Peas In A Pod

The Hen House Primitive Quilt and Craft Supplies

It's finals week.  But it's still busy!

Yesterday, I did not get a blog post in, becasue I went to Lansing for the day and taught a workshop at our state autism conference.  I think it went okay.

On the way home, I was thirsty.  I decided to pull off the freeway at a McDonald's to get a Diet Coke.  (Don't you love McDonald's all-sizes-of-sodas-are-$1 deal?!  I do.)  As I was pulling into the town at which I exited the freeway, I saw a sign that said I was in the town of Charlotte, MI.

"Oh, my gosh!" I thought.  "I have always wanted to come to Charlotte, because there is a quilt store here all my primitive friends rave about!  I wonder if I have time to sneak in a quick trip?"  I looked at my clock.  It was only 4:15 pm.  "I can do it," I thought.  I figured I could make a stop and still be home around 6:00 or 6:15 pm.

So, I got out my smart phone, googled the address, plugged it into my GPS, and off I went, Diet Coke in hand!  I was only 5 min away!  Woo Hoo!

The shop is called The Hen House, and you may have noticed it was recently featured in the Quilt Sampler as a destination quilt shop.

I drove down one if the main streets in town and was rewarded by this sight!  And tons of on-street parking available right in front of the shop.  I love that!

Here is a closer look at the window display.  I was so happy.  Nothing tops off a long day of work (I was so tired from just having done a 3-hour presentation for about 160 people!) than enjoying a little fabric and quilting.

The window display also promised some nice English paper piecing projects inside!  (You can see it was actually sunny here yesterday, too!  It was a beautiful day.  When I stopped in the shop, it was 64 degrees and sunny.  I really needed that.  Back to clouds and rain today, though.)

When you enter the shop, you are greeted by displays of antiques and wool work projects.  There is a beautiful wool wall, with all sorts of wonderful wools.  Also, there is a nice selection of Valdani threads and other things you might need for your wool work.

There is also a nice selection of Civil War fabrics.  If you love Jo Morton, working small,  "dark and dirty" fabrics, and the primitive style, this shop is for you.  It is full of inspiration and fun stuff.

I always joke that I'm a "bipolar quilter."  Someday I'll do a blog post on that.  I like the bright moderns, but I also love the Civil War style.  And though I haven't dared to try it yet, I really, really love the miniature quilts.  This shop is so full of eye candy and inspiration for projects.  Look at this display of miniature quilts.  I think the patterns are Jo Morton, if I'm not mistaken.  I think they are just wonderful.

The owner, Nancy, was there and we struck up a conversation.  She was working on a gorgeous English paper piecing project, and I complimented her on it.  The pieces she was working with were pretty small.  She said, "If you think this is small, you should see what Elise is working on.  It's tiny."  I saw this project over on the table and asked if that was it.  Oh, my goodness!  Isn't it amazing?!  Maybe you can get a sense of the scale of this project as you see it's laying on an open magazine.

Here, I pulled a penny out of my purse and laid it on the project so you could get a better sense of scale.  This is absolutely wonderful!  How fun would this project be?!

I could have stayed in this shop for hours just poking around.  There were so many neat antiques, finished quilts, and little stuff to play with.  There were English paper piecing projects, velvets, fun threads, notions, wool, fabric, punchneedle projects, wool rug projects, etc.  The store is small, but it's one of those shops that just has the most interesting stuff everywhere you turn and the nicest people working there.  I had fun talking to Nancy and Elise.  What a pleasure to just hang out with them.

While I was there, I reminded Nancy that I had seen her at a trunk show in Battle Creek once.  I told her how I really wanted to learn to hook wool rugs ('cause you all know I need another hobby and more stuff to do!).  I have had a hard time being able to come to one of her classes when they are offered, due to my schedule.  Nancy said I could call her and just come up for a day, and she'd teach me.  So, I picked up this small wool rug project and am going to make an appointment with her sometime in the next few weeks (now that school is out and Sweet Pea is still in school for a while) to learn.  I am really excited.  How nice is that of her to let me come and learn from her on her time?

