McMinn County Living Heritage Museum

My eyes and head are in sensory overload.  I took a road trip to the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum in Athens, Tennessee.  The museum collects, preserves and displays the artifacts and documents that represent the history of McMinn County.  The museum's textile collection is on permanent display and showcases more than 2,100 examples of textiles (including quilts and rugs),  2012 will mark the 30th year of the museum's annual quilt competition.  This weekend was the 3rd annual Hooked Rug Show.  For those of you who are hoping for photos, I apologize, there are none.  I remembered to take the camera, but the battery was not charged.  My bad!  It is always fun to catch the excitement of rug hookers, beautiful designs, sharing wools and tossing ideas. 

After a visit to the museum, I stopped at the Mayfield Dairy for a tour.  Mayfield Dairy began operation in 1910 with 45 Jersey cows and four generations later they are still in operation.  Mayfield's  is recognized as one of the nation's favorite dairy brands.  Mayfield ice cream was always in the freezer at Grandmother Rebecca's house.   I have wonderful memories of sharing a dish of Mayfield ice cream with Grandmother Rebecca.  The Mayfield Dairy is state of the art and full of modern technology.  A delicious bowl of ice cream is waiting at the end of the tour.

On the way home, I stopped at a new to me quilt shop called Little Blessings.  While Little Blessings may be small in square footage it is huge in quality.  Little Blessings has one of the largest class rooms I have ever seen in a quilt shop!  While I drooled over the fabrics, the shop was filled with quilters picking up finished quilts from the long arm quilter, choosing fabrics for their next quilt, and discussing the upcoming design class.  A   bonus--I found quilt labels.  Whoo Hoo!  Thank you Little Blessings for another wonderful quilting experience.

I love road trips--rug hookers, Mayfield ice cream and new quilt shop.  Yes, more than 400 miles later I am tired and AppleJack will not have to rock the baby to sleep tonight.