A great day!!

Earlton is a cute little village. It's situated along a curve on the Trans-Canada highway. I had arrived in the dark and no idea what the countryside looked like. Once the daylight arrived the next morning, I could see that it's very much farm country. Gone are the rocks (visible ones at least) and the trees. It's quite flat and open.

I popped into the local restaurant for breakfast. I love these restaurants. One by one, the local men came in for their morning coffee. And you think women need to gossip. Earlton is also a French community which is strange but not since it's very close to the Quebec border.

While I was eating breakfast, I was checking out the town on the internet!

Then off to The Quilting Barn for the day. From the outside, this store (which under previous ownership was located in New Liskeard about 25 KM south of Earlton) looks very cheery and fun. Oh my - it is cheery and fun inside!

The Quilting Barn

Inside it's an amazing store and I wish that it were closer to me. What's even more amazing is that the store is housed in a long building and in the shop behind the quilt store is a store that sells all kinds of wood things made mostly with barn wood. I didn't get pictures, but boy oh boy - it was amazing. The original front of the store was white siding, but that was replaced with barn wood and the porch added. I want that porch! Can you just picture yourself sitting out there and enjoying the day? Well maybe not in this weather although the temperature is very mild.

Anyway, the shop behind the quilt store has all kinds of neat things for around the house. Hangers for quilts, wooden trivets, wooden signs for Christmas and well - you name it - they have it. They also hold workshops there. It's like  diamond in the rough. There was a class going on while we were there and it sure sounded like they were having fun - painting on old window frames. They refinish furniture and do some very creative and fun things. I wish they were closer - I could see myself there a lot!!!

Shoot - I should have taken pictures. It was a neat place to poke around and I should have went back after my event was finished, but I was so excited about the quilt shop that I forgot!

The building used to house a couple of apartments so the store is made up of several rooms. Each one is beautiful and all the space is utilized - even the bathroom which houses some supplies for sale! A great variety of fabrics and fabrics (some of which jumped into my bag at the end of the day!)

They were a participant in the Row by Row this past year and I love their block.

Row by Row block

I even snagged the license plate. I don't need more, but I was there!!!


I was there to do an event for Husqvarna announcing the new products from the convention. Oh what fun to chat about the Designer Brilliance 80 and the Brilliance 75Q with all their new features and functions. If you following along on QUILTsocial this past week, you'd know a lot about the sewing machine as well. There are other new products that were announced and embroidery designs. I have a lot of work to do when I get back to get more samples made!

We had a lot of fun and answered a lot of questions. One question is people (quilters) want to become more creative with their sewing machines. How can I use more stitches? These machines (as do many of the ones that you all have) have hundreds of stitches, yet as a quilter, we tend to use just a few over and over again. I've already got a bunch of samples made on how to use different stitches. Here's a challenge for you - pick a different stitch on your sewing machine and find a way to use it. Could be a decorative way to finish a block, could be a decorative way to quilt something or perhaps a neat way to bind your quilt.

It was exciting to see three young girls sitting in the class. None of them were new to quilting as they had already made and quilted several quilts each. That is exciting and we need to do more things to encourage young people to sew. I believe they had been taught in a class at the local library by Suzanne who is the owner of The Quilting Barn.

The staff and Suzanne were great. Very talented ladies and it was a great pleasure to spend the day at The Quilting Barn. They are working on a web site and it will be up sometime in the new year.

Can you believe that we're already saying that - in the new year. Yes - it is now December. Yikes!!!

I zipped over to another local restaurant in town and had a great lunch - a very late lunch to be exact. I even went totally crazy and had my lemon meringue tart BEFORE I ate my hamburger. Why not? Then it was time to head south, but not before I scooted even further north a wee bit to get a picture of the GIANT BISON that was on the side of the road. Hey M - do you remember all those summers when we traversed the country taking pictures of giant road side attractions? Well, I couldn't help myself. I had learned of the bison at breakfast when I was browsing the internet.

Then I headed south to North Bay. The drive was good - there was not much traffic, but frequent passing lanes available if necessary and the roads were good despite a slight mist at times. The temperature was above zero so all was good.

Now I'm in downtown North Bay and I was tired when I got to the hotel. So I confess that I slept and read on and off all evening. Now I'm ready for today. I see we have a wee bit of snow this morning, but not the 10-15 cms that was forecast. Thank goodness for that.

Has anyone read the book - The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert? It's not the kind of book that I would normally pick up. It was on the book club list at my local library branch. They tend to pick good books and ones that I would NEVER pick. I'm half way through. It's a very good book - it takes place in the 1800's, mostly about a woman who studies plants and well - it's a fascinating read. I don't know how to explain that, but it's almost a page turner. Seriously???  I know - I would never have thought that. Now I want to know what happens in the book - I'm half way through. Guess what I'll be doing this evening when I should be doing some work!

On that note, I'm out of here to get ready for today. I want to repack my stuff and get organized for today.

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!