A great day with friends and I found the Quilt Police car!

A few days ago, my friend Sandy called with the wonderful idea of going on a Quilt Shop Hop. So yesterday, Sandy, Barb, Krista, and I headed out on our own little shop hop.  Sandy decided the general location would be southern Wisconsin and we would just wing it from there.

We began the day with a nice breakfast at the Sand Burr Family Restaurant outside of Brodhead.

Then onto our first shop - At the Heart of Quilting in Beloit. This shop is mostly about longarm quilting machines but I did find some thread. We also found out that one can get instruction and rent long-arm machine time - I want to do that!

Second stop was Life's A Stitch Quilt Shoppe near Janesville. The shop is in an 1863 Victorian Farmhouse.

This is a nice shop with a very friendly owner. I found a Martelli rotary cutter to replace the one that just broke. I was very surprised to find one in a shop. It is so hot, another 100°+ day, that we spent little time outdoors.  Here is Barb headed for the van.

I just had to take a picture of their barns with all of the quilts.

Next stop was Woodland Quilts in Whitewater. We looked around. The person working was having a loud visit with a friend and was a bit too busy to greet or help us so no purchases were made.


On to Fort Atkinson to The Quilt Patch - a very nice shop and owner. Before entering, we stopped just a minute to take a couple of photos. This shop did not feel like it was in the owner's huge garage.

I bought a couple of things. One was a Christmas tree by RagSpun. A RagSpun is a dimensional textured shape that can be appliquéd or used alone. None of us had ever seen them before. We asked the owner where to have lunch. After finding out where we were headed, she suggested Beauty and The Bean and gave us detailed instruction. 


Off we went, through the country down more two-lane roads, onto a Rustic Road, and eventually we arrived, just as our directions said, at Beauty and The Bean in Fort Atkinson.

We had a nice lunch. My panini and salad were wonderful and the cheesecake bite was the perfect ending!

All refreshed, we headed for the Backyard Quilt Shop which is also in Fort Atkinson. 

This shop is in the lower level of the owner's home. We were all rushing to enter as the temperature was still going up!

I had to take just a second to get a photo of the darling little Quilt Police car in the window. That should have been my first clue that this would be my favorite shop of the day!

We found a friendly owner and a great selection of fabric that we all loved. We ended up spending quite a bit of time here and all walked away with treasures.


Back out in the high temperatures, but a cool car with cold drinks, we headed to Sun Prairie.  Prairie Junction Needlework and JJ Stitches are almost next door to each other. The people in Prairie Junction were very helpful and pleasant. 

JJ Stitches is a nice shop. Some members of our group bought lots of fabric here!

Time was running out as we headed to Mill House Quilts in Waunakee.  We arrived in time for a few minutes of browsing before they closed. Actually we all managed to shop, checkout, and be at the car by 4:58 PM!

As we started south toward home, I asked to stop at Greenway Station. I did my errand at Erehwon and then we all decided we needed to do a little shopping at Marshalls and Michaels. 

Shopping was followed by a relaxing dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Then we headed home.


It was an awesome day with awesome friends!