Quilter's road trip

Let me see if I can remember yesterday.  It seems as though the days are so similar that it's hard to distinguish one from the other. That tells me it's time to break out of this routine and begin doing something different---but what will it be? That's my challenge-to decide what I want to do that will be new, exciting, and above all, interesting.  Don't hold your breath. It may take awhile to decide.  :)

I know I spent way too much time on the computer yesterday and the day was half gone before I got off. That's a huge time waster, I know.  I've limited myself to only scanning Facebook on my phone and not spending so much time at the computer going over all the posts.  So far, I've kept to that limit for the past 3 days, so I give myself a pat on the back for that.  

Of the choices I had of things to do yesterday, I passed over making backs for the 2 quilts that need to be sandwiched and tracing the final 2 designs for Bless My Garden, and chose to go on a road trip to the LQS, and I'm so happy that I did!  I went to The Calico Shoppe in Eau Claire, WI, and they had exactly what I was looking for!  The store is as inviting inside as the entrance promises.  

This store seems to specialize in Civil War repro fabrics and I was hoping I could find something in their collection that would work with the embroidery I'm doing. Yes, indeed, they had it.  The first thing was to find a fabric that will work in a quilt I was asked to repair and, with the help of both clerks (the store wasn't very busy when I was there), I was able to.  It's the light grayish blue/green shown in the picture below.  I had them cut enough to make the patches and the binding for the quilt, and rounded it up to a full yard so I'll have leftovers to use in something else.

After we found the right fabric for the repairs, we moved on to choose 2 fabrics for Bless My Garden. This was quite a challenge since the sample in the book was done in reds and mine is in gold and greens but I kept choosing fabrics that had red in them.  Not good, so the clerks were able to keep me on track and we finally decided on the rust colored fabric for the background of the embroidered circles as well as the outer borders. For the sashing between the blocks, we chose the lighter colored print which gas a tiny bit of red and an even tinier bit of blue/gray.  I'm glad I had the extra bit included when I decided on the bluish repair fabric since that will work perfectly for the sashing cornerstones in the wall quilt!  Win/Win!

Before I left the store, I had to peek into the sale room where I usually find something to take home with me.  And I spotted this brown with tiny peppermint designs in it.  I bought all 3 1/3 yards that were on the bolt and I'll use it for something in the future.  Maybe in the twin size quilt I have to make for Hands2Heart.  

I love this flying geese quilt that my friend Bonnie and I made a few years ago and want to make another one. I could make the geese out of Civil War fabrics in my stash and use the new brown for the sashing which is green in this photo.  I just have to make sure I can adjust the pattern to make it large enough for the charity.  

Yes, I think this is the project I'll bring to spring retreat next week.  Along with some other things to work on if I get bored or hung up on this quilt.  

Today, I'm going to catch up on some housework so I have a clean house for the weekend.  I'm having surgery on my thumb and wrist tomorrow so I think a clean house would be a good thing.  I also want to trace out the last embroidery designs so I can continue working on them, and I'm determined to find the special needles and thread so I can begin the needle turn applique as soon as I finish the embroidery.

Again, nothing very exciting going on here in NW WI.  The snow we had a couple of days ago melted by evening, and since then it's been cloudy and drizzly.  Perfect weather for sewing, but truly, I wouldn't mind seeing the sun once in awhile.