This is a wonderful shop.  I highly recommend it if you are in the area.  If you like brights and modern, you won't find it here.  Come here if you are looking for the primitive style, Jo Morton style, wool work, and miniature quilts.  You'll find a ton of fun stuff to capture your attention.  And you can't imagine a nicer shop owner and staff.

I felt bad after I left, because I realized I didn't even make it into the back room, which I think is the classroom.  I was on The Hen House Facebook page this morning and saw photos of the back room.  It even had basket weaving materials in it.  There were Facebook posts of the "Crankers" group--a group that does all their sewing on hand crank sewing machines.  (Wouldn't I love to have one of those machines?!)  I believe Nancy has lots of different sewing groups you can get involved in.  Check out their Facebook page for lots of fun photos.

EDIT:  I went back to the shop for a rug hooking lesson and blogged lots of photos of the classroom here if you are interested!

You can shop on-line at The Hen House website.  In addition, there is also a gallery of projects, a class list, etc. on the website.

Sue, if you haven't been to this shop before, you would love it. 

Everytime I think I'm kind of "over" the primitive stuff, I realize I'm not really.  This shop could so easily suck me back in!  I'll keep you posted on my wool rug working!

Hope you enjoyed the review.  I tell you, it just made my day to add a little fabric love to it, especially because I got absolutely NO sewing done this weekend.  I spent a better part of Sunday in my office, preparing for my presentation.  So, it was nice to sneak in a little fiber and fabric inspiration.  Thank you Nancy and Elise for being the highlight of my day!

Until next time,

Really Kinda Random--Great Finds Edition

I'm linking of with Cindy of Live a Colorful Life and Really Random Thursday.  Check out Cindy's blog today for more wonderful randomness.

We've had some great finds lately:

We get a lot of snakes on our property this time of year.  Last year was so dry we never saw many.

A great, snakey find:

The sun came out for a little bit on Sunday.  Sweet Pea went out to play.  She came running inside and told me to come out and see what she caught.  She caught these two garter snakes in our back yard.  Papa Pea helped a little.  He used a rake and held the snakes down.  Then, he picked up the snakes and put them in Sweet Pea's snake catcher cage.

Spidey is a curious cat.  So, he came and looked at the snake and when Sweet Pea didn't want him making a hole in the screen, she put the snakes up on a table.  Spidey jumped up on a chair next to the table and then onto the table.  Spidey took out his claws and clawed at the glass on the front of the cage.  Sweet Pea had to pick Spidey up.  P.S.  Spidey is sort of a fat cat, his rear end is heavier than his front.  Sweet Pea put Spidey back down.  Then he hopped back up on the chair and table again, so Sweet Pea put the snakes back on the ground.

Finally, Spidey did not want to claw at the cage any more, so Sweet Pea and Mama Pea gave him a pet.  Mama Pea wanted to take some photos.  When Sweet Pea was done playing with the snakes (and so was Spidey), she let them out in the grassy grassy woods up near the road.

{All of the above was dictated to me by Sweet Pea.  She wanted to tell you all about it.}

A great wooly find:

A while back, I said to Papa Pea, "I feel like I haven't seen your mother in forever.  Let's go visit her."  So, we took a weekend and traveled to Wisconsin.  While we were there, I visited with SisLH, and we did a little shopping day.  (I really enjoyed my day with SisLH.  We had a lot of fun together.  It's fun to have a wonderful SIL.)  We went to the Knitty Gritty Shop.  (I blogged a review of the shop here.  I love going there!)  I found this pattern and really wanted to make it.

I found the yarn that was called for in the pattern, but there weren't enough skeins of it.  So, I picked something else.  This is yarn that was made from wool from the shop owner's own sheep.  She has it professionally spun.  I thought it would be fun to use that!

