Watercolor Wednesday: Hamilton
Last week, I discussed Let’s Make Art. I wanted to tell you about my recent visit to them.
While we were traversing our beautiful state a couple weeks ago, we found ourselves in a part of Missouri we rarely venture to- the Northwest. We visited Hamilton, Missouri- self-proclaimed Quilt Town, USA, but also universally known as the Disneyland of Quilting and the Quilting Capital of the World! It is also home to Let’s Make Art, the art company I mentioned in last week’s Watercolor Wednesday post.
Hamilton is a delightful small town with a population under 2,000 but with many, many quilt shops. It’s the home of Missouri Star Quilt Company, which is a HUGE quilting empire. There are tons of YouTube quilting tutorials from them as well. Let’s Make Art is a sister company of theirs, as I understand it. Anyway, speaking of tutorials, that’s how I got turned on to Let’s Make Art! And that’s how we ended up in Hamilton!
Hamilton greeted us with a large, cheery mural- one of several in town- and the phrase “find your happy” was everywhere.
We immediately visited Let’s Make Art, where we were greeted warmly. I got to “tour” the “studio” where they film the YouTube tutorials, and they proudly showed me their YouTube award- it was super cool!
The shop was a beautiful space as well, and we browsed for a long time. I did get a cool acrylic kit that I am looking forward to doing this weekend, and we just had a great time talking to the Let’s Make Art people (new Insta friend!) and browsing. Kareem is so cute- he’s like, buy everything! Get whatever you want! 🙂
After our Let’s Make Art time, we strolled the town and stopped and had a soda at the sweet shop. At this point, we were kind of shutting the town down- most of the shops close at 5 pm. The boyhood home of JC Penney is in Hamilton as well, and it is not far from Kansas City. So if you are looking for other things to do or to add Hamilton in to another trip, it is easy to do.
On our way back to the car, we stopped at a table a family had set up to sell their sweets, jams, honeys, and produce. I got some cherry jam (my absolute FAVORITE!) and some hand pies, and Kareem got some goodies too. Then we drove about half an hour/forty minutes east to Macon where we dined with a good friend’s daughter who lives in Kirksville.
So I will leave you with this on a fine watercolor Wednesday. This is the Let’s Make Art watercolor artist’s oath, and she starts every tutorial with it: I promise to be kind to myself. I promise not to compare my work. I promise to have fun.
Pretty wise advice for both watercolor and life.
Check out their tutorials here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzzCo7lZGJ-sTCgpI7BJKEg