One Day Vacation!

Good afternoon,

I am here 2 days in a row. I'm starting the month out good. LOL I spent the morning with my mom. She bought a new cage for her cockatiel, BJ. I told her I would do everything to set the cage up, but move the bird. He is a biter. I got the cage all set up. Mom got these big, heavy, leather winter gloves on and tried to pick BJ up. He freaked out, grabbed her glove and wouldn't let go. He ended up pulling the glove off, then he got hold of her finger. I tell you, he is a biter! It didn't take all day for mom to get him into his new cage and let the little critter loose. LOL He brought blood on mom's finger. Did I say that he is a biter? She has only had him for about a month. Her bird, Jessie, that she had had for years died, so my brother brought her BJ. He is a young bird, so I am hoping he will tame down and get nicer. Anyway, he seems to like his new and bigger cage. I told mom to be very careful and not let him out. I don't know how we would ever catch him. I think we would need welding gloves on to protect ourselves. LOL I helped mom with some household chores and just got back home a little while ago.

I promised to tell about our one day vacation. I have wanted to go to Jamesport all summer, but we have been really busy. Jamesport is home to Missouri's largest Amish community. I love it there. Kevin took a vacation day last Friday and off to Jamesport we went. It is about 90 miles away. He set his GPS for the shortest distance to get there. Hmm, we went on numbered highways, lettered blacktops, gravel roads, and it even had us going down what looked like a dirt road, but we went around it. It had just rained. No way we wanted to get stuck that far from home. In fact, coming home, Kevin avoided the gravel roads too. My main reason for wanting to go was the Fabric Barn. It is an Amish fabric shop. It isn't huge, but I had so much fun. I didn't take any pictures inside the building because there were Amish ladies shopping. I figured it would be rude to have flashes going off. I did ask if I could take a picture of the outside of the building and they said it would be ok.

Isn't this a neat looking building for a fabric shop. I even love their sign.

All of the fabric that I looked at was under $7 per yard. This is good quality fabric. I even bought some Thimbleberries fabric. They have a wonderful assortment of quilting stencils and hand quilting needles. I am loving my Piecemakers needles that I bought. I also got some John James and Richard Hemming needles. I know most quilters use a very small needle. I have tried the smaller needles, but I am most comfortable with a size #9, so that is what I use. I may eventually use a #10, but probably won't go any smaller. If my hand quilting is stressful for me, no point in doing it, right? They had fat quarters for $1.50 each. I picked out 10. Aren't they pretty?I think I bought about 10 1/2 yards of fabric from the bolt. I know I had the young woman cutting it, working hard. (grin) As you can see, I love fall colors. Their quilting stencils were $1-$4. I didn't think that was bad at all. I love this cable stencil. I have one just like it, only an inch wide. I have used it many times. This one is 3 inches wide. I can see it being used lots.
They had a lovely treadle sewing machine. I talked to the young woman working in there quite a bit. She was really friendly. She said that they sew all of their quilts on the treadle sewing machine, but hand quilt them. It was more modern looking than pictures I have seen of treadle machines. It had some fancy stitches. She said that you can still buy them, but they are very expensive. I wish I had taken some pictures of it, but didn't think about it till I had left the shop. Maybe next time. Yes, we are planning another trip, probably some time next summer.

I got tickled at Kevin. We had planned to spend the whole day together. So when we got to the Fabric Barn, he got out of the car and came in with me. LOL He didn't last 2 minutes till he said he would wait in the car for me. He brought some stuff to read, so told me to take my time. Two hours later, I came out with a bulging sack and almost broke. He kept teasing me and said I blew my whole stash of money in our first stop, but this is where I wanted to go. (grin) We also stopped at a few of the Amish variety and bulk food stores. We stocked up on some dry beans, brown rice, barley, steel cut oats, dried banana chips, carmel corn, and a few other things. I bought this homemade lye soap. It smells so good. I love homemade lye soap. It makes my skin really soft. When we came out of the store, I saw this horse and buggy and just couldn't resist a picture.

We had pretty much done everything that we wanted to do by noon. Hmm, where to eat. Kevin looked at me. Out of probably 20 or more places to eat, where do you think we decided to go? Yep, back to St. Joe and Ryan's. LOL Oh well, it is where I love to eat and he asked me where I wanted to go. He pieced on carmel corn and cheese on the drive back, but I waited. I wanted to be hungry and I was. LOL I held onto my fabric all the way back to St. Joe, so I could pet it. You quilters know what I mean. (grin) We were home by late afternoon and just relaxed the rest of the day. It was a good mini-vacation. I'll post more Quilter's Garden blocks tomorrow. Everyone have a good day. Thank you for visiting.