Thursday, August 08, 2013

Quilt Shop/Embroidery Shop!


Today was a hot, muggy, overcast day, with a threat of rain, so it was the perfect day to do a few of our shopping errands.  There's a quilt shop (Seminole Sampler) in Catonsville, which is about 15 miles from my mother's house, so I naturally wanted to visit it  - I've been before, but not in years. I'm not sure I went on my last visit to the US, as we hit a couple of other quilt shops in that trip. Sadly, the one that was really close to mom's house has closed - or rather, it still does custom quilting and longarming, but doesn't have a retail premises.



This isn't a huge shop, especially by American standards, but it has a nice selection - however, I didn't even really look at fabric much.



I didn't need (if that's the word!) much fabric, as I've had so much from my mom's destashing efforts (and some sent to me in the post as a gift - which I'll show later) but I thought I might pick up a charm pack (they didn't have any) and a 60 degree ruler, which I've been thinking about buying. They did have the ruler, so now I can have a go at making this butterfly quilt I saw on Jane's blog.  I also had a look at the sale fabric, of course, and found this novelty Jetsons print for about $5/yard. There was about 2 yds left on the bolt, so I went ahead and bought it - some of it I will use as a border for a Project Linus quilt; some I will add to stash as I have fond memories of the Jetsons!  I think this is probably the least I've ever bought in a quilt shop - especially one in the US...



Conveniently next door to the quilt shop was a cross-stitch and embroidery shop (The Stitching Post), so of course I had to take a trip to that as well. (There was also a knitting shop a door further along, but I skipped that one as I don't knit...)  And yes, a few patterns came home with me.




I was debating whether or not to get this one, when my mom admired it and said she'd really like it, but didn't think she'd ever get around to stitchng it (even though she used to do some embroidery years ago).  Hey presto - Christmas present. Or birthday (March) if I don't get to it before Christmas. 


A Hallowe'en design which we all liked - this one was a kit, so I could, in theory even start on it while here. I haven't been cross-stitching much while here, actually, probably because I usually do it while watching telly, and I haven't really watched any while here. So I'm reading and playing games with the family instead. And blogging lots!


And three little designs just because.  A bluebird sampler, 


a wintery sampler


and a birdcage sampler. All small and quickly stitchable...

Can't decide if I wished I lived 20 minutes away from a quilt shop with a cross-stitch shop next door, or whether I'm glad I don't!  Of course, I don't have any trouble finding and buying patterns in the UK, anyway - in fact, I just had an email that the latest section of my pink bird piece (you can see a photo of what it will look like finished, here) has been shipped to me (at home) along with the next sheep virtue ("faith")... I best get stitching!

3 comments:

Marei said...

It's great that you're supporting the US economy, Kate. :) I think a cross-stitch shop right next to a quilt shop would definitely be the undoing of me. Not like I "need" any of it, either.

Lynne said...

Oooo, too much excitement in one day! We have a store in Sydney that used to be called "Tapestry Craft" but is now called "Morris and Sons" because their knitting yarn business threatened to overtake their sales of tapestry supplies. I've never done tapestry but I'm sure they sell cross stitch kits as well so it's my kind of store. Now if only they had a good fabric store nearby...

Sew Create It - Jane said...

I look forward to seeing your butterfly quilt :-) the 60 ruler has so many possible designs I'm sure you'll find lots of uses for it :-)