Quilt Shop: Mes Amis Quilt Shop; New Orleans, LA

There are several quilt shops in New Orleans. I simply chose the one closest to us. As it turns out, it was right along the way to the grocery store, and so it was very convenient. Here's how the storefront looks at Mes Amis Quilt Shop. They have an online presence right here.

Walking inside...yikes. It was a little crowded and cluttered, but it's all good. They had an amazing selection of fabric. What they needed was a larger space.

On this whole wall to the right, everything was on sale. It was all 25% off, and then an additional 10% taken at the register.

They had a wonderful selection of patterns and fabrics unique to Louisiana and New Orleans.

The women in the store were friendly as can be. They had some familiarity with shops and shows in the Bend and Portland, Oregon, areas, and so we had some things to chat about. They encouraged me to walk around the cutting table there to take a look at their many notions.

Here's something I haven't seen before. I've not felt a need to use something like this, but maybe some of you have. I wondered how well this ergonomic shape and function worked.

The shop consisted of several rows of fabric. They were squished so tightly together that it was hard to get a really good look at things. Nevertheless, I persisted. There was a lot to see.

Wow...those flamingos really spoke to me. The ones in the middle at the top...pink on green...so tempting. By reminding myself that I already have a flamingo quilt, I was dissuaded, but just barely.

There was lots of color.

And some fun patterns. I noticed this one.

Then hanging a little higher up...this one.

And...oh my goodness...here's another one! What fun!

The real strength and delight of this store were their many Louisiana and New Orleans themed fabrics.

After traveling through so many states and visiting so many quilt shops, I'm really beginning to get bug-eyed looking at fabrics. Still, I wanted something from New Orleans, specifically, for my Quilty 365. With Mardi Gras just around the corner, I wanted something with a Mardi Gras theme, and wow. Did they have Mardi Gras fabric! It was hard to choose just one.

But oh wait! Did I want something for Mardi Gras? Or did I want something that was more reflective of New Orleans in general? So hard to decide.

And I salivated over this wall of black and gold fabrics. These were so, so pretty. Below were 108-inch wides, and I looked those over very carefully, thinking I might find something for my Solstice quilt.

There was one up here, that I really liked. It was white and gold polka dots on a black background. They had a black and gold polka dot on a white background in the 108-inch wide bolts, but nothing with the black background. That was the one I really wanted. It made it a little easier to walk away.

Finally, I decided on this one for my regional fabric, and I picked up an already-cut fat quarter. They had lots and lots of fat quarters pre-cut in pretty much every fabric in the store. Always appreciated when one is filling one's RV with fabric.

On this wall, the shelving was arranged in a zigzag sort of configuration, and the whole left wall of the store was in pretty batiks.

At the register, was a basket of chocolate. Thank you...don't mind if I do. Make mine a Krackel, please.

I chose a couple of fabrics and paid for them. Behind the register was this sock monkey family. Squee!

These are the fabrics I chose. I got a yard of each. After I took the picture of this one, it seemed very familiar...as if I might already have a yard at home. Oh well...now I have two yards. I can make an even bigger quilt. It makes me think of Pixie Sticks.

This one was on sale. I just liked it.

And this one caught my eye. It was too pretty to pass up. If my stripes are to be used for bindings, I'm going to have to finish a lot of quilts. I figure I'll live longer if there are plenty of quilt bindings to finish.

So there you go...a sampling of what can be found in the New Orleans quilting world. This shop was great fun, and you couldn't ask for friendlier employees.

LAst New State

We added the last new state of the trip to the side of the RV yesterday. LA! Did you see what I did there in the title of this post? I know...so creative. It's hard to be humble sometimes. So anyway...there it is. Hey Louisiana! How are ya?

So here's the final state of the states for this trip. Still quite a few missing in America's mid-section.

Looking at the sheet with the missing states is almost as interesting as the map on the side of the RV.

Still missing Lake Erie...and Alaska...and because I know someone will ask, no, we didn't take the RV to Hawaii, but we traveled together to Oahu and the Big Island, and so we included them on our map. Cheating, yes. You'll can sue me if you like.

We were just minutes away from the state line when we left Mississippi yesterday morning. We dragged our feet leaving the park because we only had about an hour's drive to the RV park in New Orleans. We passed over a big long bridge across the Pearl River (which I misidentified in my post yesterday...fixed now).

When we reached the other side, we were in Louisiana. Helllllooooooo, out there!

Just a few miles down the road, three interstates diverged from one another. You don't see that very often.

We took the left fork to New Orleans. Seeing the sign to Baton Rouge made us curious, however. And, hey, I took two years of French in high school, so I figure that translates into something like "red baton," or "red staff," or "red flagpole," or something like that. And we both figure it has something to do with a flag that flew over the city at one time or another. So I looked it up in my AAA tour book, and, uh-oh. Here you go...don't blame me...I'm just the messenger.

So...Ew. Not as romantic as I might have thought.

Anyway...our RV park is right here on Lake Pontchartrain. Behind us is a marina and a yacht repair place. And here we are without our yacht...which happens to need repair. As if. Here's a picture I took standing behind the RV. There are two things to notice about this image. First, the mardi gras mask on the boat there in the foreground.

Also, look at the blue line below the words "yacht repair" on the building in the background. That's where the water line was during Katrina. Yikes. Indeed, this area looks pretty good, but the road leading in here was a sad sight to see. There was another yacht repair place down the road that has not been repaired since the flood, and it remains, a rusting hulk of metal and a testimony to the destruction that took place here. Kind of sad to see. The RV park is all new. It wasn't here before Katrina, so lucky us. It's a pretty nice place.

Also sad to see...this next image. Smitty took this picture from his catio. It's a stupid woofie...tied right outside at our next door neighbor's RV...sitting there looking at Smitty...on his own purrivate catio. I'm telling you the kitty insults never cease on this trip.

We needed a couple of things from the grocery store, and so I encouraged the Resident Engineer to get his one quilt shop visit out of his system right away. He's always so excited when we visit a quilt shop. (Not.) So...just down the road was this place, and that's where we went.

That's their business card. On the back is this handy little table:

So I'll tell you about that in a separate post. After that, we headed to the grocery store. We just needed things like lunchmeat and sandwich bread, but sometimes it's fun to see the local fare available in different grocery stores across the country. Here in New Orleans, you can get head-on shrimp for $6 per pound. These looked good.

Or how about some boiled crayfish?

Tempting, but we passed.

This morning we're heading into the French Quarter to feast on some beignets and just wander around. There is a shuttle that will take us from the RV park and drop us off, and then bring us back later on today. Sounds like a great plan. Also on the agenda, we'd like to take a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi and find ourselves a good restaurant for dinner. Some of you have made suggestions, so thank you for that. I'll catch up with y'all later and tell you what we did.