Kansas Shop Hop - Part 12

After we left Derby we headed out on Highway 400 going east. It seemed like it took us forever to get to the Needle in a Haystack . I think both of us had about decided it wasn't worth it when all of a sudden, over the "hill" and in the middle of nowhere there appeared this tall "Needle in a Haystack".

We walked in and were kind of standing there when I spotted Nelda sitting there very quietly in a chair and watching all that was going on. She looked lonesome so I sat down and talked to her for a bit. She was with her daughter. They had been to their separate churches that morning and had a bite to eat and then she came to the quilt store with her daughter. She is 83 years young, had lost her husband 2 years ago (I think), lived in Rose Hill (a small town not too far away we had driven through on our way to Severy} and had worked for the Kansas Post Office for 25 years. Such a gentle soul. We talked a little about nothing and then I told her I had to get busy, lol.

This lady was stamping passports and this was the signup table for doorprizes. We didn't win any, drat it.

Lots of samples, some high, some low. This picture is a close up of one in another picture further down.

As you can tell, there were lots of things to choose from, and we found some hand products that we had to have. There were also some "antiques" and craft items in various nooks and crannies. Actually this quilt store looked like I expected all of the quilt stores in Kansas to look like. Kind of jumbled and lots of older fabric as well as newer. Great store for bargains!

Ok, we have now completed the requisite stops at all of the stores involved in the Central Kansas Quilt Shop Hop.

However, being ever curious I had picked up The Country Register at the store in Derby, and it mentioned another store in Severy. Since we were almost there, we thougt why not, and heading east again.

About a mile down the road we came to the "address" listed, but there was nothing there but a filling station and an auto salvage, storage, whatever behind it. So, we pulled in there and tried to decide what to do. Meanwhile a couple of cars had turned south at this intersection in the middle of nowhere and after a block had turned back east. Very strange. Ok, let's see where it goes, lol.. We followed the leader and about a mile later came upon this quilt store in the middle of nowhere called Itchin to Stitch. It doesn't have a website. The building was new and when you walked in the door it was very clean and bright and nicely laid out. No one was there except the owner and one employee. Kathy found some polka dots she had been looking for, but I resisted everything, yea for me!!!

I think this picture must be turned on its side. I did inquire about this and was told that they were sold out of the pattern. No offer to get it for me, so I have no idea of what or who.

This was the only other picture I took in there. I didn't get warm and fuzzy feelings here so I didn't take lots of pictures.

We did ask how far Severy was from there and were told there really isn't a town, it is just a collection of buildings, lol.

So we headed back to Wichita and I took this picture of a wind farm. If you inlarge the picture you can see all of the turbines in the back. Fascinating.

We called our resident chef and decided to meet him at P K Chang's for a late lunch. He called us back about the time we got there and told us he had changed his mind, it was too much trouble. I can relate to that, lol.

We had a drink and a wonderful meal and just set there in shock for a little while before we headed back to Kathy's. We had "run the marathon", and finished. Great great trip.

I have some loose pictures to show and will wrap this up in the next and last post.

Kansas Shop Hop - Part 10

Salina was the farthest store we went to, and when we started back to Wichita we went through Newton to go to Charlotte's Sew Natural.

There were some cute samples in this store and several of the patterns are ones that Charlotte, who is the owner, has crafted. This is a cute table runner that is one of her patterns.
Not sure whose head I cut off here....lol...

Another table runner pattern from Charlotte.

Interesting quilt. You can order her patterns from her web site. As usual everyone was very friendly and I found some batiks in there that I liked, plus some patterns.

It was almost dark when we were leaving and we noticed 3 different colored fire plugs on the streets. Some of them were silver and red, some were silver and black, and some were silver and blue. Have no idea why they were different colors. Didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason.

All day long Kathy had been fretting about the car pulling to the right and talking about it needing to be aligned. I had laughingly ask her if she had checked the tire pressure and of course she hadn't. Well, when we walked out of the Newton store I just happened to look at the tire. It was way low....

Kathy, we have to stop and get some air....as we pass a filling station. Oh there is another one down the road, we will stop there, so we keep on driving and reach the edge of town.

By now Kathy has called Kim to tell him we will be home shortly (I didn't realize she meant less that 30 mintures) and he wanted us to stop and get some green onions.

We do not pass another gas station and I insist that she turn around and find some air. We stop at a local stop and go and air is 75 cents!!! I am flabbergasted, I didn't know you had to pay for air, and 75 cents? Unreal. Of course we don't have any change so she goes into the store and gets change, and finds out the air pump is out of order, lol. Now Kathy, being one of those people who drives a car and never has to tend to it because she has someone to do it for her, says Kim will take care of it when we get home. I, of course, can see us stuck on the darn freeway after dark with a flat. So, I insist we find some air, which we do eventually, and sure enough, it takes quit a bit. Kathy fills the tire, gets in the car and says, hmmm, that's what that light meant. I could have shaken her by then, but all I could do was laugh.

We did not find any store until we got to Wichita, which was about 20 minutes away, and here we are at Dillon's for the green onions. That is Kathy going into the store for the onions, lol.

We got home ok, and the onions were for the cajun talapia that Kim had fixed, along with some dirty rice. Oooh, it was so good!!! How wonderful to be gone all day and have dinner ready when you get home! So we fiddled around and then had the jalepeno dip that I had bought, and went to bed fairly early because we were both just beat. We had been to a total of 6 stores.

