The Garden of Ideas Shop Hop was this weekend. Can you believe that this will be my 1st shop hop?  Paige and I thought it might be fun to take y’all along with us. So, let’s go…

1st up, Basket Cases Unlimited.       We absolutely love this tiny shop in the country. It’s one of those shops that is small but seems to have what you were looking for. Being a barn in Clare, Il, makes this shop quaint. They sell handmade baskets, soaps, and herbs downstairs, and the quilt shop is upstairs, along with a longarm. Always friendly and always a project in the works for these ladies.

Busy, busy, busy…

My purchases from Basket Cases. Some Sugar Pop and Central Park.

Tammy Tadds, Sycamore, IL.        If you love bright colors and fun fabrics, Tammy’s is the place. She’s been in the Quilt Sampler Top 10 Shop Hop magazine and designs her own fabric and patterns. She has a great decorating style. Her favorite colors are pink and green, and the shop reflects that with her pink phones, pink wheelbarrow, and don’t even get me started on the pink Christmas tree. This is one stop I don’t miss at Christmas!

I’m in love with this quilt!

And this wool pillow.

Is this just about the cutest shop you’ve ever seen? I had more pics from Tammy’s, but with Mother’s Day coming up, I can’t show those:))

Great ideas from her shop are that every time you come in you get to choose a 5″ square from the jar and don’t forget your jelly beans:) It’s just a fun store!

I’m already hungry and I haven’t had my coffee. After seeing these wool cupcake pincushions at Tammy’s we went on our way to the real thing.

We had to visit Sweet Dream Desserts while we were in Sycamore. Best cupcakes ever! Besides, no one should have to shop hungry, right? They had these blue and green daisy cookies that matched our logo. They jumped in my bag along with a giant sugar cookie for Russell and  carrot cake and red velvet cake cupcakes!

Prairie Shop Quilts in Batavia, IL.      This is the shop that I learned to do beautiful hand applique. I had a great instructor and I took to it right away. This shop has a longarm in it that can be rented hourly and they even give lessons on it. A great way to test drive before you buy.

Look at this BOM they are doing from Blackbird Designs.

Some great modern prints.

They also do “Challenges”, where you take a theme and interpret it into mini quilt..like art. This seems very challenging to me. I need to learn to think outside the box. This would be therapy for me. Or I’d need therapy after because I’d be so stressed:) I do really like to see what creativity comes from these challenges though.

Paige and I really liked this quilt and thought it would be really cool in bright batiks. Smile Paige!

We then headed to Quilt In Joy to see what was happening there. Kathi said it was the busiest shop hop she’s had! Yay!

Here’s some cool boy’s prints that just came in from Michael Miller. Boy’s tend to get overlooked and sometimes it’s hard to make them a quilt. These would be great pillowcases too. At one of the other stores we saw Space Invaders and Pac Man!

We hope you enjoyed the ride.  We had a great time. We were already planning our next trip!