Quilter's Internal GPS System

As soon as my blue fabric comes in and work on the leaves/details I'll have this panel finished!  Hopefully the fabric will come tomorrow or Monday.

Here's what I have so far.  Most of the pieces are fused down exept the birds.  I'm still in the process of finding pieces that have been scattered all over the table as I'm not an organized person.  Now that I have what I want, the rest of the blocks will be so much easier.  I'm glad I used the yellow instead of the orange.  I love it.

Now onto the GPS sytem part:

Yesterday I had grand plans of visiting a couple of quilts stores after getting the oil changed on my car except I got lost.  How hard can it be to find a quilt store that is off of the freeway a couple of miles and up the next road a few more miles?  Apparently, in my case, very difficult.

I missed the street.  I thought it was the right street, but kept going.  I turned into a residental area and did a google search.  I know I'm not that far off.  (I did google the directions before I left).  To my surprise my phone popped up "Google Maps" which is a GPS system.  Okay.  It didn't ask if I wanted this service (my phone will usually ask if it's not a feature I've paid for) so I put in the information.  All of a sudden, an arrow showed up where I was and gave me directions.  Neato!  I was supposed to turn on that road I mentioned.

I turned on the road and went up.  I followed the directions into a strip mall that wasn't marked.  Great.  Stupid GPS.  I've heard of GPS systems not being accurate which is why I don't have one.  I don't travel enough to justify buying one either.  I could have added a GPS system to my CR-Z but didn't feel it neccesary.  However; deep down I knew I was right.  I just couldn't figure out where it was.

I called the store and she gave me some weird directions.  I went up the road some more and found myself in another town.  Great.  I turned around and drove back.  My phone GPS took me into the same strip mall.  At this point I gave up and went to the second store as an hour or so had passed.

It was a nice store and she had Jeanna Kimball needles!  I picked up a package of straw needles and some YLI silk thread that I would like to try on this "My Tweets" for invisible applique.  She gave me directions to the first store.  Go figure.  It was in that strip mall.  Just at the other END of it.

I drove back and found the store on the opposite end.  It was also very nice but expensive.  I won't ever complain about my LQS prices now.  Some of the items were ten dollars over what normal retail value is.  I recognize that independent quilt stores can't buy in quantity, but I know when I'm being taken advantage of.  Gotta love being paranoid right?  (Not really).

Now my biggest fear is that I somehow messed up my data plan and will get this huge phone bill while using the GPS.  It's not the paid Verizon navigator so I might be okay on that end.  If you can't use a naviagtion system because of an unlimited data plan that's really "limited", forget it.  I'll use a paper map.

Lesson learned:  We quilters know exactly where a quilt store is.  We have a built-in GPS system to find one.  Had I followed mine, I would have made it there within a few minutes of getting off the freeway.
 
Oh.  Having a smart phone is actually very useful.  If I'm truly messed over with the GPS system, I'll use the basic google search and not the map application.