Unexpected Adventure.

I had to ask Chooky for a late pass for yesterdays zoom session.

I had been chatting to Tony about a closing down sale that is happening and how I would like to purchase some fabrics for a new project and he said, well lets go then. I was shocked, surprised, delighted and unsure all at the same time. But he was sure, yep! Lets go, let Chooky know you will be late.

The store is open by appointment only, so I contacted Cathy the owner and arranged an early appointment. We set off from home before 8am, but after I had put a chilli into the slow cooker. Gotta make sure to feed such a lovely generous man. The day was beautiful and the road was fairly quiet, with quite a long stretch having work done, so no surface which slowed us down a little but in just over an hour I drove in to the yard at our destination.

Who would have thought that a quilting store would be in a shearing shed on a working farm?

But it is. You really have to want to find this place and even when you do, you question if you are correct, then you see the sign.

Once you step inside......

After asking permission I left Tony in charge of photos, while Cathy and I set about finding just the right fabrics for my intended project.

Even though she is having a closing down sale, Cathy still has the largest collection of Kaffe fasset fabrics in the South island, possibly the entire country.

Never ask a man to photograph a fabric store, he will only do a quarter of the job.

He missed the Tula Pink section, the vast collection of batiks,

The Anna Maria Horner fabrics and the other miscellaneous collections all tucked along the wall by the Nolting quilting machine and frame.  

Oh and the Sue Spargo stuff didn't get a look in either.

Sigh, maybe if I get another trip before she closes I'll see if I can get better photos.

Here are the fabrics Cathy and I pulled from mostly the Tula Pink collection and two from Kaffe. I want/needed/desired them for the cover project on the latest issue of Quilters companion.

I had told Cathy that I would be blogging today and she was happy for me to post images of the store, she laughed and said she might get some more customers. She is happy to mail fabrics, so if you are interested in 25% and in some cases more discount, go here ...The Quilting Shed.

If you don't see what you want, just ask, many of her fabrics are not on the website and you just never know what she will find in response to an enquiry.

Then it was time for the drive home.

I asked Tony to drive my wee car and sat back to enjoy my fabrics and take some photos of the journey.

It was a truly beautiful day, with huge blue skies.

And still very little traffic on the road.

Although the North has been hit by two cyclones and much of it is still under water with so much damage and misery, here in the South we have had near drought conditions, look at the hill side compared to the irrigated paddocks..

New Zealand is a beautiful country, I'm so happy that I came to live here.

Once I got home I zoomed with the girls for a while and even pulled out my zoom project to work on and I'm happy to say I made good progress, but more about that at another time.

I had to go to work at 3pm, so pulled on my poppy top and hopped back in to my car and look at what my colleague was wearing.

Can you tell that Alison is another sewer? She does a lot of dress making. 

Another colleague Liza wanted a picture of us both in our Poppies.

Hmm, I'm not accustomed to be the tall one. LOL