Chicago Pics

Ready for some pics of my bus trip to Chicago?

Here's a pic of our awesome bus, don't you love the colour?

We left on Wednesday at 6 am.  That meant me being up at 5:15 am. I'm NOT a morning person but I made an exception this time for this particular trip, LOL.  After driving for an hour we made it to the Canada/US border.  Passports all checked along with a bathroom break.  Next stop Fargo, ND for lunch/shopping stop. 

So you want to know what I purchased?  Not much since I was saving my money to spend in Chicago! But I'll show you anyway...

 A great pattern, 2 little Omnigrid rulers and a remnant that I bought with my DD in mind.  Instead of studying French in highschool (which is typical in Canada) she studied Spanish.  If you look closely the words are the names of colours and numbers in both English and Spanish.

 

Our next stop was at St. Cloud, Minnesota.

It was my first time at this shop and it did not disappoint!  Again I restrained myself from spending too much money because I was saving it for Chicago.  But I'll show you: an awesome Amy Butler bag pattern (I saw it done up in the store), the wonderful BunnyHill Designs pattern YoYoVille and a great notion!

 An early dinner in St. Cloud, some more driving and then we spent overnight in Hudson, WI.   Up early on day 2 (Thursday) and the bus was on the freeway again by 7 am.  None of the stops today were at fabric stores but that was okay because at 3:30 pm we were at our hotel in Chicago!  The bus was buzzing with excitement, I kid you not!  Fortunately our hotel was right across the street from the convention centre.  We dumped our luggage in our hotel rooms and lined up at the convention centre waiting for preview night to open, which it did promptly at 5 pm.  We had purchased programs which conveniently had a map.  We plotted our plan of attack of which vendors to visit.  Four hours zoomed by and suddenly at 9 pm everything shut down for the night.  

Now all that shopping and oogling the quilts on display made me hungry!  Headed back across the street to meet up with friends at this bar/restaurant that was reccommended to us.  Good company, good food and one of these, a Chocolate Martini!

 A cocktail and desert all in one!  The first one I've ever had and I sure enjoyed it! LOL

Off to bed, full of excitement of what Friday would bring.  That's it for this post. Until next time...