text: I had to hustle in the morning, so I could be ready when my ride arrived. Dede and I were off for a quilt shop road trip. Dede is somewhat of a new quilter and hasn't been to a lot of quilt shops. After one of our rowdy discussions at the retreat, it was time to do some exploring. With the help of Shelly and some research on my part, we set off to visit four shops. Three of them I had never visited myself, so it was just as much new for me as it was for Dede.
  We definitely had a sweet ride! We were hoping for a beautiful day, but that didn't happen. However, we were still fortunate to drive with the top down for part of the drive, and that was great! I think that was my first time driving (yes - we shared the driving) a convertible with the top down. I lead such a sheltered life!
  Our road trip wheels |
  Let's just say that if you have the top down, there's not a lot of room for purchases unless you have it locked in a suitcase strapped in the backseat!
  Because of the pandemic, I called ahead to check if the shops were open. And we found most shops were open in the area we hit. One shop wasn't open yesterday, and one other was open by appointment, and we didn't have time to hit several others that were also open. That's for the next trip. And YES - there'll be another trip. We had a blast! No appointments, so that was nice and required a whole lot less planning. Masks, of course, were mandatory, as was hand sanitizing! But we could touch and feel to our heart's content, and I didn't feel uncomfortable in the least.
  I forgot to get a picture of the first shop we hit. But it's called Kalidoscope of Quilts in St. Mary's. This is an excellent shop with a variety of modern, wool felt, and traditional. It's situated in a gorgeous old building that we didn't really appreciate until we were driving away. It's so sad that many of these small towns have few businesses left in their downtowns.
  The next stop was The Quilt Kitchen in Exeter.
  The Quilt Kitchen |
  This shop is modern, and we noticed that there are lots of bag making supplies in these stores. I saw lots of great hardware from Emmaline Bags. I would have been a bit miffed if I would have found the hardware that I just ordered, but nope - it wasn't in the shops. Phew!!! Lots of great new "modern" quilt patterns. Don't worry - I'll share with you later.
  I was a bit worried about the day since there are not a lot of bathrooms open to the public. We decided that this was an excellent place to stop for lunch, and we ate INSIDE - the first time in months. It was just fine, and we ate at the Huron Family Restaurant. A family-style restaurant with huge portions and great food. Social distancing protocols in place, of course. We got to use the washroom, and we were off.
  It was a shame that we weren't able to have the top down on that convertible the entire time because we were on the country roads, and it would have been perfect. But we still got some excellent "air time" in. The clouds were dark and threatening, but we chose our top down times perfectly. At one point, we would have had to stop because it started to pour. We would have gotten a wee bit soaked as we waited for the roof to shut.
  The other thing about this area is the GPS. We plugged the addresses into the GPS. But many of the addresses come up with the County Name, not the name of the town. However, I could tell by the big GPS map that it was the right place, and then we were off.
  The next stop was E & E Cloth Creations in Newton. This is another gorgeous old building. I swear - it makes me want to move to this area and buy an old building and build a studio in it. How fun would that be? Oh - I'm sure many of them would require lots of work. Still...............
  E & E Cloth Creations |
  This is a great shop. A bit more traditional, but the prices are RIGHT!!! Most of the prints (including digital prints) - a whopping $12.95 a meter!!!! Now that's a bargain. And the service?? It couldn't be better. Dede was looking to purchase an entire bolt of solid black. None on the shelves. As we were getting ready to check out, the Canpar truck arrived with FIVE boxes of fabric.
  The staff member actually opened ALL the boxes to see if the black that was on order was in the boxes. Can you believe that??? I was truly impressed and a HUGE shout out to E&E Cloth Creations for doing that.
  Let's open the order to see if there's black in there |
  They also had other fun stuff like seeds - look at this one - Bodacious Corn. I wonder what it tastes like. We should have stopped and bought some sweet corn as there were many stands along the road selling corn, flowers, and other fresh veggies.
  Bodacious corn seed |
  Shoot - I'm running out of time this morning. I'm getting ready for the retreat, and well - time is of the essence. I'll finish off the road trip tomorrow.
  Don't forget that today there's a blog post on QUILTsocial for you to read. More great tips and inspiration for you. You NEED to check this post out to see the Word Sculpt wall art that I made. I LOVE IT!!
  On that note, I'm out of here to pack the car.
  Have a great day!!!