Quilt Shop Anniversary....

The closest quilt shop to me is Stitchin Heaven (an hour away) and they celebrated their 22nd anniversary this past weekend.  they were running some great sales to celebrate - buy 11 yds of fabric - get 11 free, buy 11 notions/thread/books - get 11 free, and buy 11 FQ's - get 11 free.   

 I did take advantage of the FQ's and the thread sale.   And picked up a couple of pieces of yardage.   I'm thinking the license plates fabric will make some cute passport wallets.






In addition to the sales, from what I've found out each year they give away something in the same amount as the years they've been around.   This year it was 22 quilts.   For the last 6 weeks everyone who made a purchase of a certain level got a raffle ticket.   To win though you had to be present on Saturday.  People could win more than one quilt. 

I was fortunate to win two quilts.   The first one being this Christmas quilt.    It is a lap quilt size.   And even more fun, it has miniature lights as part of it.   It'll be a fun one to display at Christmas since I don't have a tree anymore.

And the second one that I selected was this wallhanging.   I need to do a wee bit of stitching on it because the "in progress" words are only ironed on and they aren't holding well.  But that is a minor thing.   Need to find a place to hang it as well.


Gratitudes:

1. Lots of rain which was needed here (altho we didn't need the flooding!)

2. For God's enabling of me to continue to pay off debt in spite of all that is going on these days.

Arizona Shop-Hopping, Part 3

Part three of my shop-hopping ...... all shops here in the Phoenix area.

First up was a stop by the west-side 35th Ave Sew & Vac.  Almost everything I bought was on sale.  The two fruit fabrics were the only ones not on sale.  Those will be used in "lemon meringue" pie and "key lime" pie potholders.  the upper left fabric is a beautiful plum with gold tracing on it.  The bottom is an ombre that goes from dark to light.

 Then there was a selection of wonderful tans and creams for my background fabric stash.





















Next up was a brief stop at Three Dudes Quilting.  More for the background stash.   Love the one that is in the upper left with the ladies silhouettes.

Then came one final stop at SAS.  Didn't find the batiks I was looking for, but did find more for the background fabric stash.  The piano and cardinal prints have plans already percolating for them in my head.

Meanwhile, notice a theme behind my purchases?   LOL

Gratitudes:

1. That the dog who I'm pup-sitting didn't get sick when she used my bra for chew toy (and chewed a chunk out of)......sigh.......

2. for this beautiful weather!

Arizona Shop-Hopping , Part 2

I tend to shop ahead for gifts, esp. since the BD's in my family start back up in February.   As a result I like wandering into stores like Tuesday Morning occasionally to see what kind of goodies I can find for gifts. 

Well, I wandered into one out here in Phoenix and what I found was goodies for me.    First up was a spice blend that I really like on my roasted veggies in the morning.   I had found one in TX at a Ross, and then found them out here....4 more are going home with me.  =)

But the best goodies - were these precuts from Benartex at a great price (all less than half of retail).   I could have chosen from about 6 different charm squares sets, several different jelly rolls, and the "honey bun" roll (1.5" strips). 

What I came home with were these two charm squares, both blue based that I've got ideas for.   And all three of the "honey bun" rolls that they had.   These are all Kona solids and 41 different colors that are reminiscent of the colors in 30's repro fabrics.   I'm thinking I'll use one of them in this Regatta quilt/sew along and the other two....well I've got ideas for them as well running around in my mind.  Now mind you, I won't get this started before about April, but that's beside the point - it's on my to-do list for next year.  =)

So what is the most unusual place that you've found fabric before?

Gratitudes:

1. Allergies have been controllable with just an occasional pill while out here.

2. The blessings of friends who have allowed me to stay with them for 10 days.

Arizona Shop-Hopping, Part 1

I admit it.....I like to visit the shops here in Arizona when I'm out here.   I miss having the variety available out here when I'm living else where.

First up was a trip to SAS.   SAS is a store that sells fabrics by the pound as well as by the yard.   And the types of fabrics runs the gamut from quilt shop quality cottons (nowadays) to upholstery and leather remnants.    Here I picked up a blue I couldn't resist, and 4 different prints for my scrappy backgrounds.   Also found a variegated cotton thread for a great price, a zipper for a belated gift and a pkg of extra wide bias binding.

