Familiarizing Ourselves with Newton through Fabric

My mom and I took a well-earned break from the unpacking today. We had an excuse. The coolant system in the car needed to be flushed after its hissy fit in Flagstaff. The kind man who helped me added water to the system to get me through to Newton--which it did very successfully--but that wasn't satisfactory for getting us through the winter. We located our local Dodge dealer and got it done early this morning.

After that we decided to treat ourselves to a little exploration in downtown Newton. The weather was typical November weather for Kansas--cloudy and gray with a bit of a bite to the air and erratic wind gusts.  We didn't let that dampen our spirits though.

Goal number one was to find the local quilt store.  Oh yum!  The fabric array was just as beautiful as I'd hoped.  For quilters like me who love black and white prints her shop is a must see.  I bet she had 30 bolts of different black and white fabrics.  I managed to restrain myself since we're still digging out and organizing the fabric we do have.  But only for a moment.  There was a display quilt made up with these fairy panels:

I've been eying the fairy fabric that's being featured in Keepsake Quilting.  I'm not sure if this is exactly the same, but it's close if it's not.  My excuse is that I have a little cousin who might enjoy a fairy quilt, but the truth is, I just want to make one.  Guess there's still a little girl lurking in me.  :-)

We also located the Et Cetera shop.  It's the local Mennonite version of the Salvation Army.  They accept donations which are sold in the shop and the proceeds go back to help the community.  We needed to drop off some kitchen items.  Since we're combining two households, we've got a lot of duplicate items.

Naturally we had to look around.  The shop has a fabric remnant bin.  The sign said to get a sack from the cashier and fill it for fifty cents.  Yep, fifty cents.  Can you believe it?

For a scrappy quilter like myself, this was just too much fun.

We also located the local organic food shop and stopped in for coffee.  Being a quilter I enjoyed the handmade items featured there--honey, salsa, syrup.  Nice ambiance.  The store has a very high ceiling.  Hard for me to guess, but well over the twelve feet featured in many old buildings.  It has a tin pressed ceiling (at least I think that's the right term for it).  I plan to take my camera next time we go.  The tin ceiling would be a great item for Vintage Thingie Thursday.

Oh and by the way, after I whined on Monday about not even working on the New York Beauty blocks, I got them out.  I've now completed another one, and seem to be rolling along.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to FMQ soon too.