Midwest Summer Tour

Terry took me on the Midwest Summer Tour.  Our destination was Madison, Wisconsin.  We started out on Friday morning. It was a lovely day for traveling.  Google said the trip was a bit over 5 hours.  My new friend Terry was driving, thank goodness.  Our first stop was House of Stitches in LaPorte, Indiana.

I had never been there so I can check that one off on my bucket list.  It was a well stocked shop.  Terry is a regular customer and knows the people in the shop.  I brought in my Show and Tell basket of goodies and they were oohed and aahed over.  I shopped and got some things.  I was trying to control myself.  It was a great shop.

We stopped for lunch in Chesterton, Indiana.  Terry knows her way around and likes to eat at the Third Coast Spice Cafe.  Boy was it good.  They have really healthy food.  We had the most delicious drinks made with fresh squeezed orange juice.  The little bakery area looked yummy so I kind of went overboard.

  I got one of each thing they had from power balls, cookies and muffins to  a rice krispie treat made with cocoa krispies.  So we had something we could eat if we got hungry.
Then we got back on the road.  We wanted to avoid the worst of the traffic.  Of course, Gary, Indiana is never easy.  We decided if we went a certain way it would be easy to stop at The Inspired Needle.
We made it to Lemont, Illinois and the Inspired Stitcher.  It is a quaint town.

 Cool mural.

The Inspired Needle has an amazing amount of merchandise for a small store.

Terry is familiar with this store as well.  I saw a darling model of a Heart's Content biscornu and couldn't pass it up.  Then I found another Heart's Content pattern that I had been wanting.  I now have five patterns from Heart's Content that I haven't even started.  I'm bad.  Oh, well, you have to get them when you can.
So that's another shop to cross off my bucket list.  It is such a treat to go to a good cross stitch shop and I've done two of them in one day.
Now we are on our way to Madison.  It took several more hours to get there but at least we had stash to keep us company.  We finally made it to the hotel but we didn't even have time to take our suitcases out of the car.  Friends called and invited us to meet them at a restaurant for dinner.  What fun to have stitchy friends.  About five people I know from Minnesota were there and Ginny.  We had a great time.  It is always good to see my BFF and catch up on things.  Today we have been in four states and two cross stitch stores.  Hog Heaven!  Class starts in the morning.
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