That was Saturday. We only had 2 stores left for Sunday, and as it turned out, we found one more open. That will be the next post.

Hope your week is going well!

Kansas Shop Hop - Part 9

Continuing on to Salina and The Quilting Bee. This was a quilt in the front window. I really really like it, and when I asked about it inside, I was told they needed some pink quilts to decorate their window and had used this one in the window because the town was having a "pink" contest for. It is an older quilt and if anyone knows anything about this pattern please let me know.


The ladies here were also terrific and helped me find a pattern suitable for the fabric below.

I was not prepared to find fabric like this in the middle of Kansas. This is from Westex and is printed in Japan. They had 8 pieces, one of which didn't go, but the other pieces I bought enough of to make this pattern hopefully. I know this picture doesn't do this justice, but it sure looks good to me.

Some samples of other quilts. I know I took more pictures in this store, but I must have had a empty battery because I don't find them.

We drove through the neighborhood close to the downtown area where the quilt store was located. Look at these gorgeous homes.

This is what all of the streets looked like in this neighborhood. Loved all the trees.

This one was on a corner...just gorgeous!

And that was all of Salina. Next up, heading back to Wichita with a stop at Newton.

Kansas Shop Hop - Part 8

We walked out of The Button Hole in McPherson which was fronted by the construction going on pictured here. By now my knees were killing me. I had worn my MBTs, forgetting that they stretch my hamstrings, and I could hardly walk. Lucky for me, there was a shoe store across the street. She the sign that says shoes?

We drove over there, lol, and lucky for me they had some orange crocs. I just happened to have on an orange T-shirt and gray pants so that was a perfect fit. Of course one of the people in the store said, laughingly, when I walked out of the store with them on, you won't have to worry about people knowing you are coming, lol. True, but I forgot to take a picture of that, so here is one I took just so you could see how bright orange they are.

With my feet and knees not screaming I could now draw my attention to eating. Kathy and I hadn't had much to eat, and there was a great little deli a couple of doors down from the quilt store, which we drove to, lol. And this young lady waited on us. We had broccoli and cheddar soup and I had a salad and Kathy had a sandwich. See the Gallileo sign on the counter, that was our order number. Great food! Of course I can't find where I wrote her name down either.

Now that our tummies were full, we head out the door, only to see the Chile Cookoff going on. We ask these fine people to pose, and they did so gladly. They didn't ask us if we wanted any, and I only saw one other group of people doing anything that looked like cooking chile, so I was kind of glad they didn't. Not sure what chile would taste like in the middle of Kansas. Especially if you were bought up in Texas where chile is an art supposedly, :>) Aren't they wonderful? Right in character; the man on the left was even playing a guitar.

After this fun time we got in the car and started out to Salina. We could see this church from the road and it looked so majestic sitting out in the middle of the wheat or whatever it was, field, that we decided to investigate. We turned off on a side road that looked like it might lead us to it.

Here is is from the parking lot that was on the side of the church. There was a very nice cemetary behind it, well kept up. There wasn't any town close to it, just this wonderful church out in the middle of what looked like nowhere.

The rest of our drive into Salina was uneventful. That will be the next installment.

Happy Birthday Aud!!!

Today is Aud's 92nd birthday!!! Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Kansas Shop Hop - part 7

McPherson - home of The Button Hole. This is one fine quilt store. It is huge and has so much fabric and such variety. This was the look to the left when you walked in the door.

The name of the book is Awesome Blossoms by Debbie Wiesner.

Debbie was signing her books here and of course I had to have one.

Some of Debbies' quilts. She was such a lovely person and I loved her use of color.

I have seen this quilt in other places and I just love it.

Isn't this nice looking? I had to have this one, lol.

Here is one of the past Shop Hop quilts they had. I thought it was lovely and would be easy to replicate.

This is a sample of a quilt from Laps from Fats for Family & Friends. I think I have enough beiges and browns in my stash to make this one

And this is Bonita...I kept her running I think and she was so gracious. Thank you again, Bonita!

After we left the quilt store we stopped in a deli down the street and had some lunch. I will continue this part of the story in part 8.

Kansas Shop Hop - part 6

Our next stop destination was Hutchinson. Of course by now we were pretty thirsty so we stopped at the local Starbucks for a brief respite and a little caffeine. Notice the cute Halloween bears they had.

I have no idea where the pictures I took of Hutchinson went to. I know I took more than two, but my camera was acting up and, even though I have 2 batteries, they kept going down very quickly. I guess I was taking pictures and didn't realize they weren't taking.

This was Cottonwood Quilts . Here is a sample of Terry Atkinson's Cheese and Crackers? Something like that, sorry, nor sure if that is the right name or not, but I liked the use of colors here.

Here was one of the ladies cutting my batiks out for me. They really had some good ones.

When we checked out , the young lady that took my money asked me if I had had an accident with my hair, or was that planned? lol ....I told her no, it was planned. Well, she says, my grandmother has white hair and she dyes it black and it comes out purple. I thought maybe that is what you were doing. Kathy and I cracked up!

I loved this. Right in front of the quilt store and around the corners there was an Antique Car Show going on. It was a beautiful fall day, the weather was wonderful, and everyone was having a good time. There is nothing like small town America on a Saturday afternoon!

And that was all of Hutchinson.