Stash Report

On Saturday I gave you a little quilt shop tour of Lou Ann’s Quilt Garden in Oelwein where we held our retreat.  Today I’m going to show you what I bought.

I’m super excited about the quilt book.  It’s Spelling Bee by Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet.  I’ve been looking at that at night before I go to bed trying to figure out what I want to make.  I like so many of the things.  (I’ll do a review of the book coming up. ) I also bought fabric and a quilt kit.

Grays have been my new focus fabric.  I don’t have many of them at all and I know that Bonnie Hunter will have a quilt in her new book that features gray so I’ve started collecting.  These are only 1/4 yard cuts…perfect for a scrappy quilt.  The fabric with the bikes and chicken on the left, there is more of that.  I just loved it.  What I’ll do with it, I have no idea!  There some “Iowa” fabric in the mix too.

I saw one of the retreaters as she was sitting and sewing and saw that she had a great white based fabric with colorful diamonds.  I loved it.  She had gotten it from the quilt shop so I walked right over to find some of my own.  I’ve told you that I rarely buy more than a 1/4 yard cut but with this one and it’s partner in black, I bought 1 1/2 yard cuts thinking that for a baby quilt, I might need more for a sashing.

Then I bought this kit.  I so rarely make a kit…but the buying spirit was in me.  It’s kind of funny how I bought it.  It started with me liking these fabrics.

Then Lou Ann showed me the quilt on the frame that she was quilting as it used all the fabrics.  Then she showed me the pattern and just like that, I wanted one.  I rarely make a quick and easy quilt and this one was just that and something about that sounded really refreshing.

Lou Ann had didn’t have them completely kitted yet so I told her to finish cutting the kit for me and I’d be back to get it.  When I came back, she explained that her quilt was a little different than the original.  She had added another border.  So I went on the hunt back to the fabric rack and auditioned fabrics for what I’d like for my outer border.  In the process I found two I liked and ended up getting enough of both.  I won’t use both but the other will be used for a baby quilt.  I fell in love with both fabrics….what’s a girl to do?

Can you believe I ended up going back over to the shop yet again and yet again I bought something else for the quilt.  I decided I wanted an outer gray border on the outside to finish it off.  Oh my.

The next day I was back to Lou Ann’s and asked if I could take quilt shop tour pictures.  Lou Ann said sure.  As I was taking them she told me about a couple things in the shop including that there was a rack of half priced fabric.  As I was looking I saw the key fabric.  I thought it would be perfect for the quilt….so you guessed it, I bought it.  So now I have a complete quilt kit.  See?

Want to hear something funny?….I took my kit over to the retreat center and put it by my sewing machine.  Two other people ended up going over and buying the a kit too….and on the last day, Kelli bought the bundle of the colored prints that go in the kit.

How crazy is that Lou Ann sold at least three quilt kits for a quilt she didn’t even have finished!

Right now I have the kit on the island in the kitchen.  I am going to cut out the kit sometime in the near future and hope to get sewing on it.  The top is so easy I am sure I could make it in a day!  I love the fabrics for it.

So needless to say, I did do a little buying at the quilt shop.  This is why I so rarely go to quilt shops.  I spend too much!!  It sure was fun though and I don’t have a bit of buyer’s remorse.