Session Two, group two....more pretties

Jeanette was nice enough to let me use her camera Wed. night when I forgot mine. As you can see, the 2nd group of mystery quilters are using a wide variety of fabrics too. They all had their homework finished, and spent most of the night making another group of HSTs. They stopped to cut their stripsets towards the end of class. 

I sent them home with another clue, but it shouldn't take them too long to finish. They have the option of coming early next Wednesday to get a head start on the final clue before they see what the quilt looks like. 

I spent most of the day yesterday working on the pattern for a class I'm teaching in a few weeks. I had to spend a lot of time working on the graphics to make it look like the quilt I made. I am using some different tools that I'm not as used to, so I have to recheck how to do it every time I work on this pattern. 

Eventually, after my eyes were tired of the computer, I went for a bike ride and then out to dinner with my daughter. She is planning a trip to Europe soon, so is getting everything ready. She and a friend will visit five different European cities during their 2.5 week trip. Sounds like fun, huh?

Session Two....getting closer to figuring out the Snake Dance Mystery

 The Mystery quilters had to make some stripsets for their homework after the first session. They all got them finished before class...these are from the first group.

 Their 4th clue was more HSTs and they worked on them diligently for about an hour and a half. I then stopped them to work on Clue 4.5, which was cutting up their strips sets.

 Such pretty little stacks of fabrics!

 This mystery group will get their final clue on Sat. and start working on putting the quilt together. I can't wait! I hope they like the quilt as much as I do. (I do sometimes worry that they won't think it lived up to the hype!)

The 2nd group met last night for their session two, and it was a great time. I forgot my camera, but luckily one of the ladies had hers, so she let me borrow it. She promised to send them to me and I will post them tomorrow. 

Quilting and more quilting....

What is it about quilting that attracts cats? I was sewing the backing sections together on Monday, and set them down at the machine to sew and Conrad came along and plopped right down on it. He wasn't too happy when I disturbed him to pull the fabric straight either!

 Sometimes when I am working on backs, I turn my whole kitchen counter into an ironing surface to make it go quicker using a small quilt and a clean sheet over it.  I pressed the top on it too. It works great.

 I got a few rows quilted. I am using the Leafage panto that I used on the mystery quilt. I think it will show up well on the borders and add some interest and texture.

 This low key variegated thread looks good with these fabrics.

Since school is out for the summer, I will have more time to quilt! I can't wait to get this one finished.

Weekend quilting

 I spent some time on Sunday binding the Snake Dance Mystery quilt. I had this striped fabric left over from another project and decided it matched my snake dance fabrics perfectly. Plus it looks really good with the back.

 Which is all you get to see today...but a bound quilt is a finished quilt.

When we stopped at Hobby Lobby on our shop hop on Sat. I found these melamine plates on clearance.  I have been collecting a few different dinner plates, all melamine, all different patterns. The chef plates really match my kitchen well, but I just got them because they are cute. Yep, that's reason enough.

I found this fabric at Quilters Haven Saturday and fell in love. I have been thinking about making Kaffe Fassett's Bicycle Wheel quilt for several years and this fabric will be perfect for the background.

 Some of the circles are very large...I put the roll of masking tape on top to show comparison.

 Here is a pic of the quilt in the book....lots of circles, but most of it is circular fabric. Only five big circles. It looks like fun!

 One of my daughter's gave me a gift card to Connecting Threads for Mother's Day. I have been drooling over some of their newer batiks, so it wasn't hard to pick what I wanted. Then I waited patiently by the mailbox until the box arrived.

 Yummmmmm.....

Love these colors and can't wait to start a project with them.

Today is my last day of school for this school year, so I will be doing the happy dance at Sampler Club tonight. I have lots of things to do this summer, so I guess I'd better start making a list now!

Our own Kansas City area shop hop...

For several years my retreat friends and I have driven to Kansas City for the Machine Quilter's Showcase. It was a lot of fun and something we looked forward to every spring. This year the show moved to Wichita,which is a little far for us to drive in a day, so we decided we would go to KC and do some shop hopping. Rose has navigation on her phone, so we used that to find our way around. 

Our first stop was Quilted Memories in Overland Park. It's a small shop chock full of fabrics. 

Pat has spied some green...she loves her greens!

As you can see from the first picture, they found many beautiful fabrics to take home!

Our next stop was  Harper's Fabric and Quilt Company, conveniently right across the street from Quilted Memories. They had a nice selection of modern quilting fabrics and lots of machines to try out.

Then on to  Addadi's Fabrics. When we pulled up in front of this shop,  they couldn't jump out of the van fast enough because they saw some exciting signs in the window....

This shop had a large collection of a little bit older fabrics at a great price. They also had a selection of  108" backing blenders that they wanted to make us a great deal on. We enjoyed chatting with the owners, a husband and wife team. After we got home, I looked up their website and found this cute story about how they met. 

Bags full, on to the next quilt shop!

As we drove to our next stop,  Prairie Point Quilts, we kept an eye on our surroundings for a good lunch spot....that's always an important part of any shop hop, right? This shop seemed to specialize in reproduction fabrics, but had something for everyone. As you can see, we managed to find some fabrics here too. We really know what to do on a shop hop, ok?

After lunch at Subway (fast so we could get back to shopping), our next stop was  Quilters Haven. As we walked up to this shop, they others got excited about it as they had been here before. It was a beautiful shop with lots of displays and modern fabrics. They told us about the last stop on our hop....

 Quilting Pits and Pieces. It's in Eudora, Ks, about 20 miles from the KC area and a wonderful shop. They had many displays and seemed to have a lot of hand work projects as well. We were fascinated with the twilling.

They had a huge supply of batiks...you know how I love batiks!

I got this cute cupcake pincushion for a gift. I fell in love with it!

We closed the shop, as we got there about 1/2 hour before closing time, and will definitely come back again.

We headed home after that, with a dinner stop planned in St. Joe on the way home. When we got there, we decided to go to Hobby Lobby too, since there was one a few blocks away. (We just couldn't stop shopping!) It was so much fun spending the day chatting and shopping! 

Yesterday I spent the day doing a little bit of this and that. I cleaned a bit, then cut the binding for the Snake Dance Mystery quilt. I got it bound, then cut out the background fabrics for a new design I'm working on. Then I worked in the garden for awhile. It is coming along, but not fast enough! I had to run to the store, so picked up some flowers for my pots and the front of the garden. They didn't have the tomatoes and peppers I like, so I need to go today and get those. It stormed during the night and is still raining this morning, so I probably can't plant today anyway, but I want to get them...if I don't watch out, there won't be any left! Enjoy your holiday! It's back to work for one more day for me tomorrow, and then summer break! I'm ready!