A Quilty Day

The rain cleared yesterday, although I did hear it raining some last night. There was thick cloud cover and low fog over the national park, however. The road reopened from its ice closure, but we still knew we wouldn't be able to see anything (let alone the road) in such thick fog.

Instead, we hit the road to Harrisonburg where there were two quilt shops and the Virginia Quilt Museum. First, however, we needed to stop off at the RV park office to re-up for another couple of nights. This is where we got both good news and bad news. The bad news is that the park (practically empty right now) is sold out for the weekend. They could only offer us one more night here, but it was our fourth night after three paid nights, and so it was free. That was the good news. So, bummer. But not to worry because there's a KOA just down the road. We stopped in there and signed up for an additional two nights, so we're set. It just means we have to move this morning, which is kind of a hassle.

But anyway...back to the quilt shops. The first one was in a kind of antique mall. We weren't at all sure we'd found it. Finally, I decided to check it out and see what was going on inside this building.

It was a football-field-sized structure. Inside were all sorts of things for sale. Wandering to the right, I found quilts for sale. That was a good sign.

Turning around, looking in the other direction, I saw this.

Looking to my left...there it was! It was a little like walking up on a fabric booth at a quilt show, only this was a really big booth with actual room to walk around inside.

Fabric was spilling out into the hall.

Walking into the store, it looked like this.

There were walls and walls of fabric. This whole wall was mostly solids. I noticed Mennonite women in both stores I visited today and I'm guessing the Amish are close by too.

Here was a nice display of sewing-themed fabric.

There was a nice display of pretty batiks.

Also...a whole lot of these white tone-on-tones, which aren't always easy to find. I'm thinking with winter coming on, they're expecting a lot of wintry quilts.

Here's something I haven't seen before. These were all the fairy frost fabrics, but some had patterns on them.

And there was something for everybody here. I really liked this store.

There was a classroom in the back.

The table there on the right had flat folds on sale for a good price. I didn't see anything I wanted, but geez, those are good prices.

It's fun shopping at this time of year because everyone has their Christmas fabrics out. They had lots of them.

These midnight winter fabrics are so pretty.

Possibly, I could have spent a lot of money here, but I limited myself to this fat quarter as my regional print. It's not exactly "regional," but we've been haunted by ladybugs ever since our stop back in Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada. There were swarms of lady bugs there. We thought we'd rid ourselves of them...finally...but we've run into them again here in Virginia.

Also this one. It was so pretty, I couldn't resist. I can use it for its depiction of snowy trees, or it would make a good binding fabric too.

Also, I picked up some neutral fat quarters for the Hocuspocusville quilt. Probably I have some at home, but I neglected to bring enough to finish off my quilt top.

As I paid for my purchases, I noticed this taped to the cash register. It gave me a chuckle.

From there, we drove a few miles down the road to this shop.

It was located in a large shopping center/strip mall sort of thing. Inside was a large, if cluttered, fabric store.

The first thing I noticed was this rack of thread cones. Usually, I don't see these in quilt shops, but this is a Baby Lock authorized dealer, and so it seems they're catering to their long-arm customers. (And, yes, I know Baby Lock also makes domestic machines.)

The quilting fabric was all along the right wall of the store.

They had some pretty batiks too, and take a look at that one stacked on top there.

That was so pretty, I needed a yard of it.

Look at these yummy stripes.

The top row in the image below were all 108-inch wides. I love those for a quilt back.

These were their holiday fabrics.

And they had everybody's team sport available.

But this large "fabric" store also carried fabrics for dressmaking, home decor, draperies, fur, fleece, upholstery, etc., and all the assorted embellishments for those kinds of things.

They had the largest supply of buttons I've ever seen outside the Button Emporium in Portland.

Check out those Raggedy Ann buttons in the upper right corner. Pardon me for just a minute. Squee! And the cats, and the cows, and the teddy bears, oh my!

If I'd needed some embroidery floss, I could have found any color I wanted here.

Toward the front of the store and near the windows was a classroom area.

This print reminded me of the tree leaves I photographed here at the RV park a few days ago, and so I picked it up as my regional print. It looks like a nice back for a fall table topper too.

From there, we visited the Virginia Quilt Museum.

It's housed in the historic Sipes Home.

This sign lists the exhibits I would see. As a senior, my admission to the museum was $5.

It was okay to take pictures in here, but I was not allowed to post them. "Copyright is all around us," said the woman who took my money, as if it were lurking behind walls, inside closets, and around corners. And here's the thing, my blogging friends. This might sound corny, but I swear it's the truth: I carry you with me when I'm out and about visiting quilt shops, museums, and national parks. In my head, I'm talking with you (via my next blog post) about what we're seeing. If I know I'm not going to be able to tell you about it in my next blog post, it's just not as much fun. And so I regret that I can't show you the quilts I saw here, but I do have some other things to show you. These floors, for example. The house had some beautiful floors.

Here's a little bit of history about the house.

There were a bunch of broken dishes in the wall case, and so I didn't include them, but I thought the information about the house was worth sharing. And even though I wasn't supposed to post pictures of the quilts, I couldn't resist sharing this cat from a larger piece. You won't tell, will you?

But I could post pictures of these antique toy sewing machines. There was a whole roomful of these. Those of you who like vintage sewing machines would have been in hog heaven here. Also, it was kind of a coincidence that I came upon these because I'd just communicated with Cheryl who writes Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting about miniature sewing machines. I've linked to her blog post about her machine back there.

Just outside the door to this room was this old treadle.

So I saw some pretty quilts there and enjoyed my visit. Back in the gift shop, I noticed this pattern.

I was wishing I could see a better picture of the quilt, but this is the only one I could find from the pattern cover. I've Googled the heck out of it and found nothing. I even tried a reverse image search. There were a few quilts that looked like it, but not the same.

When I inquired about it, I was told that it was a part of their collection, but it was not available to see at the moment. Inside there are 49 of these little motifs for stitching. Here's an example of one of them.

So, I really wanted to see a better picture before purchasing the pattern, and so I set it down and made a visit to the "necessary room." (Only one hole in this one.) Inside there were framed pictures of these old magazines. It was in publication when my mother was a child.

Somehow my visit to the necessary room turned me around regarding the pattern, and I went back for it. Also, I liked this t-shirt, although I didn't purchase it.

And that was our quilty day!

Also, I finished the Wine Country block I started a couple of days ago. I told you it would stitch up quick.

When I work on this again, I'll be doing this block:

But I was most excited to be starting a brand new stitchery project...the Snow Globes from Crabapple Hill Studios. (I've given you a link to the pattern there.)

Look at these pretty floss colors. There are several different colors of sparkle floss, which is kind of hard to thread on the needle, but it looks so pretty when I stitch it up.

Now I've traced and hooped the first block, Church on the Hill, and it's ready for me to get started.

What a coincidence...I'm headed there right now!