2009 Quilt Shop Hop

The Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop was once again last Wednesday through Sunday. My mom and I visited 13 shops on Wednesday, and another 7 on Thursday. We visited shops in Lynden, Bellingham, Anacortes, Everett, Bellevue, Renton, Des Moines, and some in between.

The shop hop included about 60 stores in the state that created 8.5" blocks from a collection of fabric designed just for this event. Each shop uses 3

pieces of fabric, one of them a coordinate of their choosing that is not part of the collection. We both liked this year's fabric, but weren't crazy about the main flower and butterfly print. One of the first shops we visited (Fourth Corner Quilts in Bellingham) had used the collection and added several bright prints of their choosing, which we loved! We bought a few half yards there to split and make our quilt with.

My favorite shops were:

• Forth Corner Quilts, Bellingham
• The Quilting Loft, Ballard
• Quiltworks Northwest, Bellevue
• Keepsake Cottage Fabrics, Bothell

One of my goals on the shop hop was to find enough sock monkey fabric to make a crib set with. I knew this would be difficult because that line of fabrics came out about 4-5 years ago. I ended up finding enough, picking up different pieces at about 6 different shops. Some of them were even on sale!

I also found the following exciting fabrics!

Paddington Bear & Eric Carle's Brown Bear - The Paddington fabric was half off and perfect for some other Paddington fabrics I've been accumulating slowly for a kids quilt. The Brown Bear fabric will work well for a baby quilt gift.

Anna Maria Horner Flowers - I've had my eye out for this fabric for a while as well. It's from an older line of Anna Maria's fabric, but it will be perfect for the couch throw pillows I'm planning to make!

And lastly, I found some cute patterns!

(Can you believe this is my 50th post?!)

Birthday Birdie Sling

I was given a super cute Amy Butler purse pattern and a gift certificate for fabric for my birthday that I finally had the time to make! It turned out to be pretty easy. I pulled it out on a Sunday afternoon and finished it up the following morning. As always, the cutting (my least favorite part) took the longest.

I made a couple changes to the directions. I used a third fabric for the straps, rather than using the same color as the band around the top of the purse. Also, I added a magnetic snap to the band as a way of closing the top of the bag.

So far this purse has been the best I've made yet. It's deep and has large pockets. My favorite part is that it has one wide strap, rather than 2 narrow ones, which usually make my shoulder and neck hurt. The side is great because there's enough room to toss in a sweater and my knitting.

New Bling

I've had this piece for a necklace for a while, but kept waiting to use it because I was afraid I'd mess up the length of the necklace or something silly like that. My cousin's wedding was this last Saturday, and I knew it would match my dress well, so I ended up stringing it and making earrings to match!

The Icarus Scarf

I've finally finished this crocheted scarf! It turned out to be an easy project that I could carry with me to work on whenever I had a minute or just wanted to enjoy the sun.

The Icarus Scarf pattern came from The Purl Bee. I didn't use the silk yarn she did, but I managed to find some decent (and 75% less expensive) yarn at Hilltop Yarns in Bellevue. I used a size G, 4.00mm hook and it came out great!

Of course my kitties had to involve themselves somehow, so they managed to keep the yarn on the swift for me as I converted it into balls. However, the fast spinning motion made them all squinty.