed next to a collection of children and doll quilts. My mother, Mary, was especially fascinated by this early piece of baby furniture.

Just one more spool cabinet to share that was located outside the quilt display rooms.....

It's a wonderful museum and I'm so glad Judy took us their for a visit! To get a little more info on Kalona...........

just go here. And if you visit, be sure and look for the quilt designs that you'll find on the city streets.........

You might also see the occasional horse and buggy.......

And there is even a quilt shop.....

Stitch 'n Sew. And yes, we did go inside and we did do a little shopping. :-)

And next door to the quilt shop is this antique shop in a former church building. It was late in the afternoon by this time, so we didn't visit the antique shop but it will be on the list for next time. We were all a little tired so we headed back to my sister's and I fixed a tasty casserole with biscuits, a nice finish to a lovely day!

Lunch at Morning Glory Bakery!

Note........be sure to read this post here first and then read on.........

So, here is where I left off in my last post.............the doors at the back of Inspiration Quilt Shop that lead into Morning Glory Bakery.  You might say this is a family venture as the bakery is owned by Nancy's daughter, Cassie. I think that shopping and lunch are just a divine combination. After all, no quilter lives by fabric alone. Actually, we often require chocolate and there was certainly some of that on the menu. :-) You can check out the menu here. The food is really, really good. Here's what I enjoyed........

That's a half and half meal........half a Smoked Turkey Panini and half an Apple Walnut Salad. It was, I repeat, so good!  Jeanie ordered the 16 Bean soup and I forget what her husband Larry ordered, but it was his dessert that looked yummy. It was some kind of Oreo concoction and he really enjoyed it. I decided to buy some cookies for later as my half portions were very filling. Serving up the good eats were owner, Cassie on the right and her sister, Jessica on the left, with Hope in the middle. The cookies I bought were a pretzel chocolate chip cookie concoction that was so good, I wished I had bought more than just two of them. :-)  I really love a good chocolate chip cookie!

There are quilts on display in the bakery, too, and this one was especially lovely...........

Jeanie's husband took a picture of the two of us and then we said our good-byes. But not before we were making plans to see each other again sometime! I really enjoyed our visit and will plan to do this again the next time I am in the Iowa City area. And actually, I have some plans "in the works" that would mean I would make a trip to Iowa City just for quilty fun so I'll keep you posted.

My sister, Judy, and my mom, arrived as we were finishing our lunch. They had lunch earlier to give my mom some time to rest. Judy had a fun afternoon planned and rest was definitely needed. I'll tell you all about our afternoon in my next post. First, though, a little intro to what the afternoon held...........
We stopped here at the Kalona Cheese factory. Yummy cheese curds here!

 And then we were on the road again and headed here............

And that's where I'll start my next post as oh, what wonderful things we saw in the Quilt & Textile Museum. And speaking of textiles............
Do you wish that perhaps you had been able to visit Inspirations Quilt Shop and buy a little fabric? Well, I was thinking of you, my readers, when I was there and I bought these.......

They are fat-eighths of some pretty fabrics by Andover and you could win them. Just tell me how long the drive would be if you had to get to Inspirations Quilt Shop. I'll save you the trip and on Sunday at 6:00 p.m., I'll draw a winning name.
One last thing......I got home to Minnesota and realized I liked these fabrics so much that I wanted to make candlemat with them. Oh, but I had bought them to give away so I couldn't keep them. What to do? I e-mailed Nancy and ordered up some more for me. And when I took my lunch break after finishing my previous post, they were in my mailbox today! How's that for service? Certainly easier than a 14 hour round trip that it would normally take to get to the shop. :-)  I'm going off to play with my fabrics now and you just need to leave that comment for your chance to win. Make sure you leave your e-mail or have your profile set to allow e-mail contact. If I draw your name but cannot contact you, I will have to draw another winner.
See you tomorrow with our visit to the Kalona museum..........
Sandi

Winning name has been drawn and as soon as I get a reply to my e-mail from Debbie, I will send her fabrics on their way to her door! And she has replied! The winner of the fabrics is Debbie M at Designs*by*Debbie*and*Dixie,too!.

Inspirations galore........and more!!!

Life has been very hectic lately. I have oodles of things to share but sometimes I am short on time. Today's post is all about where I was at this time just two weeks ago. I was here at Inspirations Quilt Shop ...............

