The plan was to make it to St Cloud, Minnesota in time for the Preview Night a The Minnesota Quilt Show – and actually make a stop at Vertical Spice in Maple Grove before that. HA! We spent the night in Ames, Iowa and I wanted to stop in at the Quilting Connection which didn’t open until 10 AM. We then visited with Ruby’s friend who took us to It’s Sew Tempting in Story City. At this point I decided we would stop at Vertical Spice on our way home. After a few more quilt shops we decided to just wait until Thursday morning to go to the quilt show.
For this show we started with the quilts first. The quilts were divided into 4 sections: Judged, Youth, NonJudged (viewer choice) and Special Exhibits. The quilt above was one of my favorites in the Judged category. It is called Eyes on You.
The Eagle and Sunset were my choices for the Viewer’s Choice in the Non-Judged category.
After viewing all of the quilts, we wandered through the vendor area. After spending way too much money in Kansas City, I showed considerable restraint. I picked up a top for the school glue stick, 1 yard of clearance fabric, a new rotary cutter and blades, and a couple of water damaged books.
It was early afternoon when we finished at the show, so we made the spontaneous decision to drive to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, located in Itasca State Park, about 2 1/2 hours north of St Cloud.
Here I am contemplating crossing the river on foot. I got out about 2 stones and decided I needed to be barefoot. That got me out to about 4 stones at which time I turned around and came back. I did get across about 20 feet down stream.
Look at how clear that water is! It’s nothing like the river here in Mississippi.
Friday morning we started our trek home. The first stop was Vertical Spice. I didn’t buy the spice drawers, but plan to once I figure out my configuration. I was told there will be a sale July 4th weekend.
It wasn’t a straight shot home. I needed to hit 2 more quilt shops in Iowa to get to 5 for the Shop Hop and Ruby had never been to Wisconsin, so naturally we took a detour, aiming for River Falls, before heading south.
About 1/2 hour outside of Hannibal, Missouri, I asked Ruby if she had ever been to Illinois. Since the answer was no, I popped over the river to Quincy. Made a wrong turn and got caught in a safety stop by the highway patrol. Eventually we got to our hotel in O’Fallon, Missouri.
Saturday morning we had one stop planned — The Quilted Cow in St Peter’s, Missouri. I’ve now been to 5 – West Branson, MO, Raymore, MO, Gulf Shores, AL, Bentonville, Ark, and St Peter’s, MO. I still need to get to the Springfield, MO and Colorado Springs, CO.
We swapped drivers every hour, stopping just off the interstate getting home about 7 PM.
It was a great trip. Now to get every thing put away.