It's pretty neat that she names the wool after the sheep it came from.  The wool above was called "Brownie."  I got to meet Brownie outside as we went back to the car.  (Knitty Gritty Shop is located on their farm.)  Brownie is the darkest sheep toward the back of the pack in this photo.  She is the only one with a pink tag on her ear.  Cindy, the shop's owner, said that Brownie is the worst mother, but she has great wool (the color is fantastic).  That's the only reason they keep her, I think!

I still haven't started the shawl.  Surprise!

A great greenish blue find:

Next, we went to an Amish quilt shop.  I didn't take any photos of it.  I was afraid it would be disrespectful.  It was also located on the family farm.  Half of the shop was quilt supplies and supplies for making dresses and hats.  The other side of the shop was a tack and harness shop.  The whole place smelled like leather.  I found these wonderful antique jars.  The are twice the size of regular quart jars.  Wish I had a quart jar sitting next to them so you could get a sense of size.

They were such a great price, I could not pass them up.

So many great finds:

We also went to Nancy's Notions in Beaver Dam.  I don't think I've ever shown you photos of the inside when it's not the big sewing weekend.  Here is the store to the left when you first walk in.

Here is the store straight ahead.  There are two more rooms other than these rooms as well.  It is really a fun place to shop.  I can poke around in here for hours.  It's fun to see the catalog samples in real life.  I can walk through once, then a second time and see all new stuff, there is so much.  You just can't focus enough in one pass through!

As I was up at the counter paying for this book (which was on sale for a great price),

I saw this black pin fabric on the shelf.  (Mind you, I hadn't seen it in my first two trips through the store at all!)  My friend, Jackie, had been using some of this at retreat, and I loved it.  I had never seen it anywhere before.  So, I grabbed it up.  Then, I couldn't resist this measuring tape fabric that was right next to it. I  had to get out of that store before I found more!

A doggie find:

As I was digging through my photos looking for random stuff today (I have been so busy this week, I haven't had time to collect good randomness....but I'm so far behind on my blogging, I had a stash of photos), I found this one from our Christmas trip to Florida.  I love this drinking fountain for doggies that I saw at one of the outdoor shopping areas.  Another great find.

How about you?  Got any great finds lately?

Tonight is my last night of class for the semester.  Yay!  (Yes, it's very early...we started very early in January.)  Next week is finals week and graduation.

For the record:  It's still cold.  And it has rained all week.  We had thunderstorms almost all through the night last night.

Happy Thursday.

Until next time,

 

Riley Blake's Fabric Fest

Hi Everyone!

Just a note to alert you to a new retreat opportunity.  You may have noticed a new button on the right-hand side of my blog.

Riley Blake is holding a new retreat called Fabric Fest 2013.  You can check it out here.

Photo from Riley Blake.  Used with permission.

 

It looks like so much fun!  How could it not be with this advertising photo?!  It would be fun to load up that pink Cadillac, grab your poodle skirt, and go, right?!

The retreat will be held in Las Vegas in early September.  Sounds like so much fun.  It's bad timing for me, with the new school year starting then, but a girl can dream, right?

Nancy Zieman and Eleanor Burns will be special guests.  I really enjoyed meeting Nancy Zieman at her sewing event in Wisconsin last year.  She really is someone to be admired and respected.

They are also going to have classes, make and takes, and a fashion show.

Amanda Herring (The Quilted Fish) will be there, too.  I love Amanda.  She is just so fun, supportive, and wonderful.  Worth the price just to hang out with her, if you ask me!

It sounds like a ton of fun.

So little time, so much fun to be had.

I had a little bit of a stressful day yesterday.  But I had a nice time dreaming about being able to go on a retreat like this...some day!

I do have a little retreat coming up....it will be nice...but it's more like a sew in.  I would love to go to a larger, national retreat like this some day....one where there are classes, etc.  Woudn't you?  Have you been on one, yourself?  I have but it's been a long time, and it was quite a bit different than the one described above.

Dreaming away....

