Phoenix Shop Hop Day Two

This is a picture heavy post!
Another long day for the Quilting Divas, touring the quilt shops on the south east side of town. This week I took more pics, though at one point I mislaid my phone [down beside the seat in Jacki's car] and had to be mildly harrassed about it the remainder of the day, LOL, thx. Kathy.

Group pic. left to right Jacki, BJ, me, Lauren and Angela, AKA Andee!
Three Dudes store which is way bigger than last year was the starting place at 9:30 am.
 They have a wonderful selection of CW replica fabrics [ I would love a piece of each and they have hundreds] Lauren, Andee and I each came away with intense fabric envy.............

though Lauren indulged hers most! Very friendly people here and snacks and water for shoppers!

Here too Andee showed off her Misty Mountain Morning ready for binding.

This is the multi-use tool Three Dudes demoed, Andee bought one so I am interested to see how she likes it, it seemed too fiddly.

Here's a close-up, though you can barely see the clear plastic tool aligned with the lower edge of the triangle.

Quick stop next door for bagel break, here's where I thought I mislaid my iPhone!

Next stop Quilter's Ranch....where each of us purchased these binding clips. I do hope they work as well as touted because they will save time and effort pinning bindings. I will report back!

Then to Zoe's, where they were talking up this odd looking purple tool.................

Hmm, doesn't look too helpful, anyone ever tried it? Another of those "too-fussy" notions for me.

This striped fabric seemed a likely contender to bind the Ugly Quilt Fabric wall hanging although I was somewhat reluctant to buy fabric here because Zoe's tears rather cuts the yardage. I have rarely come across this practice and IMHO it is wasteful due to excessive raveling, but this half yard should be enough for bias binding- may have to use every inch!

Then, after negotiating our way among all the street vendors at Chandler Square, we visited the Cutting Edge............

  where they were promoting the Arrowhead quilt book, a fast, easy quilt that most of us have already made and I have made twice! Mine were both made with multi scrappy batiks, and I really liked the versions they showed using only two fabrics, you can see how you get secondary designs.

It was tempting to buy this cute apron kit for a friend..... but I resisted!

 Our group of "cut-ups" [ no pun intended] were unable to resist a photo op with this exotic looking emu/ostrich? that resides outside the Cutting Edge store!
Our lunch stop was at Pita Jungle where everyone had a revitalizing meal, I ordered my favorite Seared Ahi Tuna with hummus, a bit spicy and very yummy.

Scrapbooking ETC was a new store for all of us, formerly devoted to crafts, the ETC part houses a wide selection of more modern fabrics in bright, cheerful designs and colors as well as hand made jewelry and "dust catchers!"

An adorable frame with an initial in pink buttons, I think I want to make one one for my sewing studio, I have lots of old buttons I could use!

Kathy said she can make a similar frame with her scroll saw, she is apparently a pretty handy helper!

Fabric flowers seem to be one of the "crafts de jour" and each of us has purchased at least one template, all different. This was the design I wanted from the first week's shop hop but it was sold out. Fortunately ETC had them and 50c less, LOL.

Also on display this adorable quilt pattern -I thought that minus the frilly bits it would make a cute grandmother's quilt,  each apple bearing the name of one grandchild.

Last shop for the day and the furthest out, Quilter's Oasis is not a large store but still manages to stock respectable numbers and styles of quilt fabric, including CW repros.

This was their featured ruler, and I must admit it appealed to me sufficiently to order one, since they

were sold out at 2pm! 

Apart from providing the ability for rotary cutting all these sizes of circles, there are other uses for this tool - I have a hard time justifying a tool that performs only one task!
My ruler won't arrive for a couple of weeks but I am not in a rush and once it comes I will do a blog post on it and perhaps finally challenge myself to make a quilt using circles!

Meanwhile here is a peek at just a few things this ruler can do.

Also, on their sale rack I found this pretty batik, and a yard came home with me to help replenish some  of what I have used the past month or so.

 It was on sale,  for goodness sake!

For a slightly different view of this day's events, check out Andee's blog here.
Our fearless chauffeur Jacki in her gas friendly KIA brought us safely back to my house around 6pm, weary but in good spirits. My back was very sore - but in one month that should get fixed!
As I had hoped I found that our youngest DS had also arrived home safely after one month absence in MA. at BU Medical Center completing his final hospital clerkship for his MD.

