A week ago tonight, my sweetie and I went down to Valley Junction, to join the throngs of visiting quilters and curious local folk for the 1st Annual Quilt Walk. Valley Junction is the original “main street” of West Des Moines, IA, which now a large suburb of Des Moines. The town was originally named Valley Junction, being an important railroad stop in the middle of Iowa. Today, it is renovated and thriving as a touristy (and loved by many locals) old down-town distrtict with antique shops, galleries, two quilt shops, many restaurants and cafes, a great Farmer’s Market, live music weekly in the summer and so much more! About 85% of the businesses participated by displaying a quilt in their window or store, most of them vintage. Pardon the photos, I’m still figuring out the nighttime feature on my new camera! Love that one up above!

A few great 30’s quilts…and this great little crib quilt with stamped animlas:

Isn’t that the sweetest?! This was a large display in one of the antique shops…not bad prices on them either…



I absolutely fell head-over-heals for this stunner:


Simple, but gorgeous! One of the antique shops had this rocker, I’d never seen anything like it before:

It’s called a “mammy bench” and was a rocker with a seat for the mother or nanny-type, and a cradle for the babe all wrapped into one neat little package! If I had an extra $1200 laying around, this would be sitting in my home!

Parting Pic: The window of my favorite antique store, all decked out for the season:

Don’t you think every town should have a Quilt Walk?