Road Trip

Aunt Nancy is still here, and we are still taking road trips!  Yesterday Mom, Aunt Nancy and I went back to Illinois - but in a different direction.  We started out going to Beardstown to visit Keith Rice, who makes wonderful pottery.  I wish I would have taken my camera so I could show you more pictures, but this is one thing that I bought:

I have a whole set of dishes that are this pattern, plus all kinds of odds and ends pieces.  I love them all!  Unfortunately we had broken a couple of bowls and one plate, so Mom thought it would be fun to go see Keith and get some new pieces.  I thought this one was really neat, it has a lot more blue on it than most of my dishes, and the iris pattern goes all the way around the whole piece.  I'm not sure what I will do with it except look at it and think about how pretty it is!

I forgot to show you a picture of the fabric that I bought on our little road trip last week.  These are from Connie's Quilt Shop in Marion and from Inspirations in Hills.

Aren't they all yummy?  Not a bad one in the batch!


Another thing I forgot to tell you is what my wonderful mail lady brought me while I was gone last weekend!  I love my mail lady (Marty) and what makes it even better is that she is a quilter!  I should give her permission to open my packages so she can fondle fabric on her route.

These are the Perfect Scissors by Karen Kay Buckley.  They have a tiny serrated edge and they are really nice...just PERFECT!  (It doesn't take much to humor me!).  I've seen these scissors on a lot of different blogs, and wondered if they would work well for me.  When I am making my jewelry, I have to cut through a lot of layers and my thumb gets really sore.  In blogland I ran across a great blog called I Have a Notion.  This is Kelly Jackson's blog - she also has a website called I Have A Notion.  If you ever want to know about a notion, her blog and website are the place to go!  I asked her about the Perfect Scissors and what might work for me to cut through all those layers.  In no time at all she had made herself a little sample to cut through and had tried all kinds of different scissors and cutters for me!  She quickly reported back to me on her findings and had a few other suggestions as well.   Be sure to visit her blog and website - lots of great info and products!

Ok, I got way off track there - let me get back to yesterday.  After visiting Keith, we went to a nice quilt shop in Macomb, IL called Piece to Peace Treasures.  She carries a nice variety of fabric and patterns.   I keep seeing the Spicy Spiral Table Runner all over the internet - she had a couple of those made up - very cool!  She also now carries my jewelry, so we know she has good taste - lol.  I had to hold myself back there, but I did purchase a few things...

I thought the red with the little stars will make nice centers for jewelry.  They had an awesome sample made up using the blue as a border.  Aunt Nancy and I both had to have a little of that - it should make good jewelry centers as well.  And, I just like stripes!  This one is nice and patriotic.  She also had a great selection of 1930's repros.  I couldn't live without these...

She had batiks - this purple one caught my eye.  I don't make a lot of quilts with batiks, but they do make really pretty jewelry.  This picture does not do it justice, but you can kind of get the idea.

And last, but not least - I just liked these:

The Kansas Troubles sunflowers were from Macomb, the red (a REALLY nice red) and green ($1 fat quarter!) was from a shop in Nauvoo, IL.

Now I have to go backwards again - wouldn't it be nice if my mind went in chronological order?  A couple of months ago I bought the Primitive Gatherings Itty Bitty Primitive Pinwheels pattern.

I have really, really been wanting to make it, but just didn't have time.  While Aunt Nancy and I were at Inspirations, she bought the Primitive Pinwheels pattern - same concept, only not as itty bitty.  She left the pattern at my house while she is staying with Mom and Dad.  I decided that was my opportunity to make that one!  It is so cute...

It was really fun and easy to make.  I screwed up - I had planned to do a black border, like the pattern, but I wasn't thinking when I sewed all of the squares together and I put a black square on the outer edge, thus the blue border.  I still want to make the itty bitty one, but at least I had the opportunity to make this one, and got it out of my system a little bit.  Oh, and did I mention that Primitive Gatherings also carries my jewelry?  There I go, humoring myself again.

Ok, I have to quit yammering on and get some jewelry made, or there will not be anyone carrying it!

Have a great day!!