We missed him as did his little boy!

Angela's Smith Mountain Morning

Angela's quilt is ready for delivery tomorrow when we meet at Three Dude's quilt shop to begin the second half of the 2012 Phx. Shop Hop.

I love this very traditional quilt that Angela made from a Bonnie Hunter book. I quilted it for her with meandering feathers.

The borders are separate with their own feather designs.

This must be my all time favorite Bonnie Hunter quilt, it's on my bucket list I have already collected all the fabrics for it and hopefully you will soon be seeing my progress on this beauty!
Angela made it for her BF and DH, and I bet she will be ecstatic with such a delightful gift!

Ugly Quilt Fabric, Ugly No More!

No quite finished, I have not yet found the right binding. I could just use black but a friend suggested a diagonal stripe so that's what I am hoping for. The one ordered online turned out to be the wrong colors, so it's onward to a new search.

 There are two layers of batting, Quilter's Dream Green on the bottom and polyester on top for quilting definition.

 I quilted it up quickly last night and this afternoon with freehand design, using a gold, shiny embroidery thread.

The other three paper pieced blocks went on the reverse side, and I made no attempt to try and match the position of the blocks, that would have been impossible.

 So the quilting looks a bit random here, but the thread is a good match so it isn't obnoxious!
Glad to be almost done with this project, next up on the longarm is Angela's "Smith Mountain Morning".

Shop Hop Week One!

Here was today's schedule for the northwest, about 140 miles, eight stores total for Lauren and me, all in eight hours!

#1-In Stitches, 9a.m, Lauren after that stop.
Our shirts say"Too hot to handle" very appropo for quilters!

#2 Quilter's Bee, all four of us wearing our tiaras agin this year.

#3, Sun Valley Quilts, still going strong.

#4 Arizona Quilts, it was time for lunch, we forgot the picture!

#5, Old World Quilt Shop, time for some caffeine, coffee shop next door!

#6, Quiltz and a little 'tude!

#7, Bernina Connection, we still have our tiaras!

#8, Arizona Home Fabrics

Lauren and I rode together so we made one more stop on the way home at Arizona Home Fabrics where we purchased some of these great neutrals to add to stash! This was my only purchase all day, and although the others shopped I didn't get pics of all of their bargains.
Next Saturday round two, the south east side of the city, woohoo!

Arrowhead Quilt

This one is ready for binding now.

 It quilted up nicely............

with separate borders.

Civil War HST Quilt

You may remember that some time back several of our little quilt group had joined a HST Civil War swap at The Old Quilt Shop. At the time I think we each bought 4 sets, each set made 28 HST's. Unfortunately none of us were too impressed with the way the store handled it, but we each purchased ten extra paper sheets to make more HST's, determined that we would continue until we had enough for our quilts.

Seems I am the only one of the group currently working at it, I finished all of the paper sheets which I think made over 700 HST's. They are very small, 700 makes a smallish quilt, however I had also made around 80 of these hourglass blocks that are twice the size of the HST's and will coordinate nicely.

On Saturday when Lauren was here we took a look through the book that the Old Quilt Shop had recommended and liked the cover design best.

Placing some on the design wall made up my mind for me, and I plan to surround the center HST's with the hourglass blocks, then probably a border or two but I will worry about that when I get there, this is my usual modus operandi!

Don't know yet how I will set the hourglass blocks, light to light or alternate light and dark, I'll wait and see how they look once the center is done.

Probably won't be piecing these for a while though there are a few tops that need LA'ing.

Meantime I am working at the LA quilting up the larger Arrowhead quilt.

Thursday Quilting Report

This morning the final borders went on the second Arrowhead quilt, as yet I haven't planned the backing.

Tried a couple of different fabrics for the border and settled on the blue because it brightened up the darker batiks. I had hoped for green but didn't have a good choice of those and am trying to use stash if at all possible so this pleases me well enough!
Then in an attempt to rest my back, it seemed wise to spend more time sitting sewing with the DSM than standing over the longarm machine.

This is the Travel Case meant to hold quilt notions, made for me by my friend Loretta a few years ago and it has seen much use so I thought I would make a few for Christmas gifts.

There always seems to be lots of smaller pieces of fabric in my stash and they come in handy for small projects like this, and enable the use of the left over batting also.  I will make some more of these I think they went together easily and quickly!