An Update and a Quilt Shop

Good morning, my friends. It's another busy day ahead. Happily, there's nothing that will take me away from home for at least several days. Just staying home makes the day a whole lot more peaceful. My apologies for teasing you with the quilt shop for the past few days. I'll finish off with our time traveling posts today and tell you all about it. But first, an update on yesterday's activities.

There were pickled beets to finish off. I managed to get five pints from my paltry harvest. As I mentioned, I supplemented with a few from the grocery store to have a complete batch.

Those had to process for 35 minutes. I added in one of the pickled carrot jars that failed to seal as well. Now all of those puppies are sealed and shelf-stable. 

While they were processing, the kitties and I went out to water the annuals and check on the vegetables. Smitty barely had his eyes open.

Sadie was ready for business.

On the way to the vegetable garden, I noticed the catnip in the Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden is blooming. The bees like it.

Both of the Procut Gold Lite sunflowers have opened now. 

Mainly, I was there to check for anything that needed harvesting. Of course there was zucchini. I'm barely keeping my head above the zucchini waterline. Also, there were exactly two carrots. I may get more carrots from the seeds I planted, but I'm afraid the gophers have eaten most of them. Sigh.

Ears of corn are developing on the stalks. That's always good to see. The corn has to ripen before we take off on another month-long trip in September.

Checking the dahlias, I found the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia blooming. I'll check on it again this morning to see if its any larger.

Checkers seems to be fully opened. I'm watching the side flowers now.

The blue hydrangea is looking pretty.

Behind me, the variegated hydrangea is covered in flowers as well.

It has pink and purple flowers on the same plant.

Of course, I can't resist taking more pictures of the echinacea.

It's humming with bee activity.

Back inside, I had housekeeping chores to catch up on. I managed to make my way into the sewing room late in the afternoon. After spending an hour on Tiny House #27, I had sections completed through letter "M." I'm hoping to complete Sections "N" through "R" today, and that will finish it off.

Sadie was my helper cat for this.

She tires quickly from papurr-piecing. (Don't we all?) She ended up napping while I finished up my day of sewing.

I was able to get two more blocks attached to the Vintage Linen quilt top. That completes the first row. There are nine blocks in all, so two more rows to go.

Also, I'm experimenting with some border fabrics. Purple and yellow are complementary colors, and so I'd like to use some of those purples that were gifted to me last month. I tried these two. With a dark purple binding, I think this could work.

It's hard to decide until I have the quilt top completed, and I can see how big it will be. I believe it will end up around 56 inches square, and so I have some room if I want to add borders. And I have other purples too. Nothing is decided yet, and I'm open to ideas.

When I went upstairs, I found Miss Sadie in her catio, half in the sunshine and half in the shade. I think this is the cat equivalent of dangling one foot out from under the blanket when you get too hot for covers, but too cold without them.

Okay, so let's just talk about that quilt shop, shall we? I was very surprised to find this shop in such a remote area. We stopped off on our way to the flour mill. The building where it was located shared space with a hairdresser. We were a little early on our arrival.

What do you think that name means? Is it something like, I'd rather be quilting? The building was open for the hairdresser. Walking through the front door into a foyer, I found this.

Except for the hairdresser, there was nothing else in the building that I could see. However, there were some locked doors in a room across the hall. At first, I dismissed this as a place that sold quilts, but not fabric. We left and visited the flour mill, but then stopped back on our way out of town. That was when I found the doors to the fabric store unlocked and open. Walking through the doors, it looked like this.

The place seemed abandoned, but there were voices coming from the left side and behind the fabric there. I walked around a little bit before disturbing the two people who were talking. I found a lot of patriotic fabrics and Christmas fabrics. Indeed, the store was around 70% holiday fabrics.

There were a few other things in the mix. The ones below were 108" wide for backs. The aqua one in the center was used as the back for my Quiltmaker's Garden quilt.

There were LOTS of panels.

And more holiday fabrics.

Many of the fabrics I saw were some of the first ones I bought back in 2008 when I first learned to quilt.

This was a small shop with lots of fabric, but little else. I started thinking it was either a co-op, or it was a store meant to support the owner's long-arm business. When I introduced myself to the two people mentioned earlier, it turned out to be a repairman and the owner who was fussing over her malfunctioning long arm machine. It was an old industrial-looking long-arm, and it needed a part that was no longer being manufactured. Who wouldn't be raising a fuss over that?

I really am not in the market for any more yardage. My search was for a regional fabric for my Shop Hop quilt. Still, I saw a few things that were very tempting. If I'd had any idea about how to use this one, I might have bought it.

Trucks like these always make me think of my grandfather, but I passed on both of them.

For my regional fabric, I selected this one. With the shop located in this vast grain-growing region, what else could I have chosen?

So, I enjoyed this shop, and I especially enjoyed briefly chatting with the owner. We commiserated over her broken long-arm. I wonder how she will get it repaired with a part no longer available. If we visit the area again, I might check back and see how she solved her problem. And if one of you is in the area, you can ask, and let me know what you find out.

Okay, so that brings our trip to a close. We'll be home now until after Labor Day. I'll say more about future travels as they approach. Today I'm making more zucchini relish...two batches...and I'm hoeing the garden. There is more housekeeping to do. (I told you I was woefully behind.) After I finish today's canning, I expect the week will settle down a little. Tomorrow I'll be doing some cooking for when we have dinner guests on Friday. After that, I can let out a sigh of relief and relax for a bit.