Millie P's

A new quilt shop opened in Anoka called Mille P's. It has a wonderful sewing room upstairs and the shop offers open sewing the 2nd Friday of each month. My dear friend Barb and I decided this would be a good time to work on UFO's from our stash. Barb picked me up at 9:15am and we arrived at the shop at 10am. The shop provided lunch and snacks, so we could use all our time sewing, cutting, or whatever. Met some other wonderful quilting ladies and saw the projects they were working on. It was a great day out and I accomplished so much. Barb had to leave at 2:00pm, but I stayed until 5pm when John picked me up.

These are the UFO's I worked on:

A Thanksgiving quilt - These are hand embroidered quilts blocks sewn by my mom. I joined them all together, then I will add a decorative stitch between each block.

Here is my favorite block - I can only imagine the discussion this child is having with the turkey!

Next will be the job of putting on the borders using this fabric:

Then I worked on sewing some of the star blocks for a Christmas quilt.

And finally, a new quilt that starts with sewing strip pieces. Then cutting them into 3 1/2 inch blocks.

Don't the colors look like spring has arrived? I can hardly wait for the 2nd Friday of April when we can gather again at Millie P's!

Quilt run to Duluth

I'm really behind on my posts. No excuse just haven't been very diligent. I've certainly had plenty of interesting happenings to write about. I will start with a fun quilt trip to Duluth. My dear friend Barb and dear sister-in-law Lynn went with me to Duluth. We left Tuesday, February 16th and returned Wednesday. With John's Garmin (GPS) in hand, we took a little side trip to Floodwood and visited a quilt shop there. It was a very large shop and we had so much fun looking through all the kits and baby ideas. After that we had a delicious lunch, and then on to the Quilters Coop to pick up Barb and Lynn's completed quilts. This was my first trip there, so I didn't have any quilts to pick up, but I had plenty to drop off. Thirteen to be exact. This is what 13 quilts looks like all stacked up and ready to go! That pile represents many hours of joy for me. Work, yes, but great therapy and fun to see how each quilt develops piece by piece.

Next we searched for our hotel and checked in. It's an old hotel in canal park. We had a suite with two bedrooms and two baths, a kitchen and living room area. We had a beautiful view of Lake Superior from our bedroom windows. The hallway was lined with large pillars and looked somewhat stately!

We took the opportunity after all our driving and riding to just relax and visit for a while. When we couldn't control our hunger pains any longer, we went in search of a restaurant. A Timberlodge was attached to our hotel, so we decided to stay inside and eat there. The food was wonderful and we took our time eating and visiting. Then Lynn and I were brave to put on swimsuits and head for the whirlpool. Lynn's skirt on her swimsuit lost its elasticity and grew into a flowing gown! We laughed a long time about that. After showers, we sat in our PJ's and just visited, ate chocolate, and drank hot cocoa. I tried to sleep, but had a terrible tooth ache (which was pulled the day after we got back).

Had a very nice breakfast at the hotel before plugging in Lucy Lou (Barb and Lynn's name for the Garmin). Then we were off to Superior, WI to find a quilt shop there. It was small but delightful. The owner invented the Twister ruler and showed us how to use it. She has written a pattern book on different ways to use the ruler, which will be ready in mid-March. Then we decided it was time to head home. We had such a great time together, and the weather was nice too. Can't wait to see my quilts done - some will be ready in April and the rest in June. Sounds like another Duluth quilt trip is brewing!