We Get Around: Part 1

We are late summer kind of people. The weather in Chicago has been beyond perfect this week and I was grateful to get out and take advantage of it a little bit this weekend. We'd originally planned to head up to Milwaukee and Madison for Friday and Saturday so we could do our own little shop hop, but we ended up sticking around Chicago on Friday—which turned out to be a fantastic plan. Between discovering new shops and taking in a piece of history at Navy Pier, Friday was a really unbelievable day.

Our little adventure started out with a stop at The Needle Shop in Bucktown; I was in search of a second piece of the Echino Birds to Hang/Hanging Birds in magenta. But, alas, they were out. Seems as though everyone is. My day was (slightly) brightened by a piece of the Echino camera print in chartreuse. Oh the plans I have for you, my lovely linen/cotton piece of goodness (insert creepy finger tapping and some muahahas here)! Oh, and a couple of reasonably usable sized swatches of a couple other prints (FFAII and another Echino print). Oh, ignore the darker blue print in the far right of this image . . . I will get to that later.

We then scuttled over to one of my favorite places—Quiltology—where there was another happy little surprise . . . a sale! Despite the fact that after I made my purchase I discovered that the savings barely even equaled the percentage of Chicago sales tax, I was still a happy camper. I bough several of the Denyse Schmidt prints in 1/3-yard cuts (and a couple larger for a backing) for a special baby gift. As soon as I saw it all on the bolts in the shop, I finally decided what I wanted to make for a baby I can't wait to meet. I love it when inspiration strikes in the least-expected way imaginable.

From there, we were directed to a couple of yarn shops we hadn't ever been to, the first of which was the Knitting Workshop—a perfectly sweet space packed to the brim with some of the best books and yarns. A really lovely, warm environment that I am sure we'll venture back to at some point. After hearing we'd been to the Needle Shop and Quiltology, she kindly pointed us a few doors down to what will possibly become my new favorite Chicago destination: Soutache Ribbons. I don't pull out the "OMG" easily, but OMG! Buttons and ribbons and trim galore. Displayed in the most beautiful way with the most adorable and sweet woman ever. I will definitely be back (with half-completed projects in tow) to find some finishing touches I wouldn't be able to find elsewhere.

Soutache's owner directed us over to another fine yarn shop—Knit 1. This is a cute, albeit small, little studio. It was difficult to look around too much because it is so small and a table in the middle of the room with knitters stitching around it blocked much of the walking space. We didn't stick around for too long but I did score an all-wood H crochet hook which I can't wait to take for a spin.

Oh, did I mention my (by this point, quite bored) husband was with my mom and I on this little hop around town? Well, he was. And he was the whole reason we went downtown at all this weekend! He had his heart set on going to the Tall Ships festival down at Navy Pier but by the time we were finished shopping, it didn't seem like his heart was really in it any longer. I felt so terrible and of course I took that out on him which made things a little tense for a few minutes (ok, a little longer than that) but we finally got down there and parked around 5:20 only to discover the exhibit was pretty underwhelming. We'd heard it was amazing from a couple of coworkers and while it was cool—it really wasn't what we'd expected. Don't get me wrong, we had a good time walking the Pier and seeing the ships (one of which was in Pirates of the Caribbean) was probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing which we'll never forget. And boy, was it a beautiful day to walk the plank . . . uh, I mean Pier.