My Favourite LQS's

As with choosing a favourite child, it's nigh on impossible for us quilters to pick our favourite quilt shop, right? Each one is loved the same, but different aspects of each one is loved more. So it is with quilt shops. Because I spend some time in the winter months in Florida, I have two, well maybe three.  See?!

An optional assignment for the month of January for us Island Batik ambassadors was to write about our LQS, which stands for Local Quilt Shop, for my non-quilter readers. 😍 I took pictures at home in January of my favourite LQS, A Stitch in Time, but somehow never did write up the post. I neglected to take pictures of my favourite LQS in Port Charlotte, Expert Sewing Center (that is the store's FaceBook page; here is the online store; Sewing Supply Warehouse), but I did take some of my favourite one, Alma Sue's Quilts in Sarasota! I've mentioned this one several times over the past couple of years; in fact I even have an Alma Sue's Quilt Shop label! That's love!

Let's start at home. This is A Stitch in Time in Leamington, Ontario, Canada.

A Stitch in Time opened in 1991, in a smaller location than the present one. It sells not only a wide variety of fabric, but also a wide variety of yarns and notions. They also sell cross-stitch supplies. This combo is my dream shop, well, the knitting and quilting part for sure, as I don't cross-stitch anymore, and embroidery, though I want to, rarely seems to happen.

Inside:

As you can see, it's well lit, and there are plenty of quilts on display, on the walls, in vintage accessories like that red wagon, and the baby bassinets.  This is the main room, and I am standing in the centre, at the till. Behind me is another cutting table (there's one in the back you can barely see here), all the notions are to the left behind me, and there is a wonderful bin of sale fat quarters as you enter the shop. At the very back, just to the right of the EXIT sign, is another doorway. This is the yarn room. LOVE! I actually felt my heart rate speed up the first time I stepped in there. Just to the right, past the red wagon and the shelves of fabric, is another 'room' (think L-shaped dining room) of more fabric. And...to the left just past the till/checkout counter is yet another doorway to a room, an entire room of Minky!!! (next time I'm there I will update this post with a photo) This is the best selection on both sides of the border (remember I live just outside of Windsor which is on the southern shore of the Detroit River, with Detroit on the north), and IMHO, the best-priced selection as well. With over 6000 bolts of fabric, and very reasonable prices, I find myself gravitating more and more to this shop which is a mere 8 km from my house!

Alma Sue's Quilts
One week later, 2000 km or 1200 miles to the south, and a little braver about taking photos of a quilt shop....
In Florida, one of the very first shops I discovered is Alma Sue's Quilts in Sarasota. If her golf cart is parked outside, the store is open! Note the Amish bicycles on the left side of the photo.

Just inside the door at the checkout.

From the checkout area, this wide-open space is what greets you:

You can see another room where the Christmas tree is that is just for Christmas fabric.

To the left of me is this large, naturally-lit hand-quilting area:

I surreptitiously snapped this one, as the Amish do not usually like their photos taken.

That is what fascinated me on my first trip, when she was in her previous location, less than a block away, was seeing Amish ladies gathered around a frame, hand-quilting a quilt. She offers this popular service while they are in the area during the winter months. How do they get there? was my question as well, since that would be a super-long journey by horse-drawn buggy... 😂 Why, on huge coaches (not the Cinderella or stagecoach kind, but busses) driven by a non-Amish driver! If you look past the ladies, you can see the opening to another entire room where you will find some fabric, (sale fabric is here), books, remnants, quilts for sale, and the sewing classroom. A closer look into this room is below:

I spoke with Ella to find out when she opened the quilt shop. I knew it had to be 2008 or earlier because I'd bought the backing fabric for my daughter Brianne's wedding quilt from her. Interesting! She was the first quilt shop in Sarasota, opening in 2002. She opened it to give her mother something to do after her father had died. In her words, "It just exploded!" It is located in the Amish area of Sarasota (yep, who knew, but it's true). Across the parking lot from the quilt shop is a popular restaurant, Der Dutchman, (if you don't eat in, then definitely take out a coffee and either some fudge or a red velvet donut with cream cheese icing, or a whoopie pie...) and just behind the restaurant, opening very soon, if not already, is a large hotel, The Carslisle Inn. The shop has been asked to make 300 quilted pillows for the hotel, which has a different quilt pattern theme for each floor.

