Quilt Shop Hopping

 On our way home from Washington state, we decided to take a short detour and do a little quilt shop hopping in Missouri.  We visited both Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton, MO, and Quilting is My Therapy in Liberty, MO.  

I really haven't ordered much fabric from Missouri Star in years, but I used to order regularly.  It was really a lot of fun to visit the shops there in person.  Missouri Star actually encompasses several building in the little town of Hamilton.  It is a nice quiet place with lots of beautiful fabric.  I'm really glad we stopped and explored there.

 

 

 

We also went to Quilting is my Therapy, which is a much smaller shop, but also nice.  I've been watching long-arm quilting tutorials by Angela Walters, the shop owner, on YouTube, and I wanted to get one of her quilt-along panels to try.  I also bought one of her quilting rulers (Elvira).  I got a ruler base for my machine just before we left for Washington, and I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

Some grand-mommy shopping

I did a little shopping yesterday for my soon-to-be-born granddaughter.  I didn't want to give the bag (featured in the previous post) away empty.  I hope the mom-to-be likes it.

More Fabric!

I've gone a little crazy buying fabric lately, and I just realized that I forgot to document my latest purchases (from late October).  Again, I ordered some pre-cuts and yardage from Missouri Star.  Those pre-cuts really are addictive and I haven't even used any of them yet!

Below I have a Salt Water layer cake, a Lovely charm pack, and some Holiday Accent yardage. 

The yardage was intended for the borders on the Christmas quilt feature in the previous post, but only the white background holly fabric made it into the final quilt.  I'm not sure yet what I'm gonna do with the pre-cuts.

Then my local quilt shop was having a sale, so I bought even more fabric.  Below I have one Christmas Countdown layer cake, a half yard of green fabric, a fat quarter of novelty fabric, and a remnant of brown fabric.

The green yardage (along with an additional yard purchased later and not photographed) ended up as the outer border to the previously mentioned Christmas quilt.  It will also be the binding once I get to that point.  The novelty FQ is tentatively slated for a frog themed baby quilt I have planned.  The layer cake probably is going to turn into another sofa-sized Christmas quilt, this one using a cutting method similar to a Turning Twenty quilt, except using 10 inch blocks instead of FQs.  The brown fabric is completely uncommitted at the moment.

Oh, and I've order more fabric from Missouri Star, but it hasn't shipped yet.  However, I did manage to skip the Veteran's Day sale at the quilt shop yesterday.  It was a temptation, but I managed to resist.

More from Missouri Star

I've done it again.  I ordered more fabric from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Earlier in the month I ordered an Ellie Ann charm pack and layer cake to make a twin bed sized quilt.  My local quilt shop doesn't carry any of the Ellie Ann line, but I needed some yardage for the borders (the Ellie Ann Petit rose China Blue and Ellie Ann Twilight Cobalt yardage above).  And if you are ordering something, you might as well get the deal of the day (the Snowmen Gatherings Charm Pack).  And if you order $100 worth or more you get free shipping so you might as well get something else, especially if it's on sale too (the Tea House Plum layer cake).  So, you know, it all makes sense if you think about it, right?

Cat Fabric!!!

I just got this new fabric in the mail yesterday and I absolutely love it.  The little kitty cats make me so happy.  I ordered it from Feline Drive on Thursday, July 11 and received it yesterday (Monday, July 15).  I had never ordered from her before, but I'm sure I will again in the future.  The fabric is good quality, the prices are reasonable, and the service was great. 

The Christmas fabric with the kittens on it is for a Christmas quilt that I am planning to make using the Saratoga pattern.  I'm planning to use this fabric for the larger patches - all or some of them, I'm not sure yet.  The other fabric, all or some of it, will probably end up in a scrappy 1930s style quilt that I've been thinking about, and collecting fabric for, for several years now.

Shopping

I'm currently working on another row for my guild's row swap.  The theme for the quilt that I am working on right now is traditional quilt blocks in traditional fabrics.  At this point, all three rows in the quilt are made from French General fabrics.  On Tuesday morning, I sat down with the fabrics that I had and the fabrics that were included with the rows.  I had picked out an Ohio Star block for my pattern and had decided which French General fabrics I wanted to buy to complete the design as I had envisioned it.  I drove down to the quilt shop and found that she didn't have any of the fabrics I wanted for my design (apparently she had just a had a big sale and much of her stock of French General had sold out).  Once I got there, I realized that I had left the rows at home too, and the quilt shop is a 35 minute drive from my house.  I looked at the French General that was available, didn't see anything that seemed like it would work with my light and dark Ohio Star design idea, and then just decided to turn around and head home empty handed.  Tuesday was not my day.

That evening after dinner, I went back to the drawing board, literally, and drew out the Ohio Star blocks in a row to see how I liked the design as a simple row of six 6" blocks.  I decided that I wasn't thrilled with that design and dropped back to a different block I had previously considered, the Dutchman's Puzzle block.  After sketching out a row of Dutchman's Puzzle blocks I decided that I liked that design better anyway. 

On Wednesday afternoon, I drove back down to the quilt shop to find fabric in line with my new design idea.  I looked at the French General, but still wasn't feeling it for my design.  I called the person whose quilt I was working on, and asked if it had to be French General, and she said that it didn't.  So, after a lot of searching through the shop and with a great deal of help from Cindy at the shop, I finally decided on these 4 fabrics.  Each fabric will be one pair of flying geese in the block.

This is the focus fabric for the quilt.

 And these are the existing rows for the quilt.

She said she thought it needed some darker fabrics brought in, and she specifically mentioned black and green, so hopefully she will be happy with it.  I'll post pics of the row once I get it done.  Hopefully there will be no more changes to the design going forward.