Quilt Shop-Hop finds

There's a large quilt shop-hop going around my area of the state...32 shops are participating. If you go to every shop, you can be entered to win a new Bernina! Not that I expect to go to all of them ~ there are other things I need to do this summer!

Thursday my husband and kids were all gone, so I decided to go check out two shops I've never been to (although they're both within 40 minutes of my house). What a mistake that was! I ended up buying more fabric for projects!

I need more projects as much as I need a hole in the back of my head. I'm just hoping to get these done before they are added to the UFO pile cabinet.

When I was with my DH, 3 kids, and another family in Montana and Wyoming last month, I fell in LOVE with the Rocky Mountains. I came home wanting to redecorate my entire house in a mountain-cabin theme. Hubby wasn't gonna go for that expense, though. So when I saw these two different projects, I couldn't resist.

This first is a Santa with woodland creatures panel. I just wish it had a moose. I fell in love with moose after we saw one of these majestic animals up close and personal while hiking in Grand Teton National Park.

Besides the fabric panel, I bought two of its coordinating fabrics, the blue/gray mottled piece and the plaid. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it at the store, besides make a wall hanging. The saleslady was very helpful and gave me some suggestions, so I bought what I thought was a good amount of each fabric.

The funny thing is, last night I sat down to work on this blog post, when our power went out. It turns out the transformer box in front of my neighbor's house caught on fire!!! Not from a storm, but just from so much use these past few days (we've had temps in the low 100's and no rain). Since the power was out for three hours, I had the chance to draft what I think I'll do with this fabric. My goal: to be done by THIS Christmas. If it's not done before I go back to school August 17, it's probably not gonna get done in time, though.





Then at the second store, they were having a sale of 30% off all McKenna Ryan kits. 30%! I love the look of her quilts but have never tried one. This store had two kits from her "Out and About" series that I liked. With this series, you can make a few of the 12 X 12 inch blocks, or you can make the whole series of nine blocks and make them into a larger quilt.

The quilt shop I was at only had a few of the blocks in this series, so I bought two. The one on the left, with the bears, is called "Dinner for Two" and the moose on the right is called "Knee Deep." I already know where I want to hang these when I'm done, and if I can find one or two more from the series, I might buy those as well. (We'll see if any of the other stores in the shop-hop have them.)

I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

And no, I haven't given up on crazy quilting. I'll post more of my progress on that another day.

Since it's so hot outside, stay in and do some quilting. Happy stitching!