TGIF (and a little show and tell)

I sincerely hope you have all been enjoying your week, as well as some of the unseasonable weather we've all been having (Thank you very much, Susan, for bringing that back from FL....way better than Mickey Mouse ears, or refrigerator magnets made from shells. You're very welcome, now who's just back from Santa Ana??)

Since I'm back in the old familiar Windows environment, here's some photos of what I picked up last week on the Space Coast shop hop.

Not exactly what one would expect to find in Florida, but I was very excited to find a spinning rack full of various sized cuts of wool. The kind you'd make penny rugs with. I picked up a dozen different cuts that will be perfect for pumpkins and pine trees. All I need now is some solid black wool to use as the base. Should be easy enough to find. Let's hope I can find my washing instructions for felting. No worries, I've probably got about 6 months to turn them up.

At the Space Coast Quilt Show I was able to indulge my fascination with vintage feedsacks. While I was tempted to buy some of the 'real deal' to maybe use on the back of the quilt I one day make with my 1930s repro fabrics, I settled instead for these cute needle books made from actual feedsack fabric. I think they'd make perfect Follower Appreciation Giveaway prizes, don't you?

In the fabric shop with 10,000 bolts of fabric (my bad, I earlier referred to it as having only 8,000 bolts), I discovered 'In the Beginning' fabrics. These are bits from the line called 'Adelaide'. I really liked those muted blues, sage green and pale yellows, especially with a pop of black. Check out their site for some great free patterns and to see their excellent fabrics. I'm looking forward to Polka Dot Garden, Julen, and September Light. I think I've found a new favorite fabric manufacturer.

http://www.inthebeginningfabrics.com/ 

Another line of theirs...Oceanica. This has been out for a bit, so it's really hard to come by in the shops. I was lucky to find four designs which I'll use to make a summer bag.

This is a little something wild and most definitely a quilt outside the box project. The hubs saw the two Michael Miller moth prints displayed on top of the shelves of bolts in a tiny little shop we found in a strip mall. I found the other two prints to go with them. I'm thinking light lime green for the borders and back, or maybe toss in a pale fuchsia.

Or maybe we can add these two recent Material Girls Studios cast-offs I found lurking in the studio closet to the mix. The light one? The dark one? Both of them? What do you think?

My MIL won a door prize at the Space Coast quilt show...it's a paper piecing Christmas kit that includes the fabrics to make the holiday top. Of course she just handed it over to moi. I liked their door prize idea...they printed an open heart (or maybe it was a star) on the center page of their programs, and then they wrote a number in some of them that corresponded to a number on a door prize. When you came in they told you to check your program and if you had a number inside the heart, claim your prize at a table that was just inside the door. Very nice idea to keep in mind if any of you are on your Guild's quilt show committees. I'm thinking that this is going to make a sweet Christmas in July giveaway.

Tomorrow I'm taking another freemotion Sharon Schamber-style workshop. This one a little more advanced over last month's class. Same instructor. I'm looking forward to this. I love being reminded that I don't need my BSR to quilt. Quilting without the BSR is like riding a bike...you're a little wobbly for a couple of seconds, but after that, it's second nature. I hope to finish the project tomorrow so I've got something to show you. I skipped Bunko tonight so I'd be all bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow morning, so I'd best stay on track and head on up to bed.

Enjoy your Saturday. Don't forget about his month's giveaway, every comment is a chance in the drawing. Let's play for one of the vintage feedsack needle books this month. While I'm at the shop tomorrow for class I'll pick up some nice applique needles to go inside it.