Village Creek, Lodi, WI

The third quilt shop that we visited on our road trip to the Madison, Wisconsin area was to Village Creek in Lodi.  All three shops are easily within driving area for us as the trip is around two hours one-way.  Since we spend the time chatting and just generally catching up, those two hours feel like a minute!  Our two friends have visited these shops a few times and wanted to share the experience with us, and we are always delighted to visit new (to us) shops.  I don’t know if it is possible to visit all the quilts shops – that is a huge undertaking – but we are going to try to visit a lot of them.  ~smile~

We found this store to be small but packed with lots and lots of good stuff.  This shop holds the distinction of also publishing their own quilting patterns.  These patterns are found throughout the store, and most also have models completed to tempt you.  And they are very, very tempting.  We all purchased a book called Baby Takes Five #254.  My friend had just mentioned during the drive that she wanted to make a quilt for her young niece combining flowers and windmills together.  We walked into the shop and here was this finished model:

Is that not perfect for a young lady that loves pink and purple and especially flowers?!!  The centers are three-dimensional flower-like petals.  Just perfect.  Unfortunately, the fabric seems to be discontinued (after an extensive search on the internet) but never fear – there are similar motifs that will fit the bill in these same color palettes.  Phew.  I am hoping my friend will either a) share a photo with us when it is complete, or b) let me share a photo.  We all want to see!!

One other treasure I was surprised and delighted to find was a quilt calendar by Debby Kratovil called Quilter’s Block A Day.  Each day in the calendar is a unique block.  I have been following Debby’s blog and on Debby’s website she has been sharing a weekly post of a woman who has completed all of the blocks in the calendar whose name is Patricia.  Patricia matched the fabric exactly to the calendar photo, and then took the time to stage each picture perfectly.  It is just fascinating to see each week – I will have to start sewing my own blocks now that I have the calendar myself.

Beyond the wonderful models, fabric, and patterns in this store it also has a gem of an employee name Mary Fisher.  Mary was so helpful and pleasant to talk to while we visited the shop.  She also has a side business of organizing named Sort N’ Release.  We talked briefly about blogging (she started one back in 2009 and found herself not to be a writer, while I’m a blah, blah) and she asked me for a business card.  Well duh!  I hadn’t thought about having or even needing business cards . . . so it is on my list of things to get done soon.  Every day is a new day to learn something new.  ~smile~  I look forward to our next visit as I saw someone was working on a new project/model towards the back of the store.  There’s always something new coming along to spark our creativity.