Quilt Shop Hop--Day 2 Cont'd

And now we'll get through the rest of day 2. Hold onto your hats!

OK, so when I stopped in the last blog, I believe we were still hanging out in Sew What? Quilt Shop. A bit further away was Marie's Sewing Center (Lockport). It looks very unprepossessing from the outside, but you can't judge a book by its cover. This little door and little sign did not herald adequately the wealth that was within.

Particularly for this Janome girl.

I've been using Mom's Janome 6600 for a year now, and had no idea that there were other types of acu-feed feet I could get. Plus, I'd heard a podcaster (Huge apologies--it was awhile back and now I don't recall which of you was talking about this) raving about the new Janome free-motion quilting foot and special free-motion bobbin case. So I checked them out. I now own the quilting foot and have the bobbin case on order, as they were out.

I also picked up a special binding foot to see if that works any better for me on putting binding on completely by machine. Haven't had good luck with that before. Maybe this will be the ticket.

I almost bought an acu-feed stitch-in-the-ditch foot until I recalled that there was some sort of foot, still unopened in its package, sitting in my sewing cabinet at home that I'd inherited from Mom with the machine. I'd never paid attention to what it was. Too much other stuff I'd been sorting through at the time. So--fortunately, as it turns out--I waited to buy any other specialized feet until I could see what it was. The end of that story? When I got home and checked--yep, it's the stitch-in-the-ditch foot that I'd been seriously considering at the store. Phew. Thanks, Mom

OK--back to the hop.

What felt like "a fur piece" away, although still within the same township going by the address, was Heartland Quilt Shop (Lockport). I mean, this really felt like it was out there. But a very nice shop. Seemed to have a very committed clientele of regulars--a few were there while we were. They were clearly fans. I could see why.

Heartland seemed to specialize in Moda (yay!) and country-style fabrics, although they had some Amy Butler and I believe I recall seeing some Kaffe Fasset as well. If I lived closer, I could imagine myself being quite happy with this as my home base shop. It probably had been a real-live house at one point so it's sort of a warren of rooms, each with a special focus. Neat to poke around in.

Next up--and another bit of a drive away...The Whole Nine Yards (Medina).   I heart this shop.

It has a similar feel to Country Treasures (see Quilt Shop Hop--Day 1). It's a mix of country/primitives and fabric, although The Whole Nine Yards is larger so their fabric selection is more extensive than Country Treasures. I'd guess that the gifts/primitives is about the same between the two because Country Treasures uses their space really, really well.

In any case, at this stage of the shop hop I was trying to seriously cut back on my expenditures so I didn't buy much fabric here but I easily could've. Mostly, it was a joy to just look around. Very nicely done.

(This picture so doesn't do it justice. Check out their website for better interior shots. No website shopping, unfortunately, but if you plan to be in the hinterlands of Western NY, this is a place you definitely need to add to your itinerary.)

Besides--how can you resist a comfy kitty sunning herself in the window display?







And then we drove. And drove. And drove some more. A little under an hour later, we made it to the next stop on our shop hop...

Chestnut Bay Quilting.  (Caledonia).

I actually discovered this shop several months ago. I was really glad I'd found it. Chestnut Bay has a very nice collection of wool for wool felt projects, a great selection of batiks, and a whole room full of Civil War repro and that style of fabrics. Plus other fabrics, of course. Again, not a huge shop, but she makes great use of her space. Plus the store owner is very friendly and I've enjoyed every stop I've made there.

By the way, if you go to Chestnut Bay, plan to have lunch or dinner right across the street at the Caledonia Village Inn. Great, great food and atmosphere.

Finally, our last stop of the day--Mt. Pleasant Quilting Company (York). I've been here whole bunches. This was one of my Mom's fave shops, so I used to pick her up and we'd make a day of it.

Not only does Mt. Pleasant have a great selection of fabrics--plus one of the nicest flannels sections I've seen--they have excellent and affordable long arm services. I have had several quilts done here and have never been disappointed. Plus, dropping off or picking up is a good excuse for me to check out the new fabric. I don't get here too often because it's a drive and I have several shops much closer to me that I enjoy visiting. But I will say, it's worth the trip.

By then we were exhausted and the stores were near closing for the day, so we headed home. A couple of us agreed to meet this afternoon for the last shop we had to complete to have our names entered in the drawing for all the prizes, so in keeping with my roughly-chronological posting system, that will be the next blog entry!