Madison Quilt Show & Wisconsin Dells

Friday morning hubby and I headed out early for the Madison Quilt Expo. Hubby has gone along when I've stopped at a quilt shop, but stays in the car and reads the paper or naps. I was a little nervous about him going to the show since I figured it would be at least 2 hours to get through. I started down the first aisle of vendors and he hung out for a couple booths and then said he would wait at the end of the aisle. Apparently ladies were asking him if he was working at the booth. He would wait outside when I went in to further inspect items. *chuckle* So when I got to the end of each aisle, he'd get up and go to the next set of chairs. He would usually speed walk through the aisle and when I'd get to the end he'd be like oh did you see that Halloween quilt. (I think he had secretly fun.) I thought it was funny when we were walking up to one booth and he was all put out. He's looking at one quilt and said that quilt would have been nice if they hadn't put those stupid squares over the quilt. I just had to chuckle. The quilt he was referring to was like above (this one was in the quilt show). He didn't like the squares around the center lone star. Later we went through the actual quilt show and he commented on almost every one. Again, I think he enjoyed it more than he thought he would....although he'd never admit it. ;0) You can see pictures of the quilts by clicking here.


One thing I was looking for at the vendor booth was the Heritage quilt kit. The very first booth I went to had them for $128, but I held off in case another vendor had it for less. I did find the kit at two other booths but they were charging $150. So after I'd gone through all of the booths, I headed back with my fingers crossed they'd still have a kit....and they did! I also bought some FQ and half yards of black and white FQs for a future project and some baby half yards. The other purchase I made was the Fruit Salad kit. I had seen the paper-piece pattern in a magazine last month and really liked it. SewBatik had the kit! I wasn't going to buy it but then saw they had a special "show" price so I caved. There were a lot of beautiful quilts and ideas that I would have loved to brought home with me, but I stopped at the above items.

After the show we headed for Wisconsin Dells. It was the Wo-Zha-Wa (a Ho-Chunk word meaning fun) Fall Festival weekend and they were having a running race on Saturday morning. We were starved by the time we go to the Dells, so we stopped at the Paul Bunyan to eat. You get more than enough food to eat. They serve it family style and the majority of the workers are from other parts of the world. They have like a foreign exchange workers program so many of the workers at the Dells (especially during summer) aren't from the area.

We stayed overnight at Wilderness Resort. They have 3 indoor and 2 outdoor waterparks, along with an arcade and several restaurants. Of course, since I "made" hubby go to the quilt show, I had to reciprocate and go on the water slides. I hate wearing a swimsuit, but I decided that I wasn't going to let it bother me. I was going to have fun. There are women and men of all shapes and sizes and if I grossed anyone out they didn't have to look at me. I went on all of the slides at least once. Afterwards we ate and then later went to the arcade/kid's fun area. They had a climbing wall that hubby wanted to try. Then we played a shooting game and did some mini-bowling. But the most fun was the Timberland Playhouse. You're never to old right?!?! This was a climbing gym for kids, but on the second level they had these air cannons and you could shoot these little foam balls at people on the other side. This one adult was shooting at his son and we decided to help the son out. By the end there were two couples and two other single adults shooting these balls at each other. It was hilarious. We all were sweating from running around picking up and dodging these foam balls! It was a blast! The next morning it was raining so hubby decided not to do the run so we left home early to get back early enough for the races, but they were also cancelled so we went out to eat with the neighbors as sort of a "bust up" racing party.

Yesterday I finished the second Patchwork Party block and started cutting fabric for the Snapshots pattern in Happy Hour. I'm using an In the Pink FQ bundle. Another busy work week coming up so may not have much progress.