What Did You Buy?

My daughter Robin, a mother of a 3½ year old girl and an 8 month old boy, is a quilter and seamstress with very limited spare time. She loves to enjoy her craft vicariously through me so even if all I do is buy something, I like to share with her. "OK, Mom. What'd ya buy?" This post is mainly for her but I enjoy when others read along, too.

Today I met with my Hand-Quilter Sweet Sixteen club at the learning center, an annex of The Cotton Patch quilt shop in Lafayette where most of us bought our sit down long arms. We meet every other month and share knowledge and tips about thread, tension, marking tools, quilting speed, gripping methods, bulk management, sliding surfaces, etc. An HQ16 is set up for us to try out designs or methods or just practice. Most fun is that we bring quilts we have quilted and get kudos, or else we bring ones we are about to quilt and get input on what designs to quilt them with. I really admired one of the borders club member Joan showed. I love the way the double stitching that is slightly offset gives the effect of an artsy sketch. She did a single curvy spine in one direction and on the return she repeated the spine and added the doubled leaves and tendrils. I think it is really classy. I need to remember this one – once I am confident enough with my FMQ to use contrasting color thread.

After the morning's club meeting, I often walk from the learning annex across the street to the quilt shop itself "just to look". The Cotton Patch is 30 miles from my home and has the very best selection of flannels around. I needed to replenish my non-novelty flannels to pair with novelty flannel prints for when I am called upon to make more burp cloths.

I picked up half-yards of these six flannels to have on hand. I do limit myself to just one drawer of flannels (Feb 10, 2016 post) and these just squeezed in there. They are folded the way I fold my half-yard pieces: in fourths along the WOF and then in half and then thirds along the 18" length. This sequence gives me 3" high rectangles that are just the height and width for the drawers in my IKEA cabinet. Paired with six half-yards of novelty flannels, I will be able to make a dozen burp cloths. I have a third granddaughter on the way in May so some of those will undoubtedly go to her.

I am a member of the fabric club at The Cotton Patch so I get 20% off all non-sale fabrics and each month a coupon for 25% off a selected item category. This month the category was rotary cutters, mats, and rulers. I used it to buy The Jaybird Quilts Sidekick ruler in two sizes. I have the Hex N More ruler and love it. I am using it on my Whirligig quilt in progress (Feb 17, 2016 post). I am hopeful the Sidekick ruler will be a versatile and useful.

I also bought a book of twenty baby quilts by It's Sew Emma patterns that use fat quarters. I like the ducks and I like the bows. There is an airplane one and a few others in the book that are very appealing but I am not that comfortable with solid white backgrounds, especially for a baby. I will need to play with the color palettes.

I also bought three pink buttons for a crocheted sweater for my granddaughter Autumn in Oklahoma. My daughter phoned yesterday with a cute story about her. Autumn really likes a lilac cardigan with pink trim I crocheted for her and apparently finds excuses to wear it around the house even when it is not particularly chilly (and even though it is marginally too small). She wanted to wear it to day care which her mom discourages due to its hand-made nature. Autumn promised she would wear it there and then leave it in her cubby, which is a suitable compromise. She went running into daycare and bragged to her friends this was the sweater my Grandma made for me! (Jan 16, 2016 post) Of course Grandma needs to make another. I think perhaps pink this time and perhaps with these swirly buttons and definitely a larger size!

On my way home I stopped at a quilt shop in Danville, 20 miles from my house, Wooden Gate Quilts.
There I was looking to fill in some green in my stash that I was low on when I was pulling fabrics for a quilt for my third granddaughter (Mar 31, 2016 post). I picked up  a half-yard of the olive solid and one yard of the ombre stripe. The purple trees/triangles was peeking out of the bargain bin and caught my eye. I caved and bought the one yard remnant, with no clear idea of what I will do with it.

Note that the mottled olive half-yard is folded to fit in my half-yard drawers.

At Wooden Gate Quilts I also got some fat quarters. I think the first one all the way on the left caught my eye because it was like the purple tree/triangle fabric I fished out of the bargain bin. The other four, well, once you get started, ya know, it is hard to stop. They were not selected to coordinate but, laid out like this, I do like the color palette. I just noticed the far right fat quarter goes with that sale yard of purple trees/triangles fabric.

I re-folded these fat quarters as I do all my fat quarters, twice across the half width of the fat quarter; then in half and then thirds along the 18" length. My 3" high rectangles stand in a double rows in my drawers, pretty much by color.

See anything you like, Robin? Just speak up! You know I'll share.