Quilt Shop: Ladybugz Quilt & Co., Montrose, Colorado

After our road closure debacle near Ouray last Wednesday, we decided to wait until Friday for our final ride. The crew knocked off early on Fridays, and so the road reopened earlier. Thursday seemed like a good day to head into the nearest town of any size, Montrose, to take care of some "life" stuff. We needed groceries, and Mike needed some batteries for his weather station. It was a birthday gift from me some years ago. He wears it on a lanyard around his neck. He can measure all sorts of things with it: wind speed, elevation, temperature...I don't know what all. But as I've said before, if a thing can be measured, we will measure it. And that was just fine with me because I knew there were a couple of quilt shops in Montrose, not to mention a Kroger grocery store. We shop at a Kroger store back home, and every Kroger store in the country honors our electronic coupons and any points we've earned on our "loyal customer" cards. 

First stop was the quilt shop, however, and it was very cute. Here's how it looks from the parking strip out front. Sorry for the sun glare.

Passing through the front door, it looked like this.

To my left was this display. 

Just to the right of the image above was this display of digitally printed fabric. I'm seeing more and more of this in my visits to quilt shops, and I really like it. I'm not sure how this process works or how they can get those vibrant colors. These were so pretty. I really loved that one on the right, and I told myself I'd come back for it. I was only just getting started, but then I forgot until my purchases were already rung up. Oh well. It might have been divine intervention, because I seriously don't need any more fabric at the moment.

This little gnome was there to welcome me. Isn't he cute?

Moving on, I noticed a large wall of notions on the left.

Overhead was this pretty runner. Those flowers are three dimensional.

The quilt shop is in a residential area and in an actual house. You can find its web presence right here. To the right of the front door was a long arm machine. There were also "bedrooms" coming off the main shop with more long arm machines. I had the feeling they could be rented, but I also believe the owner probably does professional quilting. The woman working in the store that day was an employee, and the owner wasn't present. She was very friendly, and kept telling me she was going to get fired for this, that, or the other thing. 

Oh yes, and there was candy. I didn't have any. On this day, just looking at it was enough to satisfy the urges of my inner sugar fiend. 

I liked this wall-hanging. It would have made a good Christmas tree for when we're traveling. 

When we made our USA tour, we sometimes spent a night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. After one of those nights, we went into the store and bought the tackiest thing you've ever seen to hang on the wall for Christmas. Just now I went looking through old blog posts to see if I could find it, and I did. Please feel free to revel in its tacky splendor. The best part about it was that we simply threw it in a dumpster when Christmas was over.

After that, I purchased a pattern for a wall-hanging Christmas tree quilt. I have yet to make it. I might have bought the one above except for the unmade one at home.

But getting back to the quilt shop, she already had her holiday fabrics out. I don't suppose it's too early if one is trying to get something made before Christmas. Just looking at them gave me the heebie-jeebies. Christmas always comes around too fast each year for me. I have a few of these at home already.

There was a nice row of landscape prints. I was tempted to buy one of the aspen prints for my Shop Hop quilt, but I already picked up one on our last trip to Colorado, and it's already been made into a quilt block. I needed something different.

This wasn't a small store, but it wasn't large either. Fabrics seemed to be shelved by color, mostly. Note the vintage sewing machine in the image below.

They had a nice supply. I was looking for fabrics to use in my Vintage Linen quilt. I'm trying to keep the fabrics for that quilt on the vintage looking side of things, and my stash is woefully short on those.

Here was a nice showing of batiks.

And some pretty fall fabrics. It's almost here!

Pretty pinks.

I made my selections, and I was only in the market for fat quarters on this day. I picked a couple of bolts off the shelf, and she was happy to cut them into fat quarters for me. I picked up a few that were already cut as well.

As she was cutting my fabrics, I noticed this bin. It was a fun idea, but at that price, I was paying $5 per yard for the fabrics. I wanted to be able to see what I was getting, and so I was not enticed by this "mystery" bundle. 

Over the cutting table was this cute little quilt, honoring the name of the shop, "Ladybugz."

So, what did I get? Well, thanks for asking. I picked up these fat quarters. She was kind enough to charge me regular price for two of them, and then a bundled price for the rest. It saved me about $6.

For my regional print, I chose this one. It made me think of the fritillary butterflies we've seen on our rides, and it will work in my Vintage Linen quilt too.

There will be a few more quilt shops in our travels ahead, no doubt. Mike has learned to be patient with these outings, and he naps in the truck while I shop. On this particular day, he was happy to be in a place where he had a good cell signal, and he could catch up on the things we were missing online.

Okay, so with that, I'm all caught up on my posts. The sun is just starting to rise, and it's time for me to relax with my coffee and catch up on email and social media. I'm hoping I'll be able to tell you about a ghost town when I write again. I just love a good ghost town, and I suspect there are plenty around here.