Wednesday's wow!

Karl and I went for a day trip last Friday.  I've heard about this quilt shop over in Fonthill and I wanted to see it.  I'm so nosey.  It would be about an hour's drive from our house to the shop, but we took the back country roads as this area really has Ontario's magnificent fruit farming land. (Vineyards abound too) You can see on the map below........take the highway from Oakville and cut off the highway to get to the shop.

The store is called The Quilting Bee.  If you go to the website through the link every photo you see is what you have inside.  Perhaps the quilts hanging are different, but this is one of the most beautiful stores I've ever been in.  Its bright and airy with walking space between the displays of fabrics.  Off to one corner are the sewing machines they carry.  Notions are on the wall and patterns are scattered here and there throughout.  Thread is in the back corner and up on the top of one unit are very, very old sewing machines.  One is soooooo tiny.  There is a wonderful classroom where students have elbow room.  (I love elbow room)  I was served graciously by one of the store employees.  She asked if I needed help and I took her up on the offer.  She searched for one particular fabric for me until she found it.  There was no pressure involved in the selections I made at all.

I asked Karen, a friend here in Oakville, before I went over how the selection of batiks were.  She said wonderful and wonderful it was.  Shelves of them.......more than a dozen and fat quarters too.  I was in Heaven.

I had popped my Toni Whitney pattern in my bag, just in case we found the shop (like I would miss it) and once inside I started to select the fabrics.  I started with the sky.  I found the fat quarters first

the light blue one popped right up into my hand.  Imagine that!  Then I chose the blended pinky/cream one.  I want the sky to look like sunset.  Then Linda/Lynda found the darker blues that will blend in.

Onto the fields.  Have you ever had the chance to see the grains growing in the fields out in the west?  Oh my gosh it is so beautiful.  There is part of the Trans Canada highway that runs through Manitoba and they have signs up telling you what is growing.  I figure thats for the doughheads in the east that don't know wheat from barley from canola.  I do though!  Canola is a beautiful yellow, flax is blue...................a gorgeous blue.  Wheat is just this wonderful grain that grows on our marvellous prairies.  These are my choices.

I had trouble with the barn.  I knew the colour I wanted ~~ a sort of rusty red, but it didn't work.  Wouldn't cut it.  I want the barn to look like the sun is glowing on it.  I bet I tried 4 different fabrics and always went back to the first selection. 

So here is the barn with the roof fabric sitting on top.  I love that one.  The black is for the inner border and the little bit of mountain way off in the distance.  The brown along the edge is the border.  For those of you who have never had the opportunity to visit our prairies you must go, you really, really must.  We've been lucky ~~ we have fabulous friends who owned a ranch south of Swift Current, Saskatchewan and we got to sit on their deck in the evenings with the cattle off in the distance, perhaps down in the coulee.  No folks those prairies aren't flat.  They roll up and down.  Land that God created.  Land I hope that man won't ruin.  Drive out, find a spot, sit on a chair and look up.  The most incredible skies in the world can be seen....................cloudless, or cloudy, sunny or stormy.  You will never see anything else like them.

Stick with me.  I'm working on this one soon.  I have three more quilts to machine quilt and in between mysteries.