Expert Sewing Center
Since we moved from the Bradenton area to the North Port area, I have found a third local quilt shop, in Port Charlotte, Expert Sewing Center.
Here is the classroom, snagged off their FaceBook page where you can go to see several other photos!

This store has a wonderful selection of fabric, especially of Moda fabrics. This is where I bought all the fabric for Aidan's Radiance quilt and Dayna's Shoot for the Moon. They also stock Handi-Quilter needles and bobbins, and tons and tons of threads. I purchased the background fabrics for an upcoming (SO EXCITED) blog hop quilt from her. I highly recommend checking out their online store (links are all in first paragraph of this post, no affiliation) as that is where I first 'met' them. Also you should know that Sheila's sale section is to die for.

Okay! Time for me to shoot for getting some quilts finished in the very near future, so I'm outta here!

Connecting Threads has the thread Avril, my Avanté, loves on sale, Essential 100% cotton, for just $1.95 for a 1000m spool! They stock a fabulous array of colours. Also something like 75 different green fabrics are on sale for up to 60% off! And best of all, my personal favourite that runs 365 days a year is their free shipping policy, which they extend to several countries, not just the US, with a certain minimum spend.😍

As always thank you for using my links to purchase product; it's what helps pay for things like the linky parties for Postcard from Sweden (such a great number of us are quilting along with Helen and me; hope your HSTs are progressing faster than mine are😞), DrEAMI!, a link for those squirrels that distract you from your regular sewing lineup, Throwback Thursday, a link where we show and discuss our pre-blogging quilts, and Quilt Alongs (yep, yep, yep, the second annual one is coming soon!). There is lots of activity here on the blog...  and behind the scenes. The New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop is starting up now that sign-ups are closed. We are getting to know each other, doing some learning and planning in preparation for the upcoming hops in April and May.

Linking up
Sew Fresh Quilts

Sunday Stash

While I was in Florida last week, I made sure of a couple of things: more than one visit with my second favourite pibble in the world and her human, John,

Reclining on our dogs' mats, doubled up for comfort! You can see the scar on her thigh from where they purposely broke her leg and threw her in as a bait dog to force other dogs to fight. The guy who did this was caught and did time...but not enough. John rescued Brandy, and she now is literally 'the Princess'. Sleeps on a human bed with her human, spends her days going for walks, meeting others, has hopes of catching a squirrel, and evenings snuggles up on the couch to watch TV or snooze. 

This little Maltese cross was super-friendly, even stood with her front legs on Brandy's chest to say "Hiya!" Brandy was her usual gentle self.

and a stop in on Wacky Wednesday at my favourite LQS, Alma Sue Quilts. If you are ever in the Sarasota area, be sure to stop in to this wonderful little shop where you can buy fabrics modern and traditional, watch Amish ladies hand quilting around a frame and listen to them speaking their language.

Wacky Wednesday is when Ella puts all her $5/yard sale fabric down to $4/yard. There wasn't much left... But she had put her seasonal fabric (Christmas and Fall) on for $5/yard too. I got a few yards...

Adorable Scotty dogs, Merry Christmas text, and a pretty grey scroll 

Such an interesting and happy tree print and a great red

The Scotty dogs weren't in our house more than 24 hours and they'd already been cut and started to be transformed into...

a Christmas pillowcase for Brady!

You can see my older Christmas pillowcase shams on the left, and a new bright 'for sleeping on' pillowcase behind Brady's. I made it two years ago when I had to ensure, "Santa had barfed up Christmas all over my house," words of Dayna, for me being all festive for Brianne and Brady's visit that year. I'm thinking the trees might need to become new shams for our bed, but then they wouldn't quite go with my Buggy Barn Crazy About Hearts and Stars Christmas quilt... maybe a Christmas cushion cover?