Until next time,

 

 

What a Weekend! (Long/Photo Heavy)

I hope you all had a great weekend!  We had a wonderful time celebrating our anniversary.  It wasn't a highly planned weekend, but it all sort of just "happened" nicely....

We got up at 6:00 am and met our neighbors Tim and Leanne at 7:00 am for our motorcycle ride. 

We thought about stopping in this little town, Lawton, for breakfast, but we had just started riding.  So, we kept going.

We stopped at a little restaurant somewhere along the way and had breakfast.  The whole time we were riding, I kept telling myself, "You're going to be good and order oatmeal."  That was the healthy choice.  And it was quite chilly.  I thought oatmeal would warm me up a lot.

But then we walked in and the special was Cranberry Walnut French Toast.  My willpower did not hold fast.

We started just south of Kalamazoo and rode up to Tippy Dam, where the purple pin is in this map.  The darker green you see on this map in that area is all the Manistee National Forest.  So, it was a really nice ride.

This map shows you where we were once we got to the dam.  We were on the western edge of the reservoir.

Here you can see the roof of the dam and the reservoir behind it.

At the top, where we parked, were all these power lines.  The dam was constructed by Consumers Energy, which provides a lot of power to Michiganders.

The best part of visiting the dam was we hiked down this trail to the area below the dam.

As we neared the bottom, we saw this sign.  I had never seen a sign like this before, but if I heard that siren, I think I'd get the heck out of there!

Here is the area below the dam.

There were salmon fishermen everwhere you looked.  Apparently, the salmon were running.  They run up the river you saw in that second map.  Then, they get to this pool below the dam and are sort of trapped.  So, I guess it's a really good fishing spot.

Here is a fish one guy caught.  I put my foot by it for scale.  That is a good-sized fish, huh?  Papa Pea said it was a salmon.  I wouldn't know....

The rapids were pretty cool.

There was quite a bit of beauty around the river's edge.

We rode on after visiting the dam and stopped here for lunch.

I had to laugh at what was on the menu.  No, I didn't order the frog legs, in case you were wondering.  I had a burger and a beer!

After lunch, we rode around some more and headed back toward home, through the national forest again.  This was my view for much of the day.  Can't complain about that!

On the way home, we drove through Allegan.  We had heard there was a one-lane bridge there, so we tried to find it.  Here it is!

That was fun!

And when we returned home it was dusk, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset.  The day was wonderful.  A little long, but good.  It was chilly early and late in the day, but warm in the middle.  We got rained on a couple of times, but not bad.  A nice way to spend the day.

On Sunday, we decided to go to the beach.  I had been wanting to visit South Haven, so that's where we went.  I had some schoolwork to accomplish in the morning, which I did.  Then, we went to South Haven (if you look on the first map I posted, it's on the shore of Lake Michigan, south of Holland quite a ways....almost directly west of Kalamazoo) and found this cute outdoor spot for lunch.  The day was warm in the sun, a little chilly in the shade.  Had a glass of wine with my lunch.  The day was starting off great.

We walked out on the pier to the lighthouse.  Nice views of Lake Michigan.

We checked out the north and south beaches.  They looked pretty empty.  It was windy and about 70 degrees.  Too chilly for most people to be on the beach!

Poor Sweet Pea jumped off this pipe, just having fun.  She fell toward me and wopped her forehead into the camera lens!  Ouch!  She had some tears and a bruised forehead to show for that one.

After the tears were dried off, Papa Pea said, "Let's go check out the sand dunes!"  And Sweet Pea wanted to play in the sand.  So, we went to Van Buren State Park and hiked up the hill.

We were rewarded with a spectacular view of Lake Michigan at the top.

 
And beautiful sand dunes, too.

It was way too cold for me to get in, but not for these two.  Sweet Pea is a rock hound, and this beach was a great place to go rock hunting.

She also discovered that if you dig a hole in the sand, it starts to fill with water.  She thought that was pretty awesome, so she decided to dig a big hole.

