Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Visit to Utah

Earlier this summer, I spent a week in lovely Utah visiting my friend Deanna. Salt Lake City is a HUGE city, rather intimidating to this country mouse. We did fun activities, visited many interesting places, met with other friends who attend the Jane Stickle Retreat but best of all was was sewing with Deanna!

Of course some of our activities included fabric shops and I, of course, made purchases. The shops that stand out in my mind are the following:


For the souvenir of my visit, I purchased this copper thimble at the Quilter's Lodge shop.

I never knew that Utah has a copper mining industry and Deanna's home is located on former copper mine land.

I had trouble taking a picture of the shiny thimble, all my tries were blurry and this is the best choice. 

On the way back from our excursion on the Heber Creeper, we stopped in Midway at My Girlfriends Quilt shop. They were very friendly and had a lovely store. I purchased a 2018 row by row kit, several fat quarters and some yardage.  

Deanna's expertise lies in raw edge applique, something I haven't worked with very often. She also bought the row by row kit and that is what we worked on while I was visiting. 

She talked me through the work on my kit. My wallhanging isn't as nice as hers, I made several incorrect thread color choices for the top stitching. Oh well, I just stitched right over the wrong colored thread with a better choice. 


Another mistake I made was when I marked my pieces on the fusible, somehow several of my pieces turn out backwards!

This year's Row By Row theme was music. The bass clefts are the correct direction but those eighth notes are not!

We had our wallhangings completed before I left Utah.
I brought them back to Indiana and dropped them off at Lori Null's to be long armed quilted. Look at the lovely quilting, those are treble clefts in the background. I love the quilting on this project.

Measuring 21" by 35", this wall quilt is perfect to hang on a wall in my sewing room, a bright and cheery reminder of summer on the dark, dreary, gloomy, sunless depressing days of winter.


Another fabric shop we visited three times (!) was Pine Needles located in Gardner's Village. One of the reason this was a fun shop to visit was because we rode the trax there. My most memorable purchase from there was this lovely embroidered baskets pattern. 

No way am I going to embroider tea towels, I see quilt blocks for these lovelies!


There were several other fabric stores, I don't remember the names. At one of them I bought this Gail Pan book.

This book isn't available in my area, at least I haven't seen it anywhere.


Deanna gifted me Gail's newest book, Patchwork Loves Embroidery Too. I see a lot of embroidery in my future.


I'm attaching pictures of mountains. Very different scenery than we have in northern Indiana, I didn't see single corn or soybean field anywhere.


This first pictures is Bridal Veil Falls and was taken on the drive to Heber.



The rest of the pictures were taken from the Heber Creeper train ride.


The white stuff is snow on the back mountain.

How did they get those electric poles up there?







Linking to Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Let's Bee Social,  Needle & Thread Thursday

10 comments:

JeanneZ said...

sounds like you are going to be one busy lady from all that
shopping have fun..

Glenda said...

Thanks for sharing your purchases Gretchen love those embroidery baskets! Your wee wall art is going to bring back so many fun hrs come this winter when you can not get out. Thanks for sharing the train ride too, Will look up more on it later tonight. Cheers Glenda

Created by Kathi said...

I really enjoyed this post.. I love the scenery you shared in Utah... and the books and thimble you got and were gifted too... looking forward to seeing those baskets get started into quilt blocks too :) Thanks for sharing this fun adventure you had! Kathi

Kathy S. said...

What a fun trip, Gretchen. I LOVE your new thimble. The scenery is just beautiful. Glad you had a fun time -- and some memories to boot.

Chopin - A Passionate Quilter said...

Beautiful scenery Gretchen! Absolutely beautiful countryside. Thx for the lovely pictures. Like the new projects!

Rebecca Grace said...

I think your wall hanging is beautiful. You know what they say -- "Comparison is the thief of joy." Who cares if some of your pieces were meant to be reversed? I wouldn't even know that if you hadn't said so. I like it better when the kit comes out a little different than everyone else's. Yours is unique -- just like you. :-) Gorgeous scenery in those trip photos, by the way!

Frédérique - Quilting Patchwork Appliqué said...

I love your row by row, so sweet!

Karen said...

A copper thimble....unusual and a good choice of a trip remembrance. I have a bunch of thimbles displayed in a printer's tray and on the wall. Have thought a long time about taking it down and no longer having a thimble display. Many of the thimbles are ones that would never actually be used as a thimble.

dq said...

Yay! You were in my state! I hope you had a lovely time.

dq said...

I live in a very small town in utah of 500 residents. I too think salt lake city is big.