On the road

Well, here we are at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN for hubby's annual checkup. He sees the doctors, gets poked for blood and such and I sew! Such a deal! Actually, when we come north the car is packed mostly with my sewing machine and projects/ Some people are having stay-cations, while we are having a Mayo-cation!

The weather has been fabulous here, and we've been able to have the windows open. The other day while he went to the annual Transplant Picnic they sponsor, I took a little trip into Minneapolis/St. Paul. I visited the Textile Center first. It was well worth the trip. It just happened that while I was there, the Minnesota State Guild was having their meeting. I was privileged to get to see about 50 vintage quilts. Their speaker was from the Minnesota Quilt Project, and had SO much to share! Then I saw the Ikea exhibit, the Nothing New Exhibit, and a small exhibit about quilts with humor. They have a small shop there too, and of course, I helped out with taking a pair of hand knit socks home!

Next stop was The Fiber Studio. This shop is about 15 minutes away from The Textile Center, and is just so darned filled with fiber, I about had a fit! The owner was so nice, and since there wasn't anyone there for a while, we got to visit a bit. She showed me a technique I'd wanted to know about with silk roving and spray starch. Of course, when I left, I had a nice sack full of fun to take home with me and play with. If you are ever in the area, be sure to check this shop out!

My next stop was a quilt shop I will not name. When I was in the Textile Center if there was some other place/shop I should NOT miss while in the area. Well, this shop wasn't exactly in the area (actually 40 minutes further away from even driving back home) but they both extolled it's virtues so much, that I felt I shouldn't miss it. While it was in a cute setting (a refurbished railroad station), and the drive was nice, I was sorely disappointed. During the entire time I was there, there were only 2 other customers, and I was never greeted or spoken to at all. The fabrics were lovely, and some of the quilts on display were quite nice, but there was no "personality" to the shop. Do you know what I mean? I bought ONLY a spool of hot pink thread to work on a project I brought with me, so that gives you an idea of how uninspired I was in the shop. Oh well, maybe I hit it on the wrong day?

So today, I am going to finish up French Roses. THEN I am going to go to the Mill End with a 60% (!!!!!) off coupon and look for a border fabric. The most expensive fabric there is only $4.99 per yard to start with, and they have every maker except Moda. I usually stock up on a lot of fabric when I come here, but this year, I am only going to buy what I need.

And last, we went out to lunch Sunday and it was Puppy Daze. Can you guess what we did? We made the huge mistake of looking! When we leave here and start the drive south, we will stop and pick up our new baby, Mayo. She is a Cavachon, which is a mixed breed of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon Frise.



I guess Bonnie and Clyde will learn to live with her, but it will take some work to get her introduced to the family, I'm sure! She is four months old, and is almost house trained. I can hardly wait to take her home!

I'll have more pictures in the next post. I have a laptop with us,and I don't quite know how to get the pictures from the camera to the blog on this PC. I am so spoiled with my MAC at home, I forget the basics! I hope to post again tomorrow, so come back then!