Our First Road Trip in a Long While

Yesterday, Jen1, Marilyn, Barb, Poppy, and I ventured to a pop up shop at The Farmer's Wife Retreat House near Beaverton. It was sponsored by Border Creek Station, a relatively local online quilt shop.

At the house, the beds in all three bedrooms had beautiful quilts on them, many with the kits to make the quilts. many were hung up as well. In the main hall upstairs, we watched an informative demo on English Paper Piecing (EPP). Of course, I had to buy a kit for a little project. I have the perfect place in mind for this when I get it finished.

Included in the kit are the instruction sheet, all the fabrics cut out, fabric for the sashing and back, and all the cardboard hexies.

There is also a fancy thread kit that was highly recommended but since I don't anticipate at this stage that I'll be doing a lot of this craft, I held myself back from that investment. Regular sewing thread is all I need at this point. I did, however, buy a pack of the recommended #9 appliqué needles.

I also purchased another kit which I can machine-quilt. 

The sample on display was irresistable and featured some embellishing as well with perle cotton. It will require a lot of sewing on the bias as all the little triangles are cut out. The coordinating backing fabric wasn't included in the kit but was packaged nearby.

In addition, I broke down and purchased a Purple Thang, a tool I've seen on many YouTube instructional videos and also used by the person doing the EPP demo.

Once finished there, we then decided to head east to Bolts and Bobbins in the greater Woodville area.

I didn't have anything particular in mind that I needed to get but I did pick up two Moda charm packs which I could use for some project or other: Spring Brook:

and Promenade.

It had a very French General sense to me.

We then headed to Lindsay for lunch at the Symposium Café, and on to  Appleseed Quiltworks for some more shopping. I almost bought an 'I Spy' charm pack that had been made up from random fabrics from the shop but I wasn't all that enthused with the collection so I put it back.

While bombing around to all the places we excitedly discussed the various crafty events in which we are participating - well into 2023. We are all looking forward to our guild's retreat at the end of this month - four days of crafting. I wonder how many of us will be taking a new project we bought yesterday?