A Day in Decatur

It was a short day, but a fun day as we made our way to Decatur, Georgia, just about 20 minutes down the road. A few days ago I received my regular email from Food & Wine where they published a list of their picks for the Best Burgers in the U.S. Well. Who doesn't love a good burger, right? So I perused the list and discovered several we'd already passed by. I was happy to see they'd included In 'n Out Burgers in California, because honestly, for a fast food burger, they definitely win the prize. We don't have In 'n Out in Oregon...yet...although one opened a few years ago in Medford. It's too far for us to drive simply for a burger, but I'm not bitter. Oh no. So anyway...back to burgers we can drive to.

There were a few on the list for states we have not yet visited, and there was one in Decatur. Consulting my friend Google and its maps, I discovered Decatur was just down the road. And hot damn! There was a quilt shop there too. Decatur, you maybe my favorite place this trip so far...except for all the others. So anyway...first, the quilt shop. This was the object of my desire:

It was easy to find, and it had a nice big parking lot, which was good because it was a busy place. Here's how it looks from the outside.

Stepping through the front door, you see this. The woman there on the left couldn't have been friendlier or more welcoming. Sometimes when I ask to take pictures of a store, people get very suspicious. They want to know all about how I'm going to use them, why I want pictures, etc. And sometimes they give permission grudgingly, or they set limits on what I can photograph. This woman seemed eager to have me take pictures. "Of course! Tag us! Show us!" And, obviously, that is the right attitude. It makes my visit so much more enjoyable when I can take pictures with wild abandon..."wild" being the operative word.

To my right and just under the front window were Christmas fabrics. There were more on the opposite wall. I don't usually purchase Christmas fabrics, but I do love looking at them.

To the right of those and hanging up high were their Row by Row patterns. I always miss the Row by Row since they've usually finished before we start our trips. These were cute. I like how they used prairie points for the trees in this one.

Here's the other one. It took me a second to see what this is. Do you see it? (Starting the final Jeopardy clock now.)

It's the back end of a car. See the wheels and the tail lights? And the bumper sticker? It says "Got Fabric?" Cute.

And this is also a yarn shop, which isn't in my list of, um, talents (cough). And this brings me to a funny story that happened along the road....and honestly, I really hope I'm not offending anyone by telling it. I've already commented on how charming the accents are here. And of course, if y'all live here, you probably don't even notice that you have an accent. And maybe I'm the one with the accent. Who knows?

Anyway...we were in a Waffle House. We'd never eaten there before, and they are ubiquitous in this part of the country. For every McDonalds we've seen, there might be two Waffle House restaurants. And we enjoyed it! But the woman there was training someone, and she was the epitome of southern charm. We were listening to her explaining addition with decimals, and somehow she'd worked out a way to do it that she could understand. She was sharing it with her trainee and in the process admitted that she didn't have math "skeels." You probably had to be there for it to be funny, but ever since, Mike and I have been evaluating our "skeels" for this or that thing. So, all of that to say that I don't have knitting skeels.

Okay, so back to the quilt shop. The ones in the image below were 50% off. I saw some of them in other parts of the store, and so these must have been end-of-bolt cuts. I wish I'd seen something I wanted, but I didn't.

The shop was sort of "O" shaped. When I walked past the yarn, I walked to a large back room. I believe there was also a classroom in the downstairs part of the store since folks were running down there the whole time I was in the shop. But in this room there was lots and lots of fabric.

And they had the cutest patterns in this shop and some really pretty quilts hanging on the walls. I've seen this one before, but I liked it done with these bright Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

Here's the pattern. I'll admit I've been tempted to buy it more than once in my quilt shop wanderings.

Here's one I hadn't seen before. It's a take-off on a Mariner's Compass or a Texas Star or something...the name of the design escapes me, and so I'm sure someone will chime in with the correct name. Anyway...they'd done it using strips and scraps. Very interesting.

This was the pattern, which was really explaining a technique more than it was a pattern.

These beautiful batiks stretched along one wall and then down another as it turned the corner. Very pretty.

These were all wools.

