Kansas Shop Hop - part 5

Saturday morning started off with a sausage biscuit and iced coffee from McDonald's to go. Our next scheduled shop was a quilt store that was not included in the shop hop because it is a very small store as far as fabric is concerned. But, Demelias has their act together. This store is in Yoder, a small town on Highway 96 between Wichita and Hutchinson. Bob and Cindy Mastro are the proud owners of this wonderful quilt store. You walk in the door and you are instantly surrounded by color. Cindy definitely knows how to put colors together. Here are a couple of the small items she has made samples of.
Here is a cabinet full of tea towels, patterns for same, and lots of samples.

Cute items of clothing samples

This is Cindy cutting some fabric we "had to have".

This is Bob manning the cash register and putting up fabric and keeping the dip samples filled. I bought some Japeleno dip there that was wonderful!!! Don't remember the name but I am sure if you email them they will send you some. They also had some wonderful soup mixed.

After we left here we went 2 blocks away to a quilt store called Nuts and Bolts. This is a small outlet store for The Button Hole in McPherson. Here you can buy yardage by the bolt from 2.50 a yard to 5.00 a yard. I picked up 17 yards for backings. I hope JudyL isn't reading this, lol.

The pictures below are taken right before we got to Yoder. This is a tribute to a father. Very touching. You can read the sign if you enlarge this picture.

That's all for this post.

Kansas Shop Hop - part 4

Our last stop in Wichita was at Hen Feathers . This is Kathy's favorite store in Wichita, and it is a honey. Great displays well laid out in sections and all of the employees knew where everything was.

Now this cool lady is laughing because in the picture below this one, I was taking it from her backside, which she tells me isn't her best side...hmmm, didn't look bad to me, lol. I am so ashamed, I wrote down all four of the names of everyone in the next picture and cannot find the snippet of paper I wrote it on.
Here are the four ladies who evidently are going to remain nameless.
More samples
This was another pattern that called to me. I think I will make it from my batik stash.


This pattern is called Origami. Great looking quilt.



We walked out of this store smiling and very tired. And then headed home for the night. My head was swimming from everything I had seen and I hope I have all of these pictures attached to the correct store.

If any of these samples strick your fancy you can check out the link and I am sure they will be glad to accomodate you.

Kansas Shop Hop - Part 3

This is the third shop we stopped at in Wichita. It is called Prairie Quilts. Kathy and Norma, one of the sweet and helpful women that worked here are contemplating some mischief I am sure, but I don't remember what it was offhand. I think it has something to do with the fabric that Norma is fondling.

Lots of samples on the walls.

For some reason I love funky chickens and this one called my name. I bought the pattern for him.

Here is another picture of Norma and that is Jan. So very friendly and helpful.
Ooops, here are Bill and Paula from Gramma's along with Vicky Nolan, and I don't remember where she is from either. It is a town in Kansas, however. The lady sitting at the desk knew where everything in the store was, but I have misplaced her name also. Really really nice employees.


We have now completed 3 of our 4 stops planned for Friday night. We left this store about 7:30 and headed for the last store left in Wichita. Will visit it tomorrow night.

Kansas Shop Hop - part 2

Gramma's Calico Cupboard was our next stop. This is Gramma, a very sweet lady, and she was in charge of cutting fabric. This store was in an older building and there was a biker bar next to it that could be used for parking, lol.

Gramma's store was full of lots of nostalgia and the following photos show some of her displays.



This charming couple are from a small town in southwest of Wichita and I can't find the name of the town right now but this is Paula and Bill.
More displays of Christmas items.

These stocking appeared to be made from pieces of old quilts. They were really cute!
When we were in The Picket Fence, the store I wrote about last night, we picked up our "passports", and I forgot to get mine stamped. When we got to Gramma's and Kathy was getting our stamps we realized that dingy me had not gotten my stamp. There was a very nice young man who decided to remedy this fact by talking to the CSR. Ok, we are standing there waiting for the CSR, and we have been waiting for a couple of minutes and I ask him, what does CSR stand for?, Answer of course is Customer Service Representative.

Oh, ok, so we wait a little more, and here comes Gramma...the CSR, lol. They filled out my passport and I showed them proof of purchase at The Picket Fence and they were kind enough to write a little note in the proper space attesting to that fact.

I don't remember what I bought there, but I bought something. It was probably a pattern or a book or both because I have a lot of patterns and books that I didn't have before I came up here, lol. I am being real good at this point and have only picked up a couple of batiks.

And there I will stop for this post. It is Sunday night and I am going home tomorrow. Will try to post the next installment tomorrow night.

If I Had Been Dorothy......

and I was a quilter, I would never have left Kansas! My head is swimming from all of the "stuff" I have seen, and we still have 2 stores to look at tomorrow.

This is "on the road" toward Kansas.
I have crossed the state line, I am now in DorothyLand.

