Middle of the Mitten Shop Hop

Every once in a while I get a crazy idea in my head and I've had a lot of those lately!

My most recent quilt-related crazy idea was to travel to Michigan with my Mom and sister to visit my youngest sister, and "on the way" (which was WAY out of the way - I'm bad with directions!) we'd participate in the Middle of the Mitten Shop Hop. 

There were 8 quilt shops on this hop, and it was a LONG drive...about 300 miles (approx. 475 km) from the first store to the last (plus driving to and from Ontario, Canada to the middle of Michigan in the USA). We pretended we were on the Amazing (Quilt) Race - left home Wednesday after work, and returned home on Friday night. We managed to find our way to each store, stayed overnight Wednesday at my sister's, and then slept overnight in East Tawas on Thursday night.

These are the gifts we received from various stores along the way. When your star matched another customer's or staff member's star you could get a free Fat Quarter and that was fun.

One of the best things about this shop hop was to see the 8 quilts at each store that used the same block patterns with 8 different settings. At each store we received one of the block patterns for the shop hop quilt, except somehow I did not get block #6. I'm sure I can figure it out using EQ or maybe my sister will find her copy. There were draws at each store for various gift baskets and a grand prize draw for $800 in gift certificates, but so far I haven't heard that I am the winner.

And of course I did some serious shopping!

I found quite a few pieces for my son's guitar quilt...don't have a design in mind, but am collecting fabrics for it. The majority of these novelty fabrics were found at the Material Mart in Midland.

I picked up a few FQ's to go into my Saturday Sampler blocks and think I have enough fabric now for several of these quilts!

I love these Presencia threads and treated myself to a few of those...they are like candies...who can resist them?!? And I picked up a few little supplies when I spotted them here and there.

But my main goal was to collect fabrics for a new quilt for my 14 year old niece. I got the paint sticks from when she redecorated her room and took those with me on the shop hop, trying to get a couple FQ's at each store.

This is what I collected and I can see from this photo that some of the selections will likely not make it into this quilt, but may get sewn into the backing!!

And a few more odds and ends...some fabric for the border of this quilt, some basketball fabric for my nephew's tshirt quilt, a new Moda fabric that I like and just needed for no apparent or logical reason, a couple of B & W's that were cheap, and a floral quilt kit that I picked up at the Quilted Cottage to make for a donation quilt.

And that's the damage! 

Lots of fun, but too much driving for this old gal!