Papa Pea came over to help.  I helped a little, too, but mostly I sat and warmed up on the towel!  When we came over to help her, Sweet Pea said, "That's it!  Now you're getting into the spirit of things!"  That really cracked us both up.  I'm still chuckling over it today.

All in all, it was a great weekend.  We had a general plan, but nothing too specific.  It was lazy, yet we got to do a lot of things.  Best weekend I've had in a long, long time.

But I didn't sew a thing.  I have nothing to show for myself this weekend (not even the laundry got done!).  I have no idea what I'll blog about this week, so it might be a little thin!  Maybe I can catch up on some older stuff!  Haha!

Hope you had a great weekend, too.

Until next time,

 

Exciting News and AQS

Good morning everyone!  Sorry about my little tantrum yesterday.  I think when I'm in a funk like that I should just Step.  Away.  From.  The.  Computer!  ;-)  Thanks for all the virtual hugs and encouragement.  I went to see the Odd Life of Timothy Green with Sweet Pea.  We enjoyed it.  I had a good cry.  That helped.  Oh, yeah.  And a couple glasses of wine when I got home.  LOL.

And then this morning, I had a text message from Shelly, telling me I was a finalist.  For what?  I had to think for a minute.  I then realized she must be talking about the Texting While Quilting Challenge.  I couldn't believe it.  I had to go look for myself.  But there it was.  I really am.  I can't believe it.  I'm so honored to be amongst the 10 finalists.  There are some pretty amazing blocks in there!  Go check it out!  This news this morning went a LONG WAY to cheering me up!

Last weekend, the AQS show was held in Grand Rapids.  I went.  It was pretty awesome.  I took a lot of great photos to show you.  But when I was reading the book I bought when I came in the door, it said that you could take photos, but only for personal use.  You weren't supposed to put any photos on the Internet unless you got express permission from AQS and the quilt maker.  Well, that sorta messes up my plans!  So, I'm sorry I don't have more photos to share.  I'll share a few, and I'll show you what Sweet Pea and I worked on as a result of our visit!

I did stop by the Primitive Gatherings booth to visit with Linda, The Quilted Pineapple.  She was helping them at their booth.  She has become such a rock star quilter, quilting for Lisa Bongean, the owner of Primitive Gatherings.  Very exciting.  I haven't seen Linda in so long.  It was really good to see her again.  We need to get together when we can actually talk, Linda!

I went by the Come Quilt With Me booth and saw my Lincoln's Watch quilt on display.  Pat told me it was a hit, and she had to tell people to quilt touching my quilt.  Haha.  She said some of my friends came by and took photos.  Thanks, guys!

One of the highlights of the weekend for me was meeting my friend Maggie in real life.  I have "known" Maggie for at least 4 years now, maybe more, via the Internet.  But we have never met in real life.  I told Maggie I credit her for me having a blog.  I met her through The Quilt Show website.  I put up some show and tells on a block-of-the-month program, and Maggie was kind enough to comment.  I did the same for her work.  We would strike up conversations, and just got along well.  (Before I joined The Quilt Show, I never would have believed I would have virtual friends.  But Maggie changed all that for me.  But that's a whole other post.)  When I moved away from Idaho to Michigan, I was so lonely for quilting friends that I really relied on my "virtual friends" to give me that social outlet.  Maggie was just a wonderful support for me.  So, I was really happy to meet her.  She is an amazing quilter, too, by the way.  She had a quilt accepted in Paducah last year!  Maggie, thank you for your friendship over the years!  I had a blast meeting you and having dinner with you and your husband!

I actually had a bunch more to show you...some pictures of a project Sweet Pea and I did together.  I had it all written up, with photos and everything.  But Sweet Pea forbade me from posting it.  She said, "Mom, that's private.  Just between you and me."  So, there you have it.  Sorry!

Well, I sure hope you're having a good day.  I'm having a better day today.  ;-)  Have a wonderful weekend!

Until next time,