MY LONG QUICK TRIP

Hello there !! I was away ! I had taken a trip to the U.S. .  Specifically I flew to Ontario, Oregon which is a little town on the border of Idaho ,how close to Idaho ? well looking at the photo below you can see the snake river and on the other side is Idaho this picture was taken from my mom's and step father Joe's front porch. My stay was for two weeks , suffering from jet lag I  woke up at 2:00 in the morning almost the whole time I was there.

 

The purpose of my trip was to help my Mom with some items she wanted to ship over here and to  fly back with her.  This trip was planned a while back ,but didn't bother to blog about it .  I was anxious and nervous of the trip  and then thought Hey !! I should take this opportunity to order the quilt table that I have been wanting for a while and I looked up the Hinterberg quilt table and found a dealer near there and lucky me the nice lady by the name of Vicky said that she would order it for me Yay!!!.

 

I got acquainted with some cow's around the farm  ,they roamed around feeding on the  huge pasture around the home.

I went to the local quilt shop the very next day.

 

At  "Charm Shack Quilt Shop" I met Heather which is a very nice lady, since she is a quilter I am not surprised .  The actual store used to be a women's clothing store named Vogue, which still reads the old name faintly   on the other side I  wanted to take a photo of the sign ,but kept forgetting ,my mom used to go in there and shop when I was a kid.

 

And here is heather I had picked up a bunch of fq's I sort of surprised her when snapping the photo.  I told her that I am a blogger so she would understand.

 

Heather had beauties all around, I just didn't know where to look.

 

This is the back part of the store where classes take place  , her mom also teaches applique , and two days before leaving while my mom was at the hairdressers which happens to be two blocks away I ran to the shop and asked if her mom could give me a little lesson on applique ,even thought it was the second day of the shop hop I got started ,bought a kit with all the goodies and completed a flower and I  am now  hooked.

 

These are my purchases on another trip with my sister in law Tina , we went shopping together and I could take my time ,but still I was looking around real fast trying to take everything in.  I think if I stayed there all day it wouldn't be enough .

 

This is the main street I snapped a photo while crossing the street in front of the Charm Shack, Tina tried to step ahead ,but I had my  quick finger on my camera.  I used to ride my bike up and down this street ,if you drove down about four blocks  and three blocks to the right that is where our house was, and three blocks down and two to  the right was a Dairy Queen my friends and I used to go there all the time ,but it isn't there anymore.  

 

On the second day of my stay we went to Nampa ,Idaho to pick up my quilt table and met Vicky and her daughter ,we had spoken on the phone a couple of times and I was so happy to meet her in person she is a sweet lady.

 

On our short visit there I asked if I could see some of  her quilts and she gladly  took some out ,here is my mom taking a close up look at the applique since she used to applique 

 years ago.

  

 Vicky's quilts are proof that simple is beautiful ,I just love her crisp cool lines and her bright and fresh color palate ,the white speaks here, my mom was also having a good time looking and helping hold up the quilts  for the photos.

 

Isn't this too cute ?

 

And here is another one of Vicky's beauties  those squares are only one inch  !  Joe is in the background getting a quick intro on quilts Ha Ha !! He was probably wondering how much longer we were going to be there.

 

This is the first photo I snapped while walking in to her studio ,I was taken by her organized stash and her bright and beautiful fabrics.  I wish I could have  visited  longer ,but mom and Joe took me there and  staying all day was out of the question.   Vicky thank you so much for ordering the quilt table for me and maybe on another trip I'll be able to visit a bit longer ..

And on the 15th of April there was a 50% off on the clearance fabrics , at Joann's  Tina and I went the day before to check out the selection. On Sunday they opened at 10:00 and we were there ,I even talked Tina out of going to church . We each got our own cart and as I  bent over to look at the lower shelf , I stood up and looked at Tina's cart full of fabrics .  I said Tina I knew you were a pro ,but how did you manage to throw those in there so fast LOL.

And here she is getting her yardage cut by Sheryl ( which turned out to be an old high school chum )  and yapping about quilting ,it sounded as if they were having some kind of a contest on who knew more quilting tricks and short cuts, I of course couldn't stand still looking at every direction ,trying  to take everything in.

Here is my cart I found some real cuties and got plenty of yardage.

We also went to a good will store and I found this  gorgeous one with the Saint of Guadalupe. I had seen this fabric when blog hopping and I got a yard of it for one buck ,they had a  50% off sale I couldn't believe my luck.   I beat Tina to it and she gasped when she saw me holding it, I was fast this time, sorry Tina

On the first day of the Shop Hop the first  shop  we went to was Cyndy's Quilt Shop in Caldwell Idaho.    

Here is Tina ! she just found the clearance rack and I went over quickly and found a nice piece of fabric at a great price .

Our next stop was at the "Bluebird Quilt Studio"

Our third was Nancy's Quilts out on a nice country road in Nampa , Now this was a house and  Nancy and her husband  had transformed the whole lower level into a quilt shop except for the kitchen.   And a funny thing is that I mentioned to them that I came all the way over from Greece to go on the Shop Hop , boy were they impressed , they insisted that I sign in noting down that I was from Greece....... and then the owners told me that they had just sent a package over to Greece ,Nancy told her Husband to get the address and he did ,the location was on an Island Naxos   they sent that twisty yarn that makes a scarf  I told them that they have tons of it where I live ,they just don't have many fabrics they thought I would be interested in that yarn LOL  since they sent a big package of it over there , I am a fabric person for sure.   Thinking back on that incident it was weird that it was the first time they had ever shipped something to Greece and the very next day I walk in there shop ,what a coincidence .

These are my purchases at Quilt Expressions  and they were at 40% off , Tina found the clearance section as always .

There is  Tina watching the automatic quilt  machine at work ,I couldn't pass up the chance and  joined, it was amazing to watch .  This shop is huge like a super market and there was plenty to see.  I I took the photo below just to give you an idea of how huge it is. Well dear friends I hope I didn't bore you with my extra large post of my extra large trip , I wish all of you well and I'll be back in the saddle trying to finish some ufo's soon ., wish all of you many pleasant hours of stitching .