Day 4 - Canadian Maritimes - Waking Up to a T-rex, Autum Leaves and a Quilt Shop Stop

We woke up next to the golf course in the Department of Ministries parking lot in Verney.  There was a special golfing event going on, I think they call it a scramble? Must have been a benefit for some charity. People were walking around in these inflated T-Rex and raccoon costumes selling raffle tickets. They were going from golf cart to golf cart and it seemed like everybody was having a lot of fun.

We finished up a few little tasks and cooked some breakfast. It was time to start putting some things away and get ready to hit the road again. It was a wonderful stop overnight after our long stressful afternoon at the Mercedes dealership. I'm glad they made it as painless as possible. Except of course for the pocketbook. But we keep laughingly say that each day we stay at a free campsite, it's another $35 back in our budget.

Now it was time to move on down the highway. I had marked an extra special spot on the map and we were getting close. We were about 13 miles away from a small town called Sturgeon Falls, in the community of West Nipissing. 

We had stopped at this particular little shop 3 years ago. Steve had seen the sign from the highway and suggested going there. Now who am I to ever pass by the opportunity to stop at a quilt shop? 

When we had stopped there 3 years ago, I was able to procure all of these discontinued fabric prints, 20 of them and all, of the Stonehenge series from Northcott Fabrics by Moda. 

Originally, years before, I had made this same pattern as a quilted wall hanging. It's quite large. And I hung it up in my She Shed to admire and display. Every time my oldest daughter came over, she kept oogling it. They had just built their beautiful cabin up north and she insisted it would look perfect on the wall in her cabin. So the wall hanging went to the cabin, and I knew the fabrics were discontinued and I could never make it again. 

That is why I was so excited to see these fabrics when I walked into Buttons Quilt Shop 3 years ago!

Back then, I was so excited, that I accidentally went down the wrong column of the pattern instructions, which I had on my phone, and did not buy enough fabric at that time to complete a queen size quilt. After I got home and started washing up my newly cut fabric, I discovered my error. The kind owner, Nancy, via email, agreed to go back to the 20 different bolts and cut the remaining segments of yardage that I needed. I had made a mistake of also calculating between meters and yards. She cut all of the extra fabrics for me and mailed them from Canada down into the United States. Now I had enough to complete that quilt as well as the two throw pillows. I even made some matching hot pads and coasters for my daughter's cabin.

That made me very happy! 

I used them to create the beautiful queen size quilt and two throw pillows that now resides on the bed in our motorhome today. The pattern is called Winter Solstice by Patti Carey. 

As you can tell, I am quite proud of how this quilt turned out. If you look really close, you can see the detailed stitching I did to make the pine trees diagonal zigzags and the mountains jagged peaks. Then the sky parts are swirly stitches.

Now, just this last year, I finished up a smaller version from some more of the scraps to make a lap throw quilt to ride on the love seat of our motorhome. It is also to prevent Little Nick's claws from damaging the imitation leather / vinyl of our love seat.

So that was my love affair with the Stonehenge Fabrics. And Buttons Quilt Shop played a big part in that. So of course, we needed to make another stop there today. 

I got out of the motorhome on the street in front of the shop, I noticed this beautiful little red leaf sitting all alone on the sidewalk. I even stopped to take a picture of it. Was it a hint of what I was going to find inside???

We were able to park right in front of the shop with the motorhome and trailer in tow. It's a little city street it's actually called Main Street, but it was not too busy. Steve stayed in the motorhome with the dog and I promised to not hurt my knee coming out dancing and frolicking like I did last month in Eagle River. Lol! 

I got inside, and asked permission if I was able to film throughout the shop. Yes, they granted it and I promised to give them a good positive segment on my blog as well as my YouTube channel: 

I wandered up and down the aisles and over into the new addition that they've recently added. Now they have a large classroom area as well as a full room of beautiful knitting yarns and a little rigid heddle loom and some other weaving equipment. The shop has grown and the previous owner Nancy, has now retired. 

One certain line of fabrics caught my eye, with the clue of the leaf that I saw outside on the sidewalk. I knew this was going to be my next quilt fabric obsession. Just look at that!

The "leaves and berries" fabric for Henry Glass & Co. featuring a leaf-and-berry design comes from the designer Stacy West (collection: The Fox Homestead)

I also grabbed enough yardage of the coordinating fabrics to go along with the main bolt that caught my eye. This time, let's hope I have enough to do a complete quilt?? 

This came out of my budget for souvenirs for the trip. Yep, this was MY souvenir! 

We consulted our favorite little app called "PARK4NIGHT" and found a listing for a sweet little park on the banks of the Ottawa River. It was in a town called Deep River. It was just enough driving distance for the day. 

We pulled in and made ourselves comfortable for the evening. What a beautiful little park!! There were two other camping vans and a couple other vehicles there. The vehicles were just people that were enjoying the beach. The two vans would stay overnight in the lot, along with us, parked far off to the side out of the way.

Not only do they offer free overnight stays, but they have a beautiful clean new bathroom with flush toilets and hot water. Outside they have a spigot and a water hose coiled up on a reel for anybody to use to fill their RV. How welcoming is that?

We took a stroll down by the beach. We couldn't bring Nick all the way down, as there are no dogs allowed. But we went as far as we could to look around a little bit. The tall beautiful pine trees surrounding the edges of the water gave a nice shady area for those who wanted to relax by the beach. 

There were a couple flower gardens that were creatively repurposing some old canoes. How cute is that? 

The last gasp of beautiful color before winter sets in. These were amazingly bright and beautiful. At first I thought they were some type of petunia. I'm not sure though. I would like to know. The leaves look a little different. Does anybody have any ideas?

We also noticed the long rubber track lined up to go from the parking area all the way down to the edge of the water. These are for people with mobility scooters or wheelchairs. What a great way to include them in the summary fun.

After dinner, we walked back down to the beach to enjoy a little bit of sunset. It was so pretty, and very quiet. We were going to have a peaceful night's sleep here for sure.

We left Nick behind in the camper because he wasn't allowed down there. But he didn't seem to mind...

And now for the "twist"... Remember how I tore my meniscus coming out of the quilt shop in Eagle River a month ago? Well here it was, another quilt shop day... And sure enough, all I was doing was reaching up to put some things away in the cabinet and kind of hyper extended my knee. You know when you lean so far forward and bend your knee backwards a bit? Just to gain stability I was pushing backwards and SNAP!!! It suddenly went out on me! 

Immediately, I was feeling the same way I was a month ago. My knees swelled up and I couldn't walk. Oh no! We didn't bring my crutches along, but I did have my knee brace. Steve had some really good cream to help with swelling of the joints. We put that on and I braced up for the night. This was distressing. Was I going to be spending the rest of our vacation trying to hobble around on crutches???

140 miles traveled today 

686 miles traveled so far