Heading North!

Last Thursday I left Knoxville at 7am! Heading west and then north, I swung off the interstate at Paducah to stop at the Hancocks there. It's not your typical Hancocks.....it's a candy store for quilters. I love to make quilts, especially baby blankets to give to friends kids babies so did spend an hour walking the aisles and enjoying all the different fabrics. I kept driving til just north of Kansas City. I always feel that when I get to I-29 I'm almost there! Of course then on Friday I drove up I-29 all day!!

There was one little jaunt off the interstate as well. I cut off just north of Sioux City to drive across country to Hawarden, IA. This is what that road looked like. It's hard to capture the flavor of the rolling hills but this was close!

 The reason for the detour? I stopped at in-weave which is a fabric store. The store itself was full of fabrics. Good prices too, if you're looking for quilting fabric.

 As you can tell by the official entrance, it's an old building in downtown. The shop itself was huge. They also had one room full of woven rugs. Nice! They let me go back to the warehouse to see the selvedges that are used to weave the rugs. No one was there, it was lunch time, but I saw the piles of weft just waiting for someone to weave.

I am going back there on the way south to pick up some weft for more rugs. I didn't buy any now because I was going through customs to get into Canada! I figured I had enough in the car as it was and I can look forward to the return trip to the shop..
So, driving on to Fargo for the night, I didn't have any trouble getting a hotel room. Had I gone on to Grand Forks that might not have been the case. With the Canadian dollar so strong now, lots of people are going south for the weekend to shop. I don't blame them. We used to do the same thing!
Coming up to the border on Saturday morning, at the little crossing near the town where my parents used to live, I was surprised at the long delay. Apparently there were a bunch of Canadians coming back and they all had to go inside to pay duty on whatever they were buying. My stop was short and I was able to head on up to Altona.
I always stop there to pick up Pioneer farmer sausage and New Bothwell cheese to bring to my family. I have a cooler and buy ice for it. Problem was, this was Sunflower Festival weekend and I got to the mall at 10:15. The mall's closed from 10 til 11 while the parade is going on....  That kind of messed up my plans but I did get to buy the food and then drive on  to see my friend in Steinbach for lunch and ended up in Winnipeg with family for night.

I got to Moose Jaw last night just before 9pm after leaving Winnipeg just about 3. No problems, listened to books on my sony walkman and just let the miles fly by. There's not as much traffic up north!

So I'm here for a few weeks. My family's happy that I'm here and I"m looking forward to just spending time with them.
No weaving, but sewing is in the plans. Hopefully I'll have a project or two to show next Monday!
Until then..
Carol