The shop is located in Hills, Iowa, a small town just six miles south of Iowa City. I was able to visit the shop because I was in Iowa City with my mom for some doctor appointments at University of Iowa hospitals. My sister, Judy, lives in Iowa City, so we were staying with her for a few days. It's no fun to just visit doctors, though, so we took a "day-out" and visited Inspirations and more.
Since I knew we would have a "free day" between appointments, I thought it might be fun to meet some of my Seasons BOM Yahoo group members. It was a "spur of the moment" idea and so it didn't work for some of you that live near Iowa City. But, it worked for Jeanie and it was a delight to meet her and her husband, Larry........

Jeanie has MS but that doesn't stop her from quilting. It does make transportation difficult sometimes but just a week before we met, her husband retired and was able to be her chauffeur. I am so glad because we enjoyed chatting, shopping and then had lunch together! My mother and sister joined us right after our lunch. Our lunch will be shared in my next post. I took so many photos on our "day out" and it will take three posts just to share all the fun that was had on this day.
I'll start back at the beginning........the moment I opened the shop door and stepped inside, I looked to the left and saw this..............

I love a good wall full of fabric! LOL!

And there was more, a wall of red and then green fabrics...........

And when I turned around, I saw this..........

oh, how I do love 30's prints and cheery fabrics!

I recently fell in "fabric love" with batiks and this wall of fabrics really called my name and so I added a few to my batik stash........

I have a "thing" for chickens and I liked this sign and the fabrics, too..........

I'm not sure there is any fabric that I don't like. Or any quilt for that matter. LOL!

This quilt was one of many lovely samples..............

Just look at the long wall of rich gold and brown fabrics..........

And in the middle of all those walls of fabric, I found more fun fabrics.  I was drawn to these fabrics because they reminded me of fabrics I used in the 70's for the miniature sofa and chair sets that I made. I almost bought some of these.........

There were cute displays throughout the shop..........

Oh, so much fabric "goodness"!!!................

I liked the bear on this shelf but,to be honest, I loved the shelf even more

and wished that I could find one like it for my kitchen!  :-)

In one of the displays, my mom saw this book.........

She looked at and set it down, then looked at it again. She loves to make small projects and decided she had to have the book. I took a long look at it after we got home and this is a great book. It is full of sooooooo many cute little projects for gifts and favors!

These fabrics "caught my eye" because of the sheep that I saw on them...........

I bought three fat quarters in this line and who knows what I will make with them, but one day they will become a project and you'll see it here on my blog. I also bought some flannels after I saw this display.........

I bought two fat quarter bundles.......a blue "boy bundle" and a pink "girl bundle" that I plan to use for a couple of donation quilts that will go to the Crisis Nursery in our area.
Tucked among many of the fabrics and displays are lots of signs like these that are on the wall that lead up to the classroom..........

And this is the classroom..............

I have never seen such a fabulous classroom in any quilt shop that I have ever visited. This space is just incredible! There's a possibility that I may teach a class here so stay tuned for info on that. I do love my quilting and I love to share so call me.........

Yes, that sign was pretty much my favorite, although I liked ".....and sew on" ..........

and I shared this one a few days ago, but it's worthy of an encore. If you are a quilter, it really is a silly question, isn't it?

So, when it's time to pay for your purchases, there are stools where you can rest from the hard work of choosing fabrics and patterns.............

I rested here, and so did my mom. When you look up, this beautiful batik quilt is hanging on the wall. Enlarge this photo (double-click) and check out the awesome machine quilting.

Last but not least.........who is the owner of this lovely shop? It's Nancy Lackendar, on the left and that's staff member, Jo, on the right.

And "staff member-in-waiting" is Nancy's sweet little granddaughter.....

Shopping was almost done, but there was one line of fabric, that made my heart "pitter-patter" and I had to have it. Nope, it's not those pretty fabrics in the bassinet. It's some of the lovely fabric in the black bookcase.............

It's called "Lately arrived from London" by Barbara Brackman for Moda. I saw it and knew it would make a perfect wall quilt for my living room. I have never bought an entire line of any fabric. Ever! I had some extra spending money with me, thanks to my husband, and these fabrics just had to come home with me. When I got home, I took a bettter picture ........

This quilt project is going to be my "New Year gift to me". I can already see the design in my head and really want to start the project. Other things are calling my name, though, so I tucked it away and it will be a nice treat after Christmas.
With our shopping done, it was time for lunch, so Jeannie and her husband and I headed toward the back of the shop.............

and then through the doors you see in this photo...........

for a delicious lunch at "Morning Glory Bakery". And after I take a break for my lunch today, I'll be back to tell you about our lunch at the bakery. While I'm away, you can check out the website for Inspirations Quilt Shop here. Great shop, friendly staff, awesome fabrics!

Back soon..........

Sandi