The magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away

Early in the morning, in the middle of a downpour, 45 quilters boarded a bus and headed off for an unknown destination.  It was the day for our quilt guild's Mystery trip.  Sitting on the bus, in pairs of two, it felt more like we had boarded Noah's Ark, but we did not turn back.

When we sign up for the mystery trip, all we know in advance is that we will have an entire day of quilty fun.  This was my first time on the trip, and I had no idea what to expect.

Our first stop was a quilt shop about an hour's drive away. The shop was expecting us and had plenty of staff to help cut fabric.  I picked up a few Civil War repros to go into a pink and brown quilt that I am planning.

A 1930's print of scottie dogs, and a pretty Autumn leaf fabric may have also followed me home, but only my closest quilt buddies will ever know for sure.

The next stop was a botanical garden exhibit at a nearby college.  A sunny day would have been nicer to view the greenhouses, but we still enjoyed it.

The biggest surprise of the day was our next stop.  A painting workshop!  We entered a place called the Paintbox where they are in the business of making painting fun! Check out this wall of student work:

The staff  set us up with easels and brushes,

and  showed us a  special sewing themed picture they had created for us to paint.   This was the class sample:

The instructor took us step by step into making each shape to complete the painting.  See that little cutie-pie in the top right corner of the picture?  She was a great teacher, and was very encouraging.

Unlike your average "paint your own" art studio, this one came complete with a beverage bar.

No kidding!  You could order wine and beer as well as soft drinks to sip while you painted.  Maybe that's why there were so many laughs during our lesson! Before we knew it, we were done!  Here is my finished painting:

I like the spools of thread, but I think  my pin cushion looks more like an under-filled water bottle slowly sliding off the table.  Here is the trio of paintings made by my friends Linda, Rosemary and myself:

After the painting lesson, we all got back on the bus with our still-slightly-wet paintings and tried to keep them from tumbling about. 

One last stop on our tour....another quilt shop!  As we got off the bus, we made the driver promise not to run off with our valuable art collection.  He was amazingly agreeable on that point.

We entered the shop, and the first thing we saw was this gorgeous collection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics:

A visual treat for sure, but next thing I saw was truly a delight.   A very good quilter friend of mine who  just happened to be shopping in the store!  (Hello Gwen!)  Gwen told us that the shop manager had told her that she might want to get to the cutting table quickly because he was expecting a busload of quilters to arrive any minute.

There were so many fabrics to choose from, it was almost overwhelming, but there was one fabulous fabric that called to me above the rest.  Could you have walked out without a bit of this?

The shop actually stayed open late in order to accomodate us.  Of course, what wise shop owner would pick the time clock over a bunch of quilters ready to buy fabric?

Soon it was back on the bus for the trip home, and the only mystery left was "when is the next trip planned?"