Next up came a stop at the Bernina Store in Prescott Valley.    Nice fabrics but nothing really caught my eye.Did get a tan tonal FQ for background use, and a 1/2 of an owl print that I'm planning to make potholders out of for a gift.

Just across the highway and down a bit is Cloth Plus in Prescott Valley.   When I headed down the street to the store I really wondered about it because there are houses on one side of the street, and industrial type buildings on the other.   However, once in the store I found a really nice selection of fabrics.  I picked up 4 different ombre fabrics and 2 FQ's for backgrounds.

And I also found this gorgeous ombre and batik that I'm going to use to make the mini quilt I need to get made for a modern mini swap that i'm in.

Once I left Prescott Valley, it was onto Cottonwood AZ and the Quilt and Sew shop.   Lots of nice fabrics and a large selection of sale cuts.   As you can see I found quite a few that just had to come home with me.   The zebra print will find a home in one of the blocks for my 2018 BOM.  Also bought their 2017 row-by-row kit, and they gave me a free mug.

The final quilt stop on my tour of Northern AZ shops was the Quillter's Store in Sedona.  They had their usual great selection of fabric, but it was the sale bins of $1 FQ's that caught my eyes......and yes there were a big bunch that had to come home with me.....32 to be exact.   Lots of batiks as well as some others.

And finally from the day that I drove into Phoenix, I made a detour in Tucson to stop at The Quilt Basket.   Bought their row by row pattern, a panel that will find it's way into mug rugs, 3 half yds for backgrounds (notice a theme here?), and finally the color of Kona that I need to make the bias strips for the pie potholders that I've been making.

Gratitudes:

1. Time with family and friends here in the Phx area

2. Beautiful weather!

Row-Hopping, Day 3

Made it to 6 stores this past Saturday in the NW part of the metroplex - only 110 or so miles of driving this time!

In order, the first store I stopped at was The Old Craft Store in Carrolton.   Lots of wonderful fabric, although it was a little bit of a pain to get to because of construction.  Their row has this cute quilter's train on it.

Found another sky fabric and two lovely batiks for block backgrounds.   The two upper fabrics were in the clearance fabrics.  The alphabet one will go with my alphabet fabrics to be used in making kits to sell and the other is a batik.  Might use a bit of that for binding on the flamingo quilt, although I'm not fond of hand sewing batik binding down.











Store #2 was "Minding My P's & Q's" up in Denton.   Not a huge store, but a decent selection of fabric.   They were celebrating the store's 2nd birthday so had lots of sales going on.

Fabrics were buy 2 yds, get one free - So I ended up with part of the tan one for free.   The scrap bag is the size of a typical pattern bag and yes I stuffed it full - but managed to get it closed w/o it popping open.  =)

Smaller scraps here - precut triangles of the same fabric line in the red and blue on the left.  The green and yellow in the middle were just 8" and 7" by WOF, and then some squares and smaller scraps on the right.

The striped piece on top of the pile on the right is earmarked for the flags in this row that I got at Cabbage Rose Quilting.

Next into the scrap bag went this panel featuring different scenes from Texas.

And the last item that I managed to get into the scrap bag was this panel.  The print is by Jim Shore and there's nothing wrong with the panel that I can see.  This panel alone was worth more than the cost of the scrap bag ($5).   Can you tell that most stores who sell their scrap bags don't make money off of me?

Will take and finish this and then sell the quilt.

Store #3 was "Material Girl" which is also in Denton.  It is about 4 miles or so east of the previous one.  Their row was this cute one featuring a family of chickens.

Picked up two 1/3 yd pieces there for teddy bears.














Store #4 was "Quilt Country" in Lewisville.   I loved this store and would be happy living closer to it....ok maybe I don't need to given the size of my stash, but still.....lol.    Close to half of the fabrics that they have are batiks which I drooled over.  There was also a good selection of all the others that are on the market these days.

They also have 4 APQS long-arms that people can rent time on at a reasonable price.....just gotta take the $150 class to learn how to use them first.   Very tempting thought for me as I have some bigger quilts to get quilted coming up.  Their row features sail boats because the town is between two different lakes (aka reservoirs).  I'll probably put this one in my row quilt, but instead of having 'Quilt Country' on the building I'll put either "Bait" or "Marina".

