The day before the big day

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful here in W Wisconsin--a gorgeous "Indian Summer" day that I spent with a good friend who moved from Menomonie to Minneapolis.  I only see her occasionally so when she invited me to come over, I didn't hesitate.

In addition to having lunch at her house ( a chicken and wild rice soup, recipe here) and having a wonderful catching up, we made a visit to SR Harris which is very near to her home. 

SR Harris is a discount fabric store in the Minneapolis/St. Paul which carries tons of quilting fabrics as well as bridal/fancy dress and upholstery fabrics, and all the trimmings you would ever possibly want. Everything in the store is priced at half the marked price on the bolt--a quilter's dream!

I've been to this store before, with a list of what fabrics I wanted to get. This time, I didn't have a list and really no idea of what to shop for, so it was a bit overwhelming. There's great temptation to impulse buy which I try to avoid. What I came home with was a few fabrics to add to my collection of cowboy and pony fabrics that I'll be using in Lily's Pony Club Sampler quilt--one day.  I also picked up some red and blue fabrics that will work well in future Quilts of Valor. And my friend led me to the sale rack (everything  $5 per yard!)  where I found half a dozen fabrics that I'll use to make American Girl doll dresses.  I'd like to get some in my shop before the holidays and I'll begin making some to sell in the shop we'll be having in 2018 as part of the fundraiser for the domestic abuse program here in town.

When I got home, I had enough time to finish the quilting on the 4th QOV that I'd wanted done before I go under the knife. Paula picked up the 2 quilted QOV this morning to do the binding on them, and the 5th and last one will wait for me to recover.

I also have my embroidery fabric prepared for tracing the designs and that needs to get done today.  This is their picture of the finished quilt, taken from their website. 

I'll be using 30's fabrics to surround the embroidered blocks so it'll look a bit different than the one shown.  Here are a few of the embroideries that I'll be working on while I sit with my leg elevated:

The quilt is called "Garden Steps" and all the embroideries are based on things that are found in a garden--flowers, insects, birdhouse, and so forth.

Right now, Don is calling me to help him finish up the outdoor tasks that he needs my help with. These have to be done today, and I also have to make a trip to the post office to mail a package to granddaughter Lily, and I want to prepare a few meals for Don to heat up while I'm out of commission.  Another super busy day looking at me--do I say that at the end of every post?  Yes, I think I do, and I'd not have it any other way!