They still had their Halloween fabrics out. I'm always interested in those since I'm working on the Hocuspocusville quilt, but also, I have Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage on my to-do list. Undoubtedly I'll be wanting Halloween fabrics when I get to her.

There were some pretty ones in the middle. These are some aboriginal prints, which aren't always easy to find. When I took the pictures off the camera, I was reminded that there was a boomerang fabric here I wanted, and I forgot to go back for it. You can see it there...second shelf near the divider, third one to the right. Oh well. Now I'll regret it for the rest of my life.

On the far corner there were Kaffe Fassett fabrics rounding the corner...

and extending far down the next wall.

Beautiful stuff. Behind me were these stupendous stripes. Man, I could have bought an entire bolt of every one of these.

On the fourth wall were solids and tone-on-tones.

A little farther down, some calicos.

And that brought me full circle to the front of the store where they had a great supply of notions.

Also, my favorite Creative Grids rulers. I always look for any sizes I might not have, but definitely need. Maybe I've found all the rulers I want at this point in my life. There were some new ones here, but nothing I couldn't live without.

Walking on, there were some pretty polka dots.

To their right...come cats.

Here's another quilt from a pattern I've seen before.

The name, "Outhouse," made me think of my brother and his never-written novel, "Fifty Yards to the Outhouse," which made me all nostalgic, and I almost bought it. No. I put it down again.

And here's what I've realized about me and patterns. I often see patterns that I'm tempted to buy. Then I put them down and tell myself I'll come back for it later. Only...I never go back. So I was waiting for the woman at the beginning to cut a yard of this next one for me. Cute, huh? Looks like confetti. I can imagine all sorts of uses for it.

Also, I was holding onto a fat quarter of this one. This is my regional print. It seemed right since we came here to see the aquarium.

And while I was waiting for her to cut my fabric, I picked up this pattern...only, I wasn't going to come back for it, and so I never put it down. I just bought it. It's a 13-inch block, and I was thinking it would be cute to make a whole large quilt of these using scraps in my stash. If I'd seen it earlier, I probably would have put it back not to come back to it. But since I was at the end of my shopping trip, into the bag it went. Sorry, I'm not sorry.

And there you go. That was my quilt shop shopping trip in Decatur.

I don't know about you, but shopping makes me hungry for one of the best burgers in the U.S., and I just happened to know where I could find one. It was just a few minutes away in a rather trendy part of town.

We ordered at the counter and then had a seat and our food was brought out to us. We were having a little trouble deciphering the blackboard at the front.

Thankfully, they had a printed menu. Food & Wine told us this was the burger we wanted.

And they had other choices as well.

We were there to sample the one Food & Wine told us about and so we stuck to our guns. Mike had his with bacon. I added some sauteed mushrooms to mine. There were other choices too. Here are the list of additions you could make to any burger.

After we placed our order, we sat at a small table where it was delightfully casual...a roll of paper towels on the table for napkins, and silverware there in a quart-size mason jar.

Also, I noticed this sign on the wall:

Good to know. The burgers were everything we hoped they'd be. My picture doesn't do it justice, and honestly, I was in such a hurry to eat it I didn't give it much time to pose.

Also, we split a basket of onion rings and sweet potato fries. They included some smoked paprika mayonnaise for dipping.

And then, we rolled on home...rolling, because we were in the truck, but if we'd tried to walk, we would have probably rolled that way too.

When we got home, I noticed the flowering plum across from the RV is blooming. Weird. We have these at home and they are one of the first trees to bloom in spring. Who'd think they'd be blooming in December in Georgia.

So this is our last day in Stone Mountain. We're biting our nails waiting for Mike's car part to arrive via UPS. It was marked "out for delivery" yesterday, but then rescheduled for delivery today. We checked again this morning and it is again, "out for delivery." Fingers crossed because I'm not sure what to do if it doesn't arrive today. Anyway...sight-seeing today will take us to the actual Stone Mountain. I can't say more about it because I just realized I left all the information in the truck...and I'm still in my pajamas...and it's, like, freezing outside. You'll just have to wait until tomorrow, and I'll tell you all about it then. But here's something: a gondola ride could be involved.