Spring Shop Hop Goodies

This weekend was the spring shop hop locally. For the past few years this has been a small affair as there have only been three shops locally. But they teamed up with three shops a little farther away and it seemed to be more traffic. I sure hope it worked for them. Personally, I still only shopped at the three locals, I just couldn’t fit an hour drive on the highway into our plans, and I wasn’t up to going it alone.

I went with a shopping list and managed to stick to it , mostly. And spaced it out so I was only at one shop per day.

The first one, called Bee  - Modern Fabrics. White on white and some black/white’s. A whole 4 metres of the white on white because I”m thinking of doing another Film at Five.
Each store had a free gift and a free pattern. Bee’s was a bamboo reusable shopping bag. (coincidently with their name on it).


Saturday I nipped over to the shop in my town, Kindred Spirits. Who give a nice new ruler as a gift and a neat chevron pattern. I went off the list there and picked up a flannel on the clearance rack that I thought would work for some backs I need. Plus two batiks that were on my list.

 And Sunday, we drove out to the farthest away. They give a nice pair of scissors. I picked up a few supplies there as well as fabric but will be returning some. The black and white I grabbed without looking closely and has a tan in it as well. And the pink thread that I grabbed without careful consideration turns out to be polyester intended to be embroidery or top-stitching,  I think, not the quilting thread I wanted.
And this is why the batiks and black & whites. Bonnie’s Jellybean Blast block from the vol.7 of Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks magazine.
 
The full quilt is now on the cover of the latest edition of the magazine, so I pulled out the 100 blocks mag and started a test block with some of the batiks I was given for mother’s day. Love it, but the jelly roll didn’t have enough variety in the purple or yellow.
And what about the Kissing Fish pattern that I was making with them?

I have gotten this far with it. Just not loving it and decided to call it a day and put it together ( blocks aren't sticking very well to the new design wall). Using 4.5" HST for the edges. The original pattern called for a complicated two block arraignment, with squares sticking out the edges and then trimming them down, not happening. Just sewing the rows together on the diagonal.