I can't believe Its almost a month since my last post, and what a month it has been, as you may remember I was off on my travels to the USA with my good friends Sheila and Heather. There is sooo much to tell you all, so I guess I'll start at the beginning and continue the story over the next couple of posts.
We travelled to London on 13th September staying over night near Heathrow so we were in good time for meeting up at with the Tour Organizer and the rest of our group for a morning flight out on 14th. After an uneventful flight into Boston we were picked up by Terry Blessing (what a great name!) who had driven 7 hours from Amish County to be our bus driver) we spent one night in Nashua before traveling out the next day to stay in Burlington, Vermont for 4 nights. A visit to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, was planned for the 15th. We had a guided tour of some historical quilts (sorry no photos allowed) before spending time looking round the town, a former Mill Town built along a river, with a very similar history to mill towns in the UK circa 1800's.
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| This was painted on the side wall of the Museum |
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| One of the Mill buildings now used by other business's |
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| Town Centre - Lowell |
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| In the Museum shop was this gorgeous old machine |
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| The only old quilt we were allowed to photograph! |
On 16th we boarded the bus for a trip to take the scenic route to Lake Champlain a very beautiful area and reputedly the Lake has its own monster called 'Champ' (similar to Scotland's Nessie) but he wasn't around on the day we were there.
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| A view over the lake |
We stopped for coffee in a little Tea shop that was straight out of 'Friends' -all comfy sofas, huge cups of Hot Chocolate with cookies and cakes galore. On our return to the bus Terry had found us an unexpected treat in the form of a super little Quilt Shop! we were made very welcome by the 2 ladies and proceeded to spend spend etc. before setting off to visits to Forever Blooms Quilt shop and Sew Many Treasures Quilt shop (YES! you guessed it more damage to the purse!! :-))))) At Sew Many Treasures we were made most welcome and allowed to take as many pictures as we wanted so here are a couple to make you drool.
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| A view of the workroom - all light and airy. |
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| The other end and Susan enjoying the goodies put out for us! |
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| A sample quilt in the shop hung over the bolts of fabric |
We returned to the hotel and went out for dinner to compare our stories of bargains found (or missed!)
17th September. Up early and off again on the bus, this time for a visit to Bragg's Farm Maple Sugar Works. This is a family business who every Spring still collect Maple Syrup in the traditional way by going out while there is snow on the ground and hammering small taps into the trees to make the sap run which is then collected in buckets, we were shown a short film about the process from tree to syrup before being let loose in the farm shop.
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| The barn, a wagon & pumpkins! |
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| View from the front porch with rocking chairs for sale |
We then travelled to Northfield Vermont for look at some covered bridges which were very beautiful, along the way we saw much evidence of damage caused by 'Hurricane Irene', there were whole trees and boulders lying along the sides of the roads and rivers, many houses had piles of filthy mud soaked furniture, carpets and toys on the front lawns and all along the roadsides Cornfields were simply laid waste. How we felt for them all!
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| This bridge crosses the Dog River and was 1 of 3 we saw here. |
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| Lower Bridge - the 3rd bridge was farther up the hill, |
After returning to the bus our trusty driver took us to Maplewood Quilt shop Northfield and then Yankee Pride Quilts, Essex Junction in order that we were able to shop a bit more, at Yankee Pride I sneakily took these pictures of 2 small quilts on the wall which took my eye.
Well that's probably enough for one day, I'll be back soon with some more 'adventures'. it may be a few days as I'm mighty busy this month and don't have one whole weekend free. Its Severn Valley's Quilt Exhibition on 14th & 15th, I'm teaching a new set of students on 22nd and then it's Clock Tower on 29th. Add to that my Mum has LOADS of appointments this month so I'll be a taxi most days next week
and I'm taking Mum away for a few days.
And last but not least I cannot resist popping on a couple of pictures of My darling granddaughter- Oh! how I missed her...and Oh! how she grew while I was away.
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| Working out in the gym |
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| Happy days of fun and laughter 21.9.11 |
Byeee for now.
Lorraine
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