The Best Times…

Always turn out to be the ones that aren’t planned ahead of time.

Yesterday’s forecast called for rain all day.  Mr. Painted Quilt and I are very early risers and as we were sitting at the kitchen table having our morning cup(s) of coffee, he turned to me and said…

“So?  Do you want to go?” 

“Where?” I replied.

“Isn’t this the weekend of the Vermont Quilt Festival?”

Within twenty minutes we were in the van, heading south to Burlington, Vermont.  We had initially talked about going on the Friday but after much procrastinating by me, we decided not to go.  After all, I didn’t NEED anything.  Famous last words.  Two and a half hours later, we were there.

En route, I made a short list of some of the things that I wanted to look at.  This was my third year going so I knew which booths I wanted to visit and where they were located.  We decided that Mr. PQ would head off with Mac, our Westie and come back in three hours to meet me.  As it turned out, not twenty minutes after I entered into the trade show, the skies opened up and it poured for the rest of the day.

For someone who didn’t need anything, I managed to come home with a few treasures.

My first purchase was wool…lots of it!

And more wool…

And just a little bit more wool.

I have a really cool project in mind that will be using not only some of the wool but some of these Autumn-colored fabrics as well.

It’s virtually impossible for me to attend these shows and not come away with some new ‘toys’…

See the yellow thing on the left that looks like a toothbrush?  That’s a new-fangled seam ripper that is guaranteed NOT to cut into your fabric as you are unpicking stitches.  How cool is that!

To the right of the seam ripper is an embroidery floss threader.  Not cheap but if it works, it’ll save me a lot of aggravation.

Directly under that is a little tomato pincushion with velcro on the underside that I’m going to affix right to my sewing machine bed.

Then there are two crow buttons and some wee candy cane buttons.  I’ve already sketched out a design including the crows.  I’m not promising but hopefully it’ll be ready for September’s FFF.

Then the little green tin at the top is a container of ‘Bag Balm’, a cream that is manufactured in Vermont and used on cow’s udders.  However, it is also reputed to work wonders on hands like mine…in other words for people who love to garden but refuse to wear gloves…I’m just sayin’.

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

And of course how could I leave without feeding my addiction adding to my scissor collection?

I also picked up these two patterns to add to my collection.  *wink*

But you realize, I didn’t NEED anything!

From there we went for a nice leisurely lunch.  What I forgot to mention is that I was finished my shopping in about an hour and a half so I called Mr. PQ who, as it turned out, was waiting for me in the parking lot because it was raining too hard to take Mac for a long walk.  He did manage a trip to the book store but came away empty-handed.

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After lunch we went to the Christmas Tree Shop, JoAnn’s, Price Chopper for a few groceries and last but certainly not least…exhausted as I was by this time…a quick visit to The Willow House, a country/prim shop in south Burlington, Vermont.  I could have purchased one of everything in the shop but by that time I was so tired, all I managed to take home with me were these three purple Echinacea, made out of metal and guaranteed not to need watering.  *wink*

I’m planning on going to the garden center tomorrow to buy some German ivy or potato vines to add some green and to keep them company.

The flowers in the two cast iron urns are filling in nicely as well.

And just a little reminder that this coming Friday is the First Friday of the month.  The design is finished and ready to go and I’m hoping that you like it as much as I do.  I think it’s one of my favorites so far.

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