Trip to Visit My Sister!

 I decided it was time to visit my sister who lives near Chicago since I haven't been here for about 4 years. I have been here almost a week and will leave on Tuesday.  Of course I wanted to visit a quilt shop, which is a shop that specializes in civil war reproduction fabrics.  The name of the shop is The Quilt Merchant in Winfield, Illinois.  I have been there before several years ago and my sister has purchased gift items for me there.  The first thing I saw was a beautiful churn dash quilt and I couldn't resist getting the pattern (I hardly ever buy patterns any more as I have so many books & patterns).  Here is a picture of the pattern and other things that I bought.

I had to limit myself because of only having a small suitcase with me so this shows the fabrics I purchased along with the darling hanger that I can use to hang small quilts.

I hate to say it, but my local quilt shop doesn't have nearly as many CW reproductions as this shop, which is a lot smaller.  I think The Quilt Merchant is similar to Two Thimbles in Washington state.  So, that was really fun and I could have over done it very easily!

One day (which was a very nasty, rainy day) we drove into Chicago to go see the Glessner House, which was built in the 1880s.  The reason we went was that one of our relatives was a maid there in the 1920s and I had never seen it (my sister had).  It turned out to be a lucky day for us in that we got a parking space right in front of the house and were able to get in earlier than allowed for our tour.  Plus we were the only people there for the tour so it was like a personal tour.  They were excited to know that our relative (my Mom's first cousin) had worked there.  I'm sorry that I didn't take pictures of the inside, but if you are curious, you can look it up on the internet at https://www.glessnerhouse.org/the-house.  I did take a picture of the front door.  The owner of the home was a vice-president of International Harvester and in that era, this neighborhood had 90 mansions in it.

This house wasn't your average mansion and when it was built, the neighbors didn't like it at all.  But the inside was more like a cozy family home with gorgeous furnishings that weren't real opulant but were well made and lovely.   They had wall paper and draperies designed by William Morris.

Here are a couple pictures of the neighborhood.

I need to get busy as some family members are coming over today and we are getting ready for that.  BTW, my sister lives in the house we grew up in which was built by our father and grandfather!  Lots of happy memories here.

Thanks for visiting!