End of the Hop

It was hard to tear myself away from the Let's RV cross stitch yesterday. I kept telling myself to stop and get moving, but I was unsuccessful until I'd stitched it this far.

Satisfied that I'd filled in enough of the hoop, I moved it to the left. When I took it off the piece, it looked like this.

This morning, it looks like this, and that's where I'll pick it up after I finish here.

It was time to get going. There were errands to run and groceries to buy. When I got back, there were deliveries at the door. Recently, I decided to organize one of the cupboards in the house by adding a lazy susan. In my shopping, I found a lazy susan with three-inch sides. Here's the thing: With an RV, one is always worried about things falling over when one goes down the road. To that end, I've always carried tall bottles in the green basket you see in the image below.

As with any new domicile, whether it be on wheels or solid ground, what worked in the old place doesn't always work in the new place. This cupboard was really unacceptably difficult to deal with. When I saw the lazy susan with sides, I thought it was the answer to my prayers. So I braved the icy cold winds and walked down to the RV to see if I could tidy up the space, and it worked like a charm.

And phew! I feel so much better now, don't you?

Having allayed my anxiety about the messy cupboard, it was time to get to work finishing off the Shop Hop quilt. There were just three blocks left. This first one was from a kind of special shop. We were visiting Colonial Williamsburg. It's such a fun place to visit. Colonial Williamsburg is a step back in time, visiting a town where folks are dressed in period costume and engaging in period tasks. Here, these gentlemen were making beer, if I'm remembering correctly.

As it turns out, there was a quilt shop there. You can read my blog post about it right here. Interestingly, when I looked back at that post, I note the name on the front of the shop is "Mary Dickenson."

I took my embroidered name off the receipt from the place, and so I have no explanation for the difference. Whatever. It was great fun shopping there, and of course I had to purchase some fabric.

The next one was from one of the shops I visited while spending the day with my friend, Robin, touring the quilt shops of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. You might remember Robin as the mom of The Emperor.

This shop was the last one we visited on our day, and I selected this fabric as a remembrance of my time with Robin. Do you see The Emperor there?

Sadly, The Emperor crossed over the rainbow bridge this past year. Robin has some new kitties to keep her busy now. Meet Coal and Miner:

From what Robin tells me, these two are hell on wheels...or paws...or whatever. Their pawtrait coming soon. (I have to do my two grandkittens first.)

Finally, I was to the last block...this one from Sew Classic Fabrics in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This one is from the second quilt shop we visited in Harrisonburg. You can read my blog post about our day right here. I chose this lady bug fabric because we'd been plagued by lady bugs in the RV since leaving Winnepeg in Canada. I don't know if we picked them up in Winnepeg or if it just happened to be a good year for lady bugs. Whatever the case, we were finding dozens every day for several weeks.

This was a fun shop. It was a little hard to find it since it was located inside a mall. What I remember most about this shop was the background music that was playing. The shopkeeper was a woman wearing a traditional Mennonite cap, and she was playing some beautiful arrangements of church hymns. I'm not a religious person, but I was raised in the church, and I still love some of the music. The piece playing while I was there was this one...a favorite of mine. If you can't see the video, then click right here.

Okay, and so I was enjoying the music so much, it was hard to leave. It looks like this shop is still in business. You can find its web presence right here.

So then, the only thing left to do was to sew the blocks onto the rest of the quilt, and here it is...a finished flimsy. It ends up at 78 x 78 inches.

There was still time left in the day, and so I made a back from this fabric...which I happen to think is perfect.

And now, it has taken its place on the quilts-to-be-quilted pile. Possibly I'll get to it this fall.

So that was the end of my sewing day. Today I'll be working on blocks. My friend Sally over at Objects of Design has created the cutest kitty block for Tiny Tuesday. I'll be making that one. Also, I want to make a block for the new Garden Sunshine Block of the Month kicking off at Quilt Doodle Doodles. This BOM has a fabric line associated with it, but I'm going to use my own scraps. 2019 is the year of scraps in my sewing room. It's become urgent that I deal with them or risk being smothered to death by fabric. If there's still time left in the day, I'll make the next row of blocks for the Mulligan Stew quilt.

There's lots to do today. Fortunately, Mr. Smithers awakened me at 4:00 a.m. so that I could get an early start. He'll just nap right here while I do my work.