Something New

For those of you who know me, you know that I am a hermit and only leave home about once a week.  Last Thursday I actually was stir crazy and needed to get out (the last I had left home was the Thursday before), so I called my friend, Deb, and asked her if she wanted to meet somewhere.  Luckily she was available to come out and play.  We met at Inspirations, the quilt shop in Hills, IA.  I know I've blogged about her shop before - it really is a great shop - lots of inspiring samples, Civil war repros, patterns, books and a little bakery and tea room in the back of the building.  Here are my purchases of the day.  I know it's a little early, but... think pumpkins! 

 These will make very nice pumpkins.  To give you a little sneak peek of what fall might bring....

Cute, huh???

I couldn't live without this:

I had to have it because I LOVE Edyta Sitar - she is the funniest, sweetest person and her quilts are all amazing.  And I had to have it because I have been cutting 1 1/2" and 2" strips of leftover fabrics for awhile now and this book is all about using strips.  Yep...had to have it.
After we fondled fabric and oohed and aahed over everything, we went to the tea room for lunch.  It was awesome!  We both had a salad - spinach, chicken, apples and walnuts.  It was soooo good.  We shared a yummy piece of coconut cream pie and I bought a few cookies to bring home to DH.

After lunch, we ventured on to The Woolen Needle in Williamsburg, IA.  I know I have blogged about them as well.  I had been wanting to try my hand at wool applique, and I knew that inspiration would be easily found at this shop.  I was not disappointed.  I wanted to buy a kit - didn't want to have to pick out the wool (they have lots of really beautiful wool) for my very first project.  The hardest thing was to decide which kit to buy.  I narrowed it down to three (and NO...I did NOT buy all three!) and finally chose this one:

 Yummy fabrics, huh?  Here is the pattern...

It is even better in person.  The fabrics aren't as bright as they look here - and those are prairie points around the center.  I love it!  And I already have one block all appliqued.  I quickly discovered that appliqueing (is that a word?  doesn't look right) with wool is one heck of a lot easier than needle-turn applique.  I have my second block pieced and all of the appliques are cut out and ready.  One issue I did have - the shop recommended using Heat n Bond to fuse the wool pieces.  I did not have any luck with it at all. I couldn't get most of the pieces to fuse down and finally just used my handy-dandy little applique pins to hold things in place.  Let me know what works for you - I am open for suggestions.

After quilt shopping we stopped at the outlet mall in Williamsburg.  We didn't have too much luck there - I hate shopping, unless it is for quilty things!

As you can see, we had a fun day and it was nice to get out of the house.  And, you will be happy to know that I left the house again on Sunday (it's a record...twice in one week!) to go to a graduation party for the son of my "best friend from forever" (that is how I always refer to her - it is close to BFF) - we have been friends since kindergarten.  It was such a blast - I got to see all of her family - some I haven't seen for a long time, and a bunch of old friends from school.  We decided it was kind of like a class reunion, but only with all the people you liked! (oops...that's not very nice!).  I guess leaving home isn't so bad after all.

Another road trip is on the agenda for tomorrow - I will let you know how that goes...

Have a great day!