Another Trip Up North

Part 1: A Visit to the Jo Ann's Super (slow) Store in Naperville

Well, we were all excited that Greggerly (my brother-in-law) could puppy-sit whilst we made (yet another) trip up north to our usual haunts.  As it was Sunday, a stop at The Fabric Center in Morris, Illinois was not in the cards, but Kara had the idea to check out one of the Jo Ann's SuperStores in the Chicago area, and the one in Naperville was but a few miles from Trader Joe's, so we decided to hit Jo Ann's, then Trader Joe's, then Ikea, rounding it out, of course, with din-din at Portillo's.

We were off to a fine start (I even had time to knit (KNIT!) on the way up, after fiddling with the GPS and the phone's GPS as the stand-alone GPS didn't want to show the detail for 526 S. Route 59 that I saw earlier.  Even the (never ending) road construction didn't deter us; the company (and the gossip) were superlative, and I even squeezed in a lovely chat with Mom & Dad.

Okay, so when we pull up to the "Super Store," it doesn't quite seem to match our expectations:  "Maybe it goes back really far?" As we walked in, though, we saw that it does go back really far and had a much better selection of crafty stuff & storage and a goodish increase in fabric above the small store in Champaign.  It all started to fall apart when Kara waited a few minutes at the cutting counter before noticing the "take a number" signs.  There were 11 people ahead of her in line, and it took between 35 and 40 minutes till her number was called.  You've never seen three people (THREE!!) take so long to cut so little fabric!  The manager appeared to chat with her employees and tell them they couldn't have their breaks yet, and tell them she was going off duty, and tell them, yes, she was buying stuff.  She has no idea how close she came to finding a bolt or two of fabric rammed up her patootie!  And the 50 year old customer dressed like a teenager in spandex leggings who had to argue whether a bolt of satin was on sale or not was also a likely candidate for patootie bolting!  Oh, and my number was the second one after Kara's, and it took 15 minutes after Kara to call it.  By then, Kara had called to report the scene was much the same at the check-out counter.  By the time my fabric was cut, she was only one person back from the register, so I handed her my stuff & peeled out to cool off the car.  So, the slow pokes at the Super(slow)Store killed our Trader Joe's stop, and we still didn't make it to Ikea until 6pm.

Part 2: Buy Stock in Ikea

We were back in our chipper moods as we entered Ikea, zipping first into the stoopidly located food section located conveniently after exiting the registers (and I have yet to see anyone working the one register in the food section).  Then we ducked over to the As Is section to see if they still had $0.99 stomach sleeper pillows for $0.49.  They didn't.  So then we nipped back to the elevator & headed upstairs.  We were both quite hungry by now, so it was one of our most expedient Ikea trips ever.  I got two sizes of cookie jars, four more fabric storage boxes, 11" W x 6" H x 16" D that are the perfect size to store fat quarters or any yardage folded to 1/4 of bolt width.  My big excitement, though, was getting four short Billy bookcases and a table top to put back-to-back in the quiltatorium to serve as a cutting station:

From Quilting Room

From Quilting Room

From Quilting Room

I said I wasn't going to assemble it tonight -- just get the room ready, but I couldn't stand it.  Plus, it takes about 10 minutes to assemble a narrow Billy bookcase and 15 for the wide ones, so I was done nearly an hour ago.  After basking in the glory, I realized I should blog about it.  There are a few details to address:  (1) I need to get an extension cord with a flat-wall plug & run it between the bookcases before I load them up; (2) I need to put "sticky" foam between the bookcases & the desk-top to keep it from slipping around; and (3) I need to think about separating the bookcases so I can slide my cutting mats between them when not in use.

Kara bought three bookcases, two dressers, a metric butt-load of cookies, some night-lights, a small play table & stools for Sam & Sophie, and a bunch of stuff for friends as per there requests.

Portillo's was as delightful and tasty as ever!  Then it was just a matter of the (long) drive back.  Fortunately, the active road work was on Northbound I-55, or it would have been a lot uglier.

I'm just about done with my Mojito (and I polished off the last few cookies).  So, time for bed.  Then tomorrow is an exciting day of doing laundry, grading papers, and signing up for a hunter's star quilting class at Sew Sassy in October.