Road trip to St. Charles, Missouri Sept. 7-9, 2007

In September '07 I set off from Omaha with two quilting friends, Terri and Mary, on a road trip to St. Charles, Missouri where an annual open-air quilt show is held in this historic old riverside town. We were told that it NEVER rained on the weekend of the quilt show but dark threatening clouds and a gloomy forecast promised to break that record.

Terri and Mary are long time good friends who are formerly related cousins-in-law who have been going on quilting quests for several years now and they are known for stopping at nearly every quilt shop on the way to and from their intended destination. This is all well and good and is lots of fun but it can stretch out an 8-hour drive into 2 days or more! However, when they asked me to come along on the St. Charles trip, I was honored that they thought me fun enough to join them. Both Terri and Mary have both sewn for many years and certainly call themselves quilters although actually starting and finishing a quilt may be a multi-year task, however they are aces at quilt shop hopping, buying patterns, books, fabrics, notions and buttons.

Our road trip begin early on an overcast day when we piled into Mary's pumpkin colored SUV and headed South on I-29 towards Kansas City, Missouri. Not far north of St. Joseph, MO we spotted a billboard advertising a quilt shop called Country Expressions Quilt Shoppe, billed as the largest quilt shop in NW Missouri, and decided to make our first detour on the quest of some place new. This shop advertises itself as the largest quilt shop in NW Missouri and it was certainly worth our side trip to find it. This store is situated in a large spacious new building right off the side of the highway and is filled with furniture, gift items, candles, books, patterns, kits, quilt samples and many bolts of fabric including Moda. There was also a long-arm sewing machine set up and in use behind the side wall cutting table. If having a nice bathroom available for use is important to you, then you're in luck here.

Terri found a wall quilt on display that she liked and was able to get all the fabric, or good substitutions, that were needed but the book with the pattern was not available, so that became her quest for another shop along the way. I was surprised to find such a busy quilt shop in a rural spot but the owner said she has a good following of quilters throughout the area.

From Stewartsville, we headed south to Lee's Summit, MO, an interesting historic town to the east of the Kansas City metro area where Mary had heard about a quilt shop in the downtown area near the restored train depot. Because it was nearly closing time we were only able to look for one shop and the Scraps Quilt Co. was the one we found. It is a small store located in a row of businesses across from the railroad tracks, but it is neatly packed full of bolts of fabric of many manufacturers including Moda, Thimbleberries, Benartex and Maywood. There are also lots of fat quarters, quilt kits and quilt samples lining the walls to choose from.

By the time, Terri, Mary and I reached St. Charles, located just northwest of St. Louis and stopped for dinner we had indeed stretched a 6 1/2 hour drive to fill a whole day.

Note: The beautiful quilt in the photo above was one of many hanging from clotheslines along the sidewalk during the open air quilt show in St. Charles, Missouri.

Country Expressions Quilt Shoppe, 118 Hill St., Stewartsville, MO

Hours: Mon. - Sat. 10 - 5, Tues. evenings till 8 PM

816-669-3490

Scraps Quilt Co., 316 SW Main St., Lees Summit, MO

Hours: Tues. - Fri. 10 - 5, Sat. 10-4, closed Sun. and Mon.

816-554-1892