Anyhow Brady's pillowcase is all wrapped up and in the parcel to be mailed off tomorrow.

I remembered to sew in my label 😁

Brady loves dogs, pugs especially, so I think he'll be quite tickled with this new pillowcase. The pattern is Roll It Up off All People Quilt.

Linking up with Molli Sparkles... well I was going to but there isn't a new Sunday Stash, nothing since last Sunday. Hope all is well down under with him.

Quilt Bloggers' International Retreat

If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen photos of the glorious fun-, friends- and fabrication-filled three days I had recently.  You've probably read posts from some of the other bloggers who gathered at Julie's.  I haven't read any of their posts yet; I wanted my take on the retreat to be authentic and mine, you know?  So if I'm repeating stuff you've already seen and read about, this would be why.  Notice I make no apologies!  Nor do I for the many photos. I'm still soaking it all in.

You may recall from this post, this post, and this post, that I'd been down to visit Julie last summer. I was so excited to be going back!

So you see where I live in relation to Julie, about 300 km south of me as the crow flies.  We didn't take the ferry across Lake Erie, but drove around the west end of the lake and on down, about 4.5-5 hours.

Lasagne

Which we had last night for supper, and will again tonight in the form of leftovers.  Vegetarian (not as good as the one Liz made for us in May) and a meat one for MacGyver to keep up his strength for all the macgyvering that he's been doing these past few weeks.  This post is a bit like that lasagne:  a variety of ingredients that end up creating goodness.

Incredible sunset behind the silhouetted massive trees

Kingsville 3rd annual Folk Fest:  a variety of 'ingredients' as in bands and genres of music, all-over wonderful goodness.  I spent the entire weekend either volunteering at or attending the folk fest.  IMHO it was not as good as far as bands go as the two previous years, but still worthwhile attending.  I love live music. Period.  Buffy Ste-Marie was the headliner, and I wish she'd brought her band, and I wish she'd played 'Power in the Blood' from her latest album.  She's not everyone's cup of tea, not exactly mine, but at 75 years old, she impressed the hell out of me with her physique, her memory (all those lyrics to all the songs she played!), and her musical abilities (plays guitar, the mouth bow, the keyboards and sings).

I am so proud to be a Canadian: the multi-cultural aspect of our country evident at this festival, from Canadian-born to Canadian immigrant music.  Hearing musicians belt their hearts out, openly of Mexican heritage, or Iranian, Irish, even Tanzanian, gay, young or old, brown, white or black-skinned, and be genuinely appreciated and applauded for their songs made me know deep in my heart there IS tolerance for all peoples, as there should be.

Another sky, this one to the east, setting sun behind me, coming home from teaching yoga in Windsor.  Can you spot the moon rising, partially hidden by thready clouds?

Spotted this incredible flowering tree (look how tall she is!) in Windsor

Just WHAT is this tree please?  It looks so tropical; in fact I am sure I've seen these in Florida.  Rose flowers adorn the fernish fronds.  I zoomed in to try to show the flowers better.

Isn't it just gorgeous? Here you can see pea pods...is it a Locust or Honey Locust (we have lots of those here) of some sort?

A tree of a different kind being built:

Bella getting right in there again, had to be summarily dumped onto the floor and off the block more than once! She felt it would make a great cat cushion (obvi, Sandra, she says, eyes rolling)

I'm pattern testing an appliqué block for Cindy of Stitchin at Home, a block that has tried my patience I'll admit...but I persevered.  Those of you on Instagram have seen Cindy's blocks coming together, a block of the month she is doing for her guild.