I get to Kathy's house and dinner is ready!!!! See that gorgeous smile on Kathy's face? That is because Kim has cooked dinner, and wow, is he some kind of cook!!! I could gain some serious weight eating with them every day. It was only 5 PM when we finished so we had 4 hours to devote to shop hopping.

Our first stop was The Picket Fence in Wichita. They don't have a web site but the store is just full of beautiful samples and friendly personnel.

This lady was checking out in front of me and she was so organized I was ashamed. She has all of her fabric counted and pictures of it on post cards and when she goes to a quilt store she know exactly what she is going for. I was amazed, but then if I tried that I would end up spending all of my time keeping my files up and never getting anything quilter, lol. The lady checking her out is speechless, I think.

Kathy was appointed the keeper of the passports, as I was too busy taking pictures. Of course she forgot to get my passport stamped at this store, and if I can remember, I have a story to tell about that on my next post.

Nice looking samples

This was a neat thing and I couldn't pass it up. They had the stand for this "quilt" from Nancy Halvorsen's 12 Days of Christmas. Really a cute idea I thought.

"
And that is all you get today. I am going to have to do this over several days because I have to organize my story as I go.

We did get to all 4 quilt stores in Wichita on Friday evening, and I will try to get some more things posted tomorrow.

Having a great time, this is a great shop hop and I love the people I am meeting. They are so down to earth and friendly; other areas could take lessons from them I think. Most of their drivers are even reasonable, lol.

I got a lot of comments on the purple hair and a lot of the people I met thought it must be in honor of Kansas State because purple is one of their colors, lol. When I told them I was from OK I always got a big laugh.

And the Sooners won their first Big 12 contest!! YEA, go Sooners!!!!

UPDATE: I forgot to tell you'll the reason we are eating out of paper plates. It has something to do with who is doing the dishes and I think this is a compromise on that decision, lol.

Visit from Kansas

My good friend Kathy, that lives in Kansas, blew into town on Friday a couple of weeks ago, and we got off to an early start at Panera's with some coffee and bagels. On our way to some of the quilt stores in the area.


For some reason I have these pictures out of order, but this is the cutest quilt. Saw it at Sooner Quilts in Guthrie, OK.


Here is Kathy with Michelle, the owner of Sooner Quilts, discussing I am not sure what, lol. Kathy looks llike she has had a hard night, doesn't she, lol. Not sure what we were drinking, probably coffee.

Some of the samples


More samples. Michelle doesn't have a web site yet so I can't give you a url. But if there is something you see that you would like to have I am sure she will mail it to you if you call her.


We went to The Savage Quilter in Oklahoma City. It is a fairly new store, but Debby, the owner, has done a lot with it in a short time. The quilt on the wall is a Christmas one from Posssibilities that has been around for a long time, but it is a classic, and she will kit it for you.

Hmm, Kathy looks like she finally woke up, or combed her hair, not sure which, lol.

I didn't take any more pictures this trip, we had a lot of talking to catch up on and she had to get back to Kansas. But both of us had a good visit, and it is always good to see her. She makes me laugh a lot! I am going to try to get up there this month for a weekend I hope/ Lots of good quilt stores around Wichita where she lives.

UPDATE: I just found out there is a Shop Hop going on around Wichita Kansas this weekend and I called Kathy and am headed up there for that. Will pretend I am a Sharon wannabee and will take lots of pictures, lol, but they won't be as good as hers I am sure.

Catching Up

Trying to get some stuff accomplished this week. I thought you might want to see this ruler. I have this one and then a smaller one with smaller measurements. If you are cutting out a lot of strips these are a real time saver. They are made by June Taylor and you just lay out the fabric and put this ruler on top of it and cut in the grooves. Works great.


Also picked up this crate at Staples. It is actually a "file holder" on wheels, but I bought it to put stuff in to take to quilt classes. It comes with a lid, good for rainy days, and it is large enough to be useful. This picture should be below the next one, but too bad.
This shows the folding crate before you undo it. I saw someone at a class I took on Saturday and decided I "had to have it", lol. Not expensive either.
Here is an actual finished quilt, complete with binding. This is Hopscotch made with Kaffe Fassett fabrics. It is 100 square, lol. I really do like it a bunch. Piece and Plenty is moving along at a snail's pace, but I am making progress. Have a lot to do but I had to take a break from it so I could refocus with a fresh eye. Also taking a break from my Web Sampler.
Here is my batik quilt coming along pretty well. I hope to finish it up by the end of the week, but around here who knows.
I took a class using paintsticks on Saturday. Learned a lot, but this is actually all I have to show for the time I was there. We spent a lot of time cutting out stencils and talking about the techniques, etc. It was a lot of fun and I think I will invest in the paintsticks and finish this up someday, lol.

I think that catches me up with quilty stuff for now. I am off to read a book by Sherrilyn Kenyon...a little risque in spots, but kinda funny.

Hope everyone is having a great week!