World's Record (or at least my personal record)

I just realized that my last fabric purchase was on October 4th when I hit a fat quarter sale.  You remember the one...I was supposed to be getting groceries.  At least that is the story I told my family.  It is really too bad that I had a senior moment in all the fabric excitement and forgot to actually go to the grocery.  There was no way to disguise my fabric purchase when I returned without any grocery sacks.

This must be my longest "no buy" spree (quite by accident).  As you may recall, the last time I "fasted" from fabric purchases it was not good.

12 Weeks tomorrow and counting!

I hope you had a fabulous holiday season.

Therapy

It truly was therapy shopping at the  fat quarter sale.  On the way there I decided I didn't really need anything so I was going to limit myself to 20.  Well I found 20 in the first bin.  So I just threw caution to the wind

I guess fabric is therapy for more than just me.

Shopping Adventure

I can't remember the last time Tina and I went on a shopping adventure.  It is probably a good thing that we don't go too often.  They might post our picture with a warning at the checkout!!

I started the day with 2 exercise classes to get my energy level up.  It definitely made the stink-o-meter go up  if nothing else.

I met up with Tina and my niece Ally, and we started the day at the CindaB warehouse sale.  My girls had been wanting me to make them messenger bags.  I ended up picking up 3 messenger bags, a horizontal tote and a beach bag.  I am pleased to check the messenger bags off my list.









We made several other stops before heading to Defiance to look for more Denyse Schmidt goodness.  After all, the clearance is 50% off at Joann's this weekend.  Boy did we find clearance.  The bolts were stacked about 15 high!!  It was a two person adventure.  One person lifted, and the other person pulled the bolt.  I think my DS collection is almost complete for now.  Needless to say the other shoppers were not very impressed with us.
 Isn't it a beautiful collection?  As to what I am going to make with, I haven't decided yet.  Everywhere I have looked over the past 2 weeks on the Internet, I have been seeing these fabrics and  I just needed, obsessed about them.  There are still a few prints that I don't have, but I don't think those ever made it to the clearance.

I found the brown twig fabric and the black fabric at the Joann's clearance mountain.  I don't know what it was about that black fabric, but I really liked it.  The fabric on the right was the end of the bolt at a quilt shop.  I love the color and design of it, but my DH thought it looked like his late grandmother's dress- LOL. He will like it once it is sewn into something.

Last night my husband asked me how much $$ I had invested in my stash.  I responded with...."let's not think about that".

We picked up several more door prizes for the Christmas party and had a fabulous day.  I made it home in time for the ND football game.

Today the plan is to mix up some cookies, spend time with the family, and perhaps sew a stocking and some FW blocks.  Hmm...could I use those DS fabrics for a stocking?  Probably so, but I am not ready to cut into them yet.  They aren't properly aged.

Hopefully I will have something fun to post on Design Wall Monday.

What I am working On

Actually I have been doing more shopping than sewing or quilting.  I did manage to get one twister runner sewn together and finish quilting a baby quilt.

On the shopping note, these are my purchases from 2 quilt shops.  I think I did well.  the pile isn't too large!

 The problem is we didn't stop at just 2 quilt shops.  We went to Joan's too.  All the red tag fabrics were half off.  I hit the Denyse Schmidt mother load.  These were all the prints I found in the clearance.  You had to see the look on the faces of the other shopper when my cart arrived at the cutting table.  They were all praying that I had a number after them!!  I had the nicest fabric cutter.  She told me it didn't matter if she cut 30 bolts for me, or 1 bolt for 30 customers.  It was her job to cut fabric.


I decided to see how it looked with the other DS fabrics I already had.  I wish I could have found a stray bolt of the blue/green dots, but I think those are all  long gone.  I kept putting those few maroon bolts back, but I am glad I went ahead and purchased them.  the look nice with all the other fabrics in small quantities.

It was a glorious day shopping with friends.  No stashbusting was done this week.

Anticipation

Perhaps anticipation is the big appeal for me to order fabric online.  Well ordering from Hancock's of Paducah gives you plenty of time to think about it.  My order just arrived today that I placed on 9/23.  I realize that isn't really very long, but the wait was simply killing me.

