As we were visiting town yesterday, a small white poster on the door of the local café caught our eye….
Quilt Show, Free, in the town of Miltona.
Now how could a dedicated quilter ignore that?
So this morning, friends Joan and Lori and I took off for the town of Miltona, our expectations high.
We drove past green fields that supported the winding Long Prairie River… Past the red houses and barns of the Amish families who have moved to this area recently. The buggy tracks on the side of the road tell us that they have been out visiting already today.
Miltona is one of the small towns in this area supported by a large lake…. We spied the home made sign !!!! ‘Quilt Show’ and the car did a sharp turn…
As we drove up we noticed it was a regular house, but the garage was brimming with quilt racks and what seemed like dozens of folded quilts hanging there like sentinels, just waiting for someone to come and fondle and discuss them. Turns out this is the work of one woman…. A one woman wonder I think…. Dozens and dozens of quilts… not one alike, made with care a dedication and most of them were hand quilted….
She offered us coffee and cookies and we chatted for some time about her quilts…
Quilting to most of you who read this blog is a large part of your lives… for me it is my profession and passion. Here is a gal whose passion manifests itself in a huge number of quilts and every couple of years she chooses to share it with interested parties… how wonderful….
We moved on to the town of Alexandria to yet another quilt shop…. The common threads quilt shop. Set in a little cottage, with a white picket fence and flower boxes out the front… this shop just begs you to visit. I had to purchase some civil war fabrics for an urgent project… so this was just the right place to come.
It’s a lovely shop with a large stock of fabric… I noticed the vintage theme features quite strongly in this shop. The latest 40’s feedsack reproductions are just wonderful… I don’t see them in Australia… but maybe I need to introduce a ‘Vintage’ genre class.
We haunted the thrift shops and I purchased a super jacket with illustrations of New York all over it… it was ghastly as a jacket. However, it now has had a transformation …. As we sat around our little outdoor kettle fire last night… I cut it apart into sections to be made into a funky quilt.
