A quilt shop and talk of snow

Last weekend John and I had a weekend away. We got up early on Saturday morning to head out of London along the M4 to Bath, or rather just outside Bath. The plan for the weekend was to visit my favourite quilt shop and also to visit a new wetland area and Slimbridge. In the event we didn't leave as early as we'd planned. I'm not sure why but there always seems to be a few jobs that have to be done before you can get going. We finally set off at about 9:30 in glorious sunshine. We stopped on the motorway for coffee and cake which was yummy. We chatted as we drove along. Since John retired and we are no longer travelling to work together so often I really miss the time to just chat about anything.

The quilt shop I love is Midsummer Quilting and it's some distance outside Bath. It moved venue last year (or it may have been in 2016) and I hadn't been to it's new location. I was excited as their newsletter says they have more room and so more stock. That sounded good to me and to add to my fun I had a very nice budget to spend. When we arrived at our destination we found that there was a cafe just nearby called 'The Holy Cow'. The cafe was very small but the food was very good. I loved their logo which was on the wall in the cafe.

I asked the staff if I could take their photo to show you. They were really excited. The food was great and the service was amazing.

The kitchen and servery was one end of the cafe with about double this room for the dining area. They only served breakfast (and cakes), but you could have breakfast for lunch. I really enjoyed my avocado with poached eggs on granary bread served with tea.

Thoroughly refreshed we walked back to Midsummer Quilting. I didn't take a photo of the outside but this is what I saw as I walked into the shop.

The shop is much bigger than their old one and has much better lighting with windows on the sides and good ceiling lighting as well. They had a good range of cutting boards, rulers and other quilting notions. I bought myself a new cutting board as the one I have is quite poor quality. It was reasonably priced but has never functioned as I would like.

There was a good display of books and there were also books on display on window ledges and shelves in the shop.

There were two books that came home with me. the first one Luna Lapin is fabulous. It gives you the pattern and instructions on how to make the rabbit plus her clothes. There is also Alfie, a boy rabbit. I need to buy some felt to make the rabbit.

The other book is 365 free motion quilting designs by Leah Day. This book has lots of ideas for quilting.

 Along the back wall was this tasty display.

Here are some of the novelty fabrics.

and some more

Wide fabric for backings and next to these shelves I found the wadding.

My pictures of the thread corner and the tea area came out very fuzzy which was a shame. I treated myself to a new pattern.

I already have a potential owner for this quilt. I bought a few fat quarters.

There were a lot of fabrics I wanted but I didn't know how much fabric I needed. I have now worked this out but it's not a problem as they now have an online shop.

Having finished my shopping I enjoyed a cup of tea and a biscuit with an interesting chat. I was surprised how late in the afternoon it was by the time I'd finished looking round. We decided to find our hotel and then have dinner early. We were both tired so trying to fit another visit into the day would have been very stressful.

It was about a two mile walk from our hotel into the centre of Bristol. We enjoyed the walk even though the temperature was falling. We found a Pizza Express and enjoyed thin and crispy pizzas Then it was time to walk back and read before retiring to bed. Part of our trips away for the weekend are to enable us to just wind down, relax and catch up on sleep. The plan for the Sunday was to go to Slimbridge for a spot of bird watching. I'll tell you about that tomorrow. Just before settling to sleep I checked the weather and there was potential for snow the next day but we decided it wouldn't happen.

Lyndsey