Just Click Your Heels Together.....

....there's no place like home! We're back from a wonderful trip, but, as always, it's great to be back home. To sleep in one's own bed, to be adored by one's pets, to settle back into routine...priceless. We saw some amazing things on our trip: Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois; the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan; Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada; Bennington, Vermont; Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY; and Hershey, Pennsylvania. Whew! A lot of ground was covered!

I did have wi-fi in the motels we stayed in, but didn't really have too much time for blog-surfing. Those I missed, I'll catch up on in the next few days.

I will have to admit, a highlight of the whole trip was getting to see the Dear Jane quilt at the Bennington Museum! I had tried a couple of years ago but failed! We were on a Fall Foliage tour and went right through the town of Bennington and I knew the quilt was on display at that time. Tour Director, however, couldn't stop. I understood--we women want to stop at every little neat shop along the way!!! I knew it was on display again but couldn't remember the exact dates. Luck was on my side. And, lo and behold, photos were allowed--as long as you didn't use flash. I tried to lighten it up a bit in my photo-editing program but it just looked too whitish. So I left it as-is. The Jane Stickle quilt is even more amazing in person than in the book and in photos on the internet. The smallness of the individual blocks really hits home. Even my husband was impressed!

And, of course, a bit of quilt shop touring was in line, too! I found the wonderful Sue Spargo Pin Keepers book--and I want to make every single one LOL! A little piece of wool felt and a darling Bareroots Pumpkin Candle Mat pattern jumped into my hands. Some cute, cute, cute coffee cup fabric, those sweet Thimbleberries stitchery-looking panels (which have become very hard to come by around these parts), and a jellyroll of Moda Shangri-la are in the first photo. Next pic is of some fun Halloween fabrics to add to the stash.

To add to my ever-growing Dick-and-Jane collection, I found these beauties in Pennsylvania. "Oh, look. See Vera buy. Buy, buy, buy." I am such a fan of all things Dick-and-Jane, I doubt I'll ever be able to cut into them.

An adorable Halloween panel with just the right vintage look will, hopefully, get finished off soon.

Over the next few posts, I'll upload a picture here and a picture there of some of the sights we saw--don't want to bore you all at once, I want to spread the boredom out!! Perhaps the most touching thing I saw was the Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford. The bus was restored (to the tune of over $300,000) and I was able to sit in the seat where Rosa sat when she decided to stand up to prejudice and inequality. Will show a photo of that soon. Onto laundry and grocery-shopping...