Grand Opening

Good morning, my friends. Well, I made good on my threat to attend the grand opening of the new quilt shop near my home. It was a sunny morning, which made it nice. I stopped off at the quilt shop, and then walked across the parking lot to the grocery store to pick up a couple of items we'd forgotten the day before. It was all very uplifting and convenient.

So, let's talk about the quilt shop: Bobbins and Bits. First, I hadn't planned to be there when the doors opened. When I saw this image on their Facebook page, I knew I'd chosen wisely. Life is too short to stand in line.

Instead, I chose to go down just after lunch when the crowd had cleared. And welcome! It must be exciting to turn on the "Open" sign for the first time.

Inside, it was bright and cheery. The supply of fabric was fairly limited. Mainly, it was bright colors and floral prints.

I was on the hunt for a background fabric to use for the Raggedy & Friends project. Also, I was keeping my eyes peeled for something to finish off the Kitchen Herbs quilt. I spotted this one within about a minute. I was wishing it came in green, but this was the only choice. I kept it in the back of my mind while I looked at the rest of their fabrics.

These colorful prints were pretty much all that was available. There were also some polka dots and stripes here.

At the back wall, they had a very nice supply of solids. Some of the gradations of color were so close, it was hard to tell any difference.

There were more on the other side.

On the shelves above, they had a couple of featherweights. These didn't appear to be for sale, although they do bill themselves as a "sewing machine" store in addition to being a quilt shop.

And look how cute this is. It was about 12 inches square.

It was available as a boxed kit from Riley Blake.

Oh, and cookies!!! One of my fellow shoppers agreed with me that it was probably illegal to walk past a tray of cookies without taking one. We took no chances, and we each snagged one.

To their right were these cute sewing chairs. The one with the cats...be still, my beating heart. If I could justify the expense, I'd have me one or two of these.

There is a "loft" area above the main floor. A sign pointing up the stairs identified it as a classroom. It would probably be a nice place to take a class.

So, I was glad I went, but look at this next picture. 

See at the far end of the shelves there on the right? They're empty. And, if you'll notice, the shelves with fabric are none too full either. The supply of fabric was very limited. I'm assuming they have more fabric on the way, but for now, it was hardly worth the trip down. There were no batiks, no juvenile prints, almost no novelty prints, and no pre-cuts. Interestingly, there is more shown on their website, but it wasn't visible inside the store. There weren't even any fat quarters cut. And the store is pretty small since the classroom takes up about 2/3 of the space available. Even if they fill all their shelves...even if they add more shelves...I don't see how this store can accommodate a large fabric inventory.

Since there were no fat quarters cut, I neglected to purchase anything for my Shop Hop quilt. I'll check back with them in a month or so, but they're going to have to stock more fabrics if they expect me to visit regularly. If there's fabric left from my the Kitchen Herbs section, I can use that in the Shop Hop quilt. So far, this new store is not even close to matching the inventory of my favorite local quilt shop. 

Nevertheless, it was worth the drive into town just so I could see these flowering plum trees in bloom. We have these lining our driveway at home too. At our elevation, ours are still weeks away from blooming.

So, I did purchase a few things at the quilt shop. I went back for the one on the right, pictured earlier. Then I chose a solid pink blender. On the left is the background fabric for my new embroidery project.

Back at home, I laid out the three completed embroidery blocks on the fabrics. I have in mind to first put a narrow green border around each block, and then I'll make up a sashing using the same background fabric I used for the embroidery. I have it all mapped out in my mind, but it will be at least a couple of weeks before I'm ready to sew this into a finished quilt top.

Okay so that was fun, even if it didn't meet my expectations. But now it was time to get busy quilting the Easter Egg table runner. I'd mulled over how to quilt the background, and I'd gone on a search to see how others had quilted it. It seemed the favorite choice was to stipple, and so that's what I did. I kept the same yellow thread that was already on the machine, and then I stitched a single yellow line around the inner edge of the border.

From there, it just needed a binding. Originally, I thought I'd use the same dark blue, but that seemed kind of boring. Instead, I went with this yellow polka dot.

Now it's sitting downstairs awaiting the arrival of my needle.

With background fabric in hand, I decided to get started tracing out the embroidered blocks for the Raggedy & Friends quilt. This will be my take-along project when we go to Alaska. My plan is to trace all the blocks and back them with stabilizer. It's a redwork piece, and I already have six skeins of the floss I'll need. The background is similar to what I'm using on Grandpa's Bridges, but this one is more on the white side, while the other is more cream-colored.

The whole quilt has 12 blocks. Nine of them have two embroidered sections, while three have just one.

I've set a goal for myself to trace the motifs for one block each day until I have them finished. At that rate, I should have them all done in about two weeks' time, and hopefully, I won't drive myself crazy in the process. So I started with this one:

Cute. I love the Raggedys. I love them almost as much as I love sock monkeys. This reminds me of one of my favorite Erik-as-a-baby stories. He had one of those stuffed monkeys that wears baby shoes and has a plastic face. (Searches The Google for an image.)

He liked it so much, and so as a meddling mom, I'm thinking...well, he might like a Raggedy Andy! So I took him to Toys 'R Us. He was sitting in the shopping cart, and I took a Raggedy Andy off the shelf and set it in the seat beside him. Without a moment's hesitation, Erik (about 18 months old) took the Raggedy Andy by the arm and threw him about 20 feet. Oke-kay. So, no Raggedy Andy. Got it.

Next up, this one:

Tracing these will fit well with the next project on my list...quilting Jericho's Walls. I'm still trying to decide what to do here, but I'm going to have to make up my mind soon.

The bulk of my sewing time today will be spent hand-stitching the binding for the Easter Egg table runner, but I'll take a look at this quilt today and make some decisions. I'm pretty well sold on using black thread. As for the design...that's still up in the air.

Okay, so breakfast is finished. Right now I'm going to work on stitching the fourth of four blocks for the Kitchen Herbs quilt. I expect to finish it today. After that, I'll get to work on the table runner binding. There are a couple of other things on my to-do list, but it's going to be a mostly sewing day. We're expecting some nicer weather next week. I'm hoping to get outside and do some more weeding. Also, I need to deadhead the hydrangeas. The season moves along, ready or not.