Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop 2011 Part 2

I only made it to 5 of the 11 shops on the shop hop but that was enough for this year:)  Sunday, I went to Patchwork Cottage in Lawrenceville.  The shop was decorated as a haunted house!  How fun!  Halloween in March!!! What could be better than that??!!




Each shop in the shop hop gave out a goody bag with a house block pattern.  Each shop then made a quilt with all the house blocks related to their shop's theme.  I love the haunted neighborhood complete with graveyard that the clever quilters at Patchwork designed.  I think this is going on my to-make list. 
Directions for the quilt minus the house blocks will be up on their website soon.

Also, if you want to check out any of the Atlanta quilt shops on the hop, here is a link to the shop hop website.

This year, for a $10 purchase, you could get a free charm representing the shop's theme (or you could purchase one for $3).  Collecting charms is as irresistible as it sounds.  I now have a coffee cup, bee, castle, easel, and tombstone. 


This is what I bought so I could collect a tombstone charm. (Oh I crack myself up often with my crazy quilter's logic...).  Civil War prints and some more Lilac Hill. 

One thing that shop hops do (besides lighten your wallet and put miles on your car) is inspire you.  I am so inspired after seeing all the shops, samples, new fabrics, old fabrics in different places, patterns, books, and chatting with quilter friends at every stop. 

I am ready to fling fabric and wield rotary cutter and get some quilting done. 

And yes, the quilt top for Eventide is finished!!!  Woo hoo!!! Check in tomorrow for a view. 

We interrupt this post....

I am continuing my vacation from the day job today because well, I kinda need to ease into the real world from being on vacation and working tonight at SBux will be enough. Ten days was the longest vacation I have had since being an adult I think. Plus I get to spend some quality time with the cats, who have graced me with no ill will for leaving them for so long. Of course my dear friend KJ did a wonderful job catsitting and spoiled them in my absence.


I am also spending a lot of time catching up on blogs. Amanda left a great comment and said that I'll have to live on bread and jam due to Gomez Mega-Bux. You are so right, Amanda!!! I'm thinking some whole wheat bread and blackberry jam from Whole Foods.

LATER>>>> Well I was working on this post when my friend Becky called and said a bunch of my sewing buddies were up at the LQS sewing and they wanted me to come up and sew with them. It was like the Bat Signal (in the shape of a featherweight???), I dropped everything and grabbed my stuff and off I went. Aren't friends the best at getting you sidetracked? I was planning on cleaning house today but that can always wait until tomorrow. It was so great to see everyone and I worked on my Orange Crush quilt for a few hours. Well it's off to SBux. More later.

PS: THANKS BECKY for the Bat Signal!!!!!

Quilting on the Brain

It's been a long week this week, which always makes me really want to be quilting rather than doing anything else. The good news is that next week I'll have nothing but sewing, sewing, sewing for four days at a quilt retreat!! Yes woo hoo a retreat set up by my good friend Pat of Silver Thimble Quilt Co. So I've been thinking of all the projects I'm going to take with me and all those UFOs I'll get done.



Of course since my fav quilt shop is on the way (Sweet Home), I'll have to stop and see what's new. Let's see, if I buy fabric, then go to retreat and use it, and it never really gets to my house until after it's made into something, does it still count as buying new fabric? Hmmmm I may be on to something here.



Along those same lines of "Quilter's Logic", I have a question for quilters out there. Do you think of your works in progress/fabric/UFOs in boxes/bags as stash or is stash the fabric you have that's not set aside for something? I think of my stash as all the fabric that's not already in a bag as a project or project-to-be. In which case, I am not doing too well with stashbusting, except for the OC mystery quilt, which is not using up nearly enough fabric.



I picked up this magazine the other day:
which has some really great patterns for using up stash so sometime in the future, I will be digging into the armoire to use up some fabric. Just as soon as I get caught up on everything else I've started.......