Port Dover Lighthouse built around 1850

I'll admit to not being totally pleased with the final result (it is destined to be sewn into sashing which is why I have got the beach and tree in 3/8" from the sides).  Port Dover Lighthouse, on Lake Erie, is close to Cindy's home.  She lives about 2 hours north and east of me, half way to Toronto.  Yes, Lake Erie is that big...actually twice that big.  If you drove 100kph (60mph), it would take you about 4 hours to drive (it's just shy of 400 km, 241 miles, in length) from my end by the Detroit River, to the eastern end, at Buffalo up by Lara of Buzzin' Bumble.  Thus, this block brings we three 'ingredients' together:  Cindy's design, my efforts, and Lara's Crafted Appliqué technique.  The fabric I used for the water is a Nancy Crow I've had forever (found a couple more Nancy Crow gems in my stash thanks to pattern-testing this past couple of weeks) and the sky is a Maywood Studio.

Back to Bella, one of my three fur-kid ingredients in creating a balanced happy life, you've probably heard that it's that time of the summer!  Pets on Quilts is happening right now at Lilypad Quilting!  This has to be one of, if not my favourite linky party of the year.  Six more days to enter, and there are already 26 entries!  Bella will for sure be one, so come back tomorrow and read all about her contributions to my quilting life.  Okay, okay, she's nudging me, as she is wont to do when I spend too much time with a phone in my hand or wiggling my fingers to make clickety-clack sounds on the laptop, make that her contributions to my life.  Period.

Lots of terrific prizes to be won, did I mention that?!

Also I will let you know that (shh! don't tell) tomorrow you can grab some lasagne Craftsy style: many of their 'ingredients' to equal a pretty sweet sale.  Come back for deets on that and Bella tomorrow!

Two other heads-up, that you will see create a lovely 2-layer lasagne :-)
First up is Bernie at Needle and Foot.  She wrote a great article on something I had never heard of: Flipboard.  Even the intrepid Internet traveller, MacGyver, had not.  This reminds me of Pinterest, but it is a place to make personalized 'magazines' of articles on any topic that interests you, not just photos you like.  Sounds cool, right?  But Bernie takes it one step further by showing you how you can 'publish' your own articles into your own magazines, and make those magazines public.  This way, others on Flipboard who also like yoga or quilting for example, may find an 'article' (aka post) you wrote on a subject that also interests them.  This can help to bring traffic in the form of new readers to your blog!  More deets on this by clicking the link.  I've created a few magazines and added two posts to my Yin Yoga magazine, spending a grand total of maybe 30 minutes all told from downloading the app to setting it up to creating and finally adding two posts.  That's not bad.

Second is my friend Karen of Tu-Na Quilts.  She wanted to start a blog over a year ago, and would visit mine and comment from time to time. Some personal events brought us closer together, and I was able to finally encourage her to just DO IT!  She wrote her first post here, and she has just finished a terrific, informational, humorous series on her Minnesota shop hop adventure.  It is well worth a read, and hey, I just realized I could flip those articles into a Quilt Shops magazine I could set up!  Ha, didn't plan this, but there's my over-arching (cannot kill the English teacher in me) lasagne theme again: two 'ingredients' (Bernie's post on Flipboard and Karen's shop hop posts) creating goodness, as in a great idea for a personalized magazine.

Here's my infant-stage Flipboard link (need to add the social media button for this--going to see Tish about making these look prettier on my sidebar).

And remember to tell me the name of that tree if you know it!

Linking up with
Sew Fresh Quilts

Sunday Stash--a little more loot

Just when you thought, she did pretty good at Miller's Dry Goods in Amish Country, yep, there is more!

Not including the brushed cotton in aqua on the bottom of the stack, this was a kit at Millers' Dry Goods to make a tree skirt.  I am going to turn it into a quilt, possibly with the Moda "Storybook" by Kate and Birdie 4 yard cut incorporated in the front and as the backing. Love these colours together.