Remember when I was deciding on a border for this plus quilt.  Eleanor suggested the fabric pictured....except I have less than a fat quarter.  I think what makes this fabric work is the large amount of white.  I looked for something similar in my resource  center, but I didn't find anything.

I spotted these two pieces online.  They are mostly white with some grey and a little yellow.  What do you think of these?

I am undecided.  I really need to hang them on the design wall to get the full view.

 No order would be complete without a few "incidentals".  The Black/Red/White is for my twister quilt border (planning ahead).  I didn't have a single piece of fabric with both black and red in it.

There are a few more things that came in my envelope, but I can't show them. They are prizes for the upcoming Christmas party.

Neutral Bliss

Another big box came today to go with the other fabrics I purchased recently.  This one is full of Neutral Bliss! This is 70 different one yard cuts of neutral fabrics from cream to tan to golden.

Those few fabrics on the right were just a little stash enhancement.  I do realize that the next jelly flop swap isn't until June, but I couldn't wait that long.  And they say quilting takes a lot of patience...I admit that I have none!!   This will give me plenty of time to get them cut and swapped.  I am just thankful I didn't have to cut the one yard pieces.

Ellen had a very good point that I never really thought about.  The reason I am always short on neutrals is because they don't say, "you are just so beautiful that I must have a little of you and take you out of the store".  Let's face it, when you go into a quilt shop you don't look at the neutrals unless you need them for a specific project.  You don't say..."I love that shade of cream, I need to buy some."  Now if it was a red or green with a specific pattern, absolutely.

Short and Sweet Adventure

I had a little adventure to a yarn shop with Tina today.  We thought we were going to be shutdown when we arrived at our destination, and the shop was empty.  Never fear, they just moved and we have GPS.  It was worth the delay.  What's a good friend to do when there is StarBella  yarn on the line.  They had received a shipment recently.  Holy Cow!  I don't know how much they received but they didn't have much left.  What's a girl to do but take it all.  I even had to wrestle my friend Tina for the color I wanted.  Ok, we really didn't wrestle, but I took it right out of her hand because I wanted THAT color.  If she hadn't given it up so easily, I probably would have taken her out for it.  The shop had 3 other kinds of this type of yarn.  2 of which I had never seen before.

After the yarn shop, we were off to the quilt shop.  You know it is going to be a great day when you are greeted at the door with "Have you heard about our sale".  I bet she could see the excitement growing in my eyes. 
 The top fabric Tina talked me into.  She didn't have to talk too hard.  She invisioned a pillow case.  I invisioned a baby coin charity quilt.  I can't wait to dig into Char and Nancy's scraps for the coins.

See those great neutrals?  Those are for the next ISE group jelly flop swap!  They had a great selection of fabrics both sale and otherwise.  I had been on a quest for the perfect red to border my very old orange crush quilt with.  I finally found the perfect shade.  It was just patiently waiting for me to find it on the clearance table. 

Eleanor delivered all the quilt going to the Henryville, Indiana tornado relief.  Eleanor had 3 more, and Lorraine had one that is not pictured.  When I saw that Eleanor was donating her blue ridge beauty quilt that she just finished, I about flipped.  

She said that the collection site was very organized and everyone was very appreciative of our efforts.  Thanks to everyone that was able to contribute. 

Fat Quarter Fun

Here are the pictures from our day of quilt shopping. We did not empty the boat at a little bit of Lolly's fat quarter sale. We were told there were over 6000 fat quarters in the boat. The boat was a lot lighter when we left. I consider it a rescue mission. The boat may not sink now because we removed a lot of weight. Guess who bought the most? It was so much fun that I think we should make it an annual event. I'm glad none of the pictures showed the total on the cash register.

Who could resist?

While the girls were clogging, I felt the need for a little fabric therapy. There is a quilt shop about 10 minutes from the dance studio. I received an email from that quilt shop (Quilt n' Gifts) requesting donations of fabric for a local senior group that needed supplies. Considering I had a Gateway computer box full of fabric I was donating, I think I returned home FAR less than I donated. I didn't want to leave empty handed, so I purchased 2 charm packs(on sale), 2 fat quarters (on clearance), and 1/2 yard of City Girl to go with the other prints that I have. I am pleased to move that box of fabric on to a home where it will be used instead of stored.