We drove this year to market. It was in Minneapolis and although that's beyond our "driving limit" (usually two hours... we can make it to Des Moines without tooo many stops), we really wanted to drive so we could bring back more goodies. Our first REAL stop (not including EVERY rest area, most gas stations, and a few quick "stretch your legs and buy a pop stops"), was here...
Heaven on earth.... don't you love IKEA??! I bought ALOT (mostly stuff for the kids' house and apartment), but these beauties were for me and my fav.
Aren't they cool?? And really cheap inexpensive too!! They're metal, although they don't look like it, so I can't chip 'em up when I use them. I also bought four new swivel padded chairs, two for each classroom. It seems like we're always playing musical chairs in the classroom - everybody trying to score the comfortable office chair to sit in. I would of bought 20 of 'em if I knew how to get them back. Ann and I briefly discussed the possibility of putting a few on the roof and lashing 'em down; but neither one of us had a clue as how to do that, so they're still waiting for me at IKEA. I guess that's better than crashing onto I-35 North as I glance out the car's back window. Big Sigh, though.
We also stopped at two quilt shops in the Minneapolis area... can't remember their names, but we did pick up a few treasures at each. It's always interesting to visit other quilt shops and see how they do things. And after a good night's sleep, we were ready for the first day of market...
Let me tell you first, we ALWAYS find great things at market. Sometimes we have to work pretty hard to find those things... going back to booths two or three times, talking about how we can make this program or product work, buying just a little here and there to see what we can do with it. This was NOT the problem at the Minneapolis Spring Quilt Market. Great stuff was literally falling into our laps, calling our name, and jumping off the shelves and into our rolly totes (Okay.. they had a "liddle" help getting off the shelf!). I thought the credit card company might call my husband in Omaha inquiring about credit card theft and binge spending... thankfully, they didn't.
So... Here are some of our great finds on the first day of market. This is a new pattern company for us, called Birch Creek Quilts. She had a GREAT booth, stuffed with patterns and models we'd never seen before - be still my little quilting heart! She didn't have patterns with here, but we should be getting 'em any day now.
I'd take these little door knockers and just make little pillows to use as "shelf sitters" for the different holidays and seasons. A fun little project that you could make in an afternoon!
Don't they have Christmas in July written all over them??!
Another huge find for us was Primitive Gatherings. They have a new book called, Summer Gatherings, with a ton of great projects in it. Many of the projects include wool and the best part is that they always kit these beauties for the shop owners to buy... and we REALLY bought! We bought sooo much that we had to drag our overstuffed shopping bags to the coat check so we could shop some more. (We also had to get a taxi 'cause we couldn't get it all on the shuttle - it's kind of pathetic, but such fun!)
Sharon has always joked that we get t-shirts that say "Kits R Us" across the front... after this market, she may be right.
The picture below shows a glimpse of Summer Gatherings, and also the edge of Jo Morton's new book, Coming Home. They're BOTH in stock at Country Sampler and they're both GREAT books. All of the kits that are from the Primitive Gatherings are in the stores now too!!
Okay... enough for this morning. I've got to get to work SOMETIME today.... I've write more later.
Promise.
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