One of Julie's of Pink Doxies all-time favourite yellows, which I very nearly didn't pick up, as I didn't have any thought as to where/what I'd use it (like that has EVER stopped me in the past from a fabric purchase, I'll admit), I'm so glad I went back and got a yard.  I love it.  Okay, to be honest, all 3 of these fabrics I have no clue as to intended project, but they will grow up into quilts, have no fear.  Love the Robert Kaufman ivory on the bottom, a great neutral. Love that aqua.  I'm working on getting more aqua shades in my stash. Oh, I also snagged five spools of Coats' Dual Duty thread at 75c for a 250 yd spool.  Ahh, I miss Miller's...

At Zinck's I also picked up some flannel at a great price, still all within my $200 total, remember; there are two other posts, here and here, about the wonderful trip.  Julie has tested it, and found that it has pretty low shrinkage.  Flannel is ideal for tablerunners, and smaller lightweight projects and quilts.  As well, I haven't shown, nor will I until I use it, a 2 1/8 yard roll of a wide fleece product I want to try in the wheelchair charity quilts.  Those should be being quilted soon (yes, I said those; there are 3 more flimsies complete with a fourth one being laid out all on the design wall.  I need a second design wall!

More on these various projects in another post

I also miss Boyd and Wurthmann...

The very best homemade pecan pie with homemade ice cream I have ever tasted

 Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash Share.

Life...

...has a way of getting in the way of sewing.  Yet, it's all good.  Talking on the phone or on Skype with my grandson.  Doing and teaching yoga.  Walking Rocco.  FaceTime-ing with dear dear friends (1.5 hours!! Love it.) A memorable trip, 3 days, to Watkins Glen to meet up with more dear friends.  Reading.  House-hunting.  All of the above have hindered my progress with "fleurs".  Would I have traded any one of them for a little more time sewing?  Not on your life.

So here we are:

Not a lot of progress since the last post.  All I've done is added the 1" finished green border.

I have, however, been making some decent progress today on the trellis final border.

Can you spot the one block with the squares as opposed to half-square triangle squares?!

This trellis block, which I mentioned in my previous post, is from the Trellis Quilt from Makower.

It has a Block A and a Block B, but the pattern shows them as identical.  I did figure out what Block B is actually supposed to be, so I will perhaps write to them about the error in their pattern...  Block B is a mirror image of Block A.  Anyhow, I hope this will give the effect I want.  I do like the interplay of colour in the deep green fabric!  It looks like light and shadow, perfect for the garden effect I seem to be creating!

In Watkins Glen, I had the fabulous opportunity to visit O'Susannah's Quilts and Gifts, Top Ten shop in the Fall 2013 issue of Quilt Sampler.

Janette and I spent a great hour in here, and it wasn't hard for us to support this shop!  The guys had their own fun, visiting the famous racetrack.

Love that Paris quilt! Love the ceiling too!

I do believe I found the perfect backing there for "fleurs"...

What a terrific sale section she has!!  This was on sale, $5.50/yard!!!  I had already bought some fabric from Fat Quarter Shop, but only got 4 yards, having no idea back in March how big the quilt might grow.  That fabric is a good backing choice too, pink and ivory.  Maybe I will combine them??  Anyhow, I just love this fabric.  I think 6 yards should do it.  Might have myself some fun pillowcases if I decide to use the original pink/ivory stuff too...

Loved Watkins Glen.  The scenery, Seneca Lake, Seneca Gorge, Seneca Lodge, where we stayed, the vineyards, the mountainous terrain, the picturesque town set at the foot of the lake with hills rising on either side, the farms, which, as one of my friends who was there in August put it, are "Americana views at their best", and she was absolutely spot on.

Seneca Gorge - breath-taking views, falls, pools, rock, and a great workout to hike to the top and back, 3 miles round trip.

And of course, the reunion was great, both for humans and canines:

The Hounds of the Harborage, LOL

Oh, yes.  House-hunting.  We sold our Florida condo about a month ago, and because of one thing and another, need to go down a little earlier than originally intended to pack up etc.  So we leave Tuesday, September 23!