A Day in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we stayed an extra night at our Harvest Host site so that we could take some time to see the city of Winnipeg. We had two destinations in mind: the quilt shop, and a brewery for lunch. Along the way, we noticed a Petsmart and decided to stop in. I've had trouble finding Smitty's preferred dry food. We've been looking for it since before we left home. I'm afraid they've stopped manufacturing it. In any case, we wanted to stop in for some new cat toys. Kitties get bored on these long trips, and we thought some novel toys might help. Also, we picked up a nifty new scratching post that has a smaller footprint than the one we have currently. While we were there, I was kind of smitten with this little dalmatian kitten. Thank goodness for husbands with cooler heads.

There was a sign asking me not to tap on the glass, and I had to put my hands in my pockets to restrain myself.

After that, we made our way to the quilt shop. I'd mentioned to Mrs. Farm that I was a quilter. She checked in with her quilting friends, and this was the shop recommended to us.

It was located in what we call an "industrial park" in the states. Stepping through the front door, this is what I saw.

Directly in front of me were these flannels. I love that black one just left of center. It has cats...or maybe foxes that look like cats.

When I asked permission to take pictures, the owner ushered me into a storage room where she was readying for a big sale the next day. She told me she'd give me the sale prices if I promised not to tell anyone. When I suggested there was no one I *could* tell, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Look at these pretty batiks. All on sale.

There was another table behind me with some one-meter (or is it metre?) cuts. They were buy one, get one for 50% off. I was all over those, as you'll see in a minute.

Back out in the main part of the store there was another whole wall of pretty batiks.

Do you think I could resist those stripes at the bottom? (If you said "no," then you win the prize. Sorry...there is no prize.)

And there were so many cute novelty fabrics.

Miss Piggy caught my eye. I always text pictures of any pig I see to my walking buddy, Sue, and so she saw Miss Piggy before you did.

She had lots of patterns. These were mostly from Missouri Star Quilt Company. (I think Missouri Star Quilt Company is going to be on our list of destinations when we get that far into our journey...next spring sometime.)

Look at this pretty wall-hanging. If I could have bought the pattern alone, it would have been in my shopping bag. It was only available as a rather expensive kit.

This was their row-by-row. We're too late for the row-by-row experience this year, but most of the shops still have them on display.

You could make a bag from that same goose.

So, here's what I came out with...here's one of the stripes I couldn't resist. I have a mind to use this as the binding on Hocuspocusville when I finish it.

Here's my regional print for my Quilty 365...because, Canada!!!

This was one I got for 50% off after purchasing the one above. I liked it, but I think my mind was still on that dalmatian kitten.

Here's another of the buy one, get one for 50% off. I just thought it was pretty. The owner informed me it was a Canada-made fabric.

And this would have been another one for 50% off. These are all one-meter cuts. The prices were comparable to US prices, but you get about three inches more fabric in a one-meter cut. It seemed a little weird getting one meter, but I realize that we in the US are sort of the outliers for sticking with the US version of Imperial measurements. Anyway...this one below is actually more black with gray streaks through it.

I liked it as a potential "fur" fabric for an animal portrait. A few of you had the same idea I had about turning that bison photo into a pawtrait. If only I could take it back and show it to the bison when I'm finished.

So from there, we punched in the address for the brewery Mrs. Farm had recommended. Just then I'd mentioned to Mike that, for a big city, Winnipeg didn't have a lot of tall buildings. We wondered if being on the prairie meant that the city built out rather than up. Then, we turned a corner, and there they were off in the background.

We aren't city people, and in general, we hate driving in city traffic. Our navigation unit is not respectful of our wishes about this, however. Like it or not, it took us right through the middle of downtown.

I took this picture below so you could see the *two* trains passing over the road through town.

This also happens to be Trans-Canada Hwy 1...kind of weird to have what amounts to an interstate freeway going right through town...

with plenty of stoplights along the way.

Finally, we made it to One Great City Brewing Company. Everything in there was very shiny.

And they actually do brew beer right here.

Lunch was good, and we got a t-shirt for Erik. Then, we headed back to the farm and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Not much more to say about our day off in Winnipeg, but I wanted to show you the progress I've made on the Sundress embroidery. I've finished the latest hooping.

I had to make a "design decision" here. There was supposed to be a "cast-on flower" there on the hand-bag. Cast-on stitch is seen in Brazilian embroidery, and I've never done it before. I looked at several YouTube videos but was unsuccessful in teaching myself to do it. It didn't seem to be necessary, and so I just left it off. You won't tell, will you? I can always add it later, but I'll need someone to show me how to do it in person.

Here's what I have so far.

And now I've moved my hoop and I'm ready to go again. This one is going to take a while.

As I'm writing this, we've arrived at our next destination of Dryden, Ontario, Canada. We're staying in a traditional RV park tonight. We needed electricity so that I could do some laundry. Every few days or so, we need electricity to charge batteries and do other electrical things. I'll tell you about today's drive in tomorrow's post.