Found a cute little wall-hanging and bought the kit because it was a reasonable price.  Alto got water fabric for the row, a scrap bag (prefilled) with more fabics that will work for the sky in rows, and a FQ that I'm may use in a row with Balloons if I can find something with city buildings on it.








Store #5 was "Must Love Fabric" in Grapevine.  Small store with an ok selection of fabric.    Google maps did not want to route me to the right place for the store so I ended up wandering trying to find it for 15 minutes initially.   Finally made it though.

Picked up another batik for block backgrounds, a blue for skies and blackberries for potholders (planned gifts).   And got a cute little key chain as a gift as well.

Store # 6 was "Quilter's Dream" in Colleyville.  Store was a decent size in square footage, but has a tiny selection of fabric.   There might have been 150 bolts all total of fabric - far less than what is in my stash!  One room was a classroom, and there was another room that I didn't see into that has her long-arm.  Given how little fabric was there I suspect that is what the owner makes a living on doing.  

She also had a room set up as a 'Quilter's garage sale'.  Quilters from the area (or her?) can sell their unwanted fabrics, books, patterns, etc there on commission.  Did find three pieces in there that I bought.

The grey on the right is one that I've had a piece of for years - the grey swirly print makes great fur, santa's beards, etc.  Middle one is a piece of Fairy Frost in a color I hadn't seen before, and then the pink/blue one I thought might make a good border for the flamingo or maybe binding.  Haven't laid it out with the quilt yet so don't know if it'll work or not.

The day of shop-hopping wrapped up with me getting caught in a horrible thunder storm  on the way home (or as I posted on FB - a "bad, bad, ugly bad" storm.....lol).   The best way to describe it is that if you take a blizzard with white-out conditions and then raise the temp so that you are dealing with rain instead of snow, you've got what I was trying to drive in.  I ended up pulling off the road twice because the rain was so heavy I couldn't see to drive.    Was finally able to drive again after about 30 minutes of combined waiting and within 5 miles had driven out of the rain. Texas storms can be so hit-or-miss to say the least.

Gratitudes:
1. Safe travels in the storm I was in on Saturday

2. As bad as it was, there was no tornadoes associated with the storm.

Row Hopping, Day 2 - Part 3

Shop #4 on my shop hop Saturday was Quilt Among Friends.  This is one of three shops within a 1 mile radius of each other.   This was a spacious store and had a good selection of fabrics.  

Will be putting this row into the quilt I hope to turn in.

Found a fabric for skies and one for block backgrounds for my teddy bears.

 Shop #5 was Peggy's Quilt Studio, the second shop in the 1 mile radius of three shops.  A small shop, with an eclectic selection of fabrics.  Never did see the fabric they had used for their row background (basically the entire row), so I did my own thing for this row.  You can see the results in this post - my version is the top row of the quilt.

 Found the bottom fabric on their sale rack and the 10" square with hearts by the cutting table.  The hearts were going to be used for the car in the row, but I space it.   Will see about using it in another row this year.  The pink fabric was seen as I was leaving so I went back and got a  1/4 of it.   Both of the yardages have snails on them.

 Shop #6 was Sew Fabricated and it was the final of the 3 stores that were all together.  This should be a fun row to do, altho lots of detailed work with these signs.  I wasn't impressed with the shop overall- seems they don't have a working bathroom in the shop at this point....

 Found a polka dot fabric that is perfect for the background I needed to complete the quilt I have started.   A good thing since I didn't take the blocks with me and was going on my memory of colors.  The Red/White is also earmarked for a future project.

Shop#7 was Sew It Up Bernina and it was the next stop on my shop-hop.  Nice store, not a huge selection of fabrics though.

 Found a Moda Grunge blue that will make a nice sky for future rows.

Shop #8 was the Richland Sewing Center.  Good selection of fabrics, although tightly packed into a corner of the store.  Half of the store was taken up by the machines that they sell, and 1/4 by the classroom area.  I bought the kit for this row because I didn't have the fabrics needed for parts of it.

