License Plate Surprise

I got a great surprise in the mail yesterday. Jackie R., one of the ladies on the Country Heritage Quilt Tour I took in March, sent me three fabric license plates, two from her home state of Texas and one from Maine to add to my collection. It was so unexpected. Opening the envelope, seeing the plates, and reading the upbeat note within, plastered a big ole smile on my face. Thank you, Jackie! I will deploy them today.

I have a collection of these license plates along the walls of my sewing room up near the ceiling. I make no effort to incorporate them into a quilt: I just appreciate them for what they are and harbor no illusion they will ever be part of a quilt. I suffer no guilt about not using them up as part of my stash reduction. They are serving their purpose as wall decor with a memory. The saying on each is unique and humorous. This wall has plates from Kansas, Idaho, Hawaii and three from my native state of California.

The adjacent wall has nine from California and one from Nevada.

Over the doorway on the next wall to the right  are seven more from California, and one each from Colorado, Washington State, and Oregon.

The most recent four I bought are from my Country Heritage Quilt Tour – two from the shop in South Carolina,  and one each in the shops in Georgia and Florida. This collection bends my flexible rule a bit. Shops put out these license plates annually but to keep my souvenirs manageable, I try to draw the line at collecting only one from a shop and calling it good. I guess in the heat of the shopping moment in South Carolina, I could not decide between yellow and green and so got both. Occasionally I also cave and get shop repeats if the sayings are too cute to pass up.

All the ones already up on my wall are from shops I either visited, or bought from at a quilt show, or ordered from online. These final three from Jackie have a whole new reason for being there – a gift from a new friend! Plus now I have a reason to visit or buy from those shops – Mesquite Beans Fabrics and Sew Special Quilts in San Antonio, Texas and Cotton Weeds Quilt Shop in Freeport, Maine. I checked them out on line and all three look awesome. Here are their license plates newly mounted on the header board above my wall-mounted rolling retractable design screen. What fun!

For those of you who may be counting, the total is 33 license plates. Even if I bought only one yard of fabric from each shop (yeah... right... only one yard), that is 33 yards of fabric. But wait. I have not bought anything (yet) from the shops for my three newest license plates. So it is only 30 yards of fabric. Whew! That's much better.

NOTE:
For those whose curiosity I may have aroused, past blog posts about that Country Heritage Quilt Tours trip I went on are in my two blogs. The quilt shop visits are in DianeLoves2Quilt. 

https://dianeloves2quilt.blogspot.com/2019/03/people-places-quilts-summerville-sc.html

https://dianeloves2quilt.blogspot.com/2019/03/sew-much-more-savannah-ga.html

https://dianeloves2quilt.blogspot.com/2019/03/cinnamons-jacksonville-fl.html

The sightseeing portions of that trip are in WanderOrPonder.

http://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2019/04/charleston-arrival-harbor-city-market.html

http://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2019/04/charleston-museum-carriage-ride-bus.html

http://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2019/04/boone-plantation-and-angel-oak.html

http://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2019/04/savannah-historic-district.html

http://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2019/04/georgia-islands-florida-heading-home.html