Gratitudes:
1. A fun day of shop-hopping was had

2. Friends who help supply information and contacts that are needed

Row-Hopping, Day 2 - Part 2

The first part of my shop hopping was spent avoiding the worst of a thunderstorm that went through the area at the same I'm time I was driving the 43 miles to the first quilt shop that I visited.  Thankfully the accidents were all on the opposite side of the freeway from the direction that I was driving after the worst of the storm had passed by!   Not that I was glad for the accidents, but I was definitely glad to not have been caught in the slow traffic getting by them.

The first shop visited was Common Threads Quilting in Waxahachie.   I've been to this shop several times and like it.  They have a good variety of fabrics across the spectrum.

This is their row.  I did splurge and get the kit because it is laser cut and prefused.  Started not to, but ended up getting it because it was reasonably priced.  I also picked up two acrylic heart templates since I do so many heart blocks.





Next up was this remnant bag.  Bag is the size of a pattern bag and stuffed.   Biggest piece was over a 1/2 yd in length.  Don't have  pic tho of all that I stuffed into it.

Then came a bunch of sale FQ's, 6 of which were batiks.  =)  Several of these will be used for backgrounds of future teddy bear blocks.

And then there were these remnants that jumped into my arms as well.
Not pictured is the really pretty batik yardage that I picked up off their clearance rack.

Next up was a stop by Ben Franklin Apothecary shop in Duncanville.   The quilt shop is in part of an old-fashioned drug store that has a bit of everything in it.  The lady that was there on Saturday was so nice.   She asked where I was headed next and drew me a map telling me how to get to three stores that were all within a 1 mile radius of each other.  And then told me about another shop just a few miles south of Duncanville that had a cute row that I needed.   =)  Fabric selection was good for a small shop.

Found two light blues that will be used in future rows as the sky as I make the rows up.

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The third shop that I visited on Saturday was Corner Square Quilts in Cedar Hill.  Loved this shop even though it is not very big.  Their main focus is batiks and they have a great selection.   I could have spent a small fortune here had I wanted to.

I ended up with the pattern for their row - this cute frog who is grabbing lunch on the go!  And the only license plate so far this year.  Since I'm an engineer by multiple degrees I thought this one was appropriate for me.   Now to figure out something to do with it.

The fabrics that I got here were mainly batiks.  Did  pick up two non-batiks - a sky fabric and a copper w/metallic copper highlights.

The common theme running through what I bought during the whole day was for the most part either light blue fabrics to use for "sky" portions of rows or light colored fabrics to use for backgrounds in appliqued blocks.

Gratitudes:
1.  For the finances to be able to very occasionally splurge.

2. For finding a skirt to wear to a wedding reception this coming weekend and it's three sizes smaller than I was wearing just this past September.  =)

Row-Hopping, Day 2 - Part 1

I went out quilt shop-hopping Saturday to collect more rows for the row by row.   I started off the day with 10 shops on my list/map, made it to 7 of those and added 2 others to the mix.   The remaining three will be gotten to another weekend.   Over the next several posts I'll post pics about what I came home with.

One of the shops was Cabbage Rose Quilting and Embroidery. Lots of beautiful fabrics across a wide selection of types.   I came home with the row pattern.  This is one of the ones I'll be making for my row quilt.

What I bought was this bag of scraps.  Everything in the store was 20% off, so I ended up getting this for less than $14 and it had to have weighed close to 3 pounds.  =)  Almost all of the pieces are at least a FQ in size and a couple of them were 24" panels that will make great starts for quilts.

Patriotic panel that will be going into an American Hero quilt.  Might even put it with the blocks that I've got made up now to get that quilt finished faster.

Patriotic fabric for the navy and air force.  Will end up in an American Hero quilt at some point.

Top part of one of the panels.  Fabric is meant to look like a coloring page so that kids can color it in with fabric markers.

Top part of the panel.

I'm planning on using the sections of these two panels as centers for rectangular log cabin blocks.

Mainly large pieces here, a few smaller ones or squares, in this pic and the last one.   In all total there probably is at least 6 yds of fabric here.  

Gratitudes: 

1. Safe travels during the storm Saturday while I was out shop-hopping.

2. For the sales that I've been able to make on Ebay.