East Tennessee Shop Hop 2020

East Tennesse Shop Hop Shop list

This year's shop hop got delayed a little. It had 10 shops participating. Two of the shops did double blocks instead of one so they can have a total of 12 blocks for the hop. One of the shops from last year decided not to participate and one of last year's shops closed. That did keep me from having to drive all the way out to Jamestown, but I did make the trip to Johnson City.

Downtown Johnson City

We split this up into three days. We were going to do more on day two but were a little tight on the budget so that trip was rescheduled.

The hop was originally scheduled for June but was rescheduled and extended due to COVID. This year's theme was "Blooming Blue in Tennesse" featuring the Leah collection by the Beginning Fabrics. The blocks were designed by Marti Michell. It looks like an exclusive pattern for the shop hop because I was trying to see if the overall sampler had a name but I couldn't find one. The individual blocks do have names.

Outdoor Gallery in Johnson City

Sat July 12tn

• Little Blessings - Crossville - 4 Curtain Call & 7 Center Stage
• Loose Threads -Harriman - 2 Blowing in the Wind
• Gina's Bernina - Knoxville  - 8 Folsom Favorite

Mon July 13tn

• Twisted Sisters - Maryville - 9 Crossed Tower



Mural and Flowers at Cafe in
Johnson City

• Dizzy Diva - Knoxville - 6 Tempest in a Teapot

Sat July 18th

• Bernina in Stitches - Johnson City - 5 Sukey's Corners
• Sewing Bee- Jonesborough - 11 This kit is being mailed to me so I don't have the name.
• Tennessee Quilts- Jonesborough - 12 Junior Rockets & 3 Big Top
• Cherry Pitt- Sevierville - 1 Rolling Along
• Mountain Stitches by Susan- Gatlinburg - 10 Hearts Among the Stars

Mom's Haul

Overall I got to explore some of the areas I didn't stop to look at last year and had a fun road trip with mom. Both of us ended up with a massive haul. I can't say I'll ever have as massive a haul as I did from Quiltcon Last year but this was fantastic.

I was going to turn my passport in at Gina's but since that shop is the closest to mom I decided to have her turn hers in there and I turned mine into Susan's.

My fabric haul

December Recap

I forgot to take photos of the 9 patch potholders.

I had a busy month of making for Christmas. First Saturday's Fiber Review at the Fiberology lab I was able to show off my candy block potholder and mug rug, as well as a square Christmas potholder I had made. I had a pack of mini charms that was from a Christmas collection a few years ago. I don't even remember how I got the pack now, but I decided it was the best time to use them up. I made a 9 patch block for the front and a pocket for the back. By the end of the month, I had made 15 potholders total with the candy blocks and the Christmas 9 patches. I gave them out to family, friends, and co-workers for Christmas. I also gave away two table toppers I had made and a small quilt. Tis the season for giving and I enjoyed sharing my hard work.

I also worked a bit on a snowflake cross stitch along from Stitchonomy. I admit I haven't' finished that one, but I did have fun while I could work on it. I also still have the pattern to work on later. Cross stitching is one of my hobby's I don't do very often.

Another project I started working on was a block in a block quilt. It's not got a name yet. I've run out of my background fabric, so I'm waiting to get some more before I take a photo. It's got a bright turquoise solid fabric I got from Joann's as my background. Last time I went on black Friday the fabric line it came from was on sale, but they didn't have any of that color left. Once I finish it, I plan on writing a pattern for it. I think it came out beautifully, but I may be biased since I created it.

Speaking of Black Friday, I mostly hit fabric stores. I got some solids on sale at Joann's and my local quilt shop had a progressive sale going on. I picked up a panel and two accent fabrics from the same line. I also stopped at Ulta and picked up a few beauty steals. Most of those went into Christmas presents for the family. I only kept the blush and the mascara from the picture to the right.

Overall the month was fun and busy. I got to spend lots of quality time with the family and give several of them handcrafted goodies.

I'm going to break from my tea routine for this post and bring out the Spirits. My cousin was in town and we toured some distilleries in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. I picked up some flavored moonshine and a spiced Christmas wine. I had the wine on Christmas day with my cousin and her family. The moonshine came from two distilleries. From Ole Smokey in the Island area of Pigeon Forge, I picked up a Chocolate Chili moonshine. It was part of the last batch, so they didn't have any open for tasting anymore. From Tennessee Legend Distillery I got a Fiery Mango Margarita Moonshine. It's a nice spicy-sweet blend that is worth drinking as shots. The wine was from Mountain Valley Winery. It's a limited edition Winterfest red. The winery is part of a wine trail, that I suggest visiting if you get a chance. When you visit all the wineries, you get a free glass.

Quiltcon 2019 Nashville Experience

#QCGreetingsfromNashville

So for my first Quiltcon experience I loved it. Now as said this isn't my first show but one of the biggest I've been to. But this is the first one to feature exclusively modern designs. I loved the experience and was very happy to get a chance to go. I only had one day and bit of a drive to get there. The weather was terrible. It rained very hard all day all over Tennessee. All the way there we had flood warnings going off like crazy.

Getting there we first went to the vendor area. Now all the quilts in the show are in front of that but I wanted to get to certain booths to make sure I got some things I was looking for. We spent the majority of the time in this area. I got tons of deals and great patterns. I made sure I went by the Soak booth and picked up two bottles of flatter. When I went by the Pink Door Fabrics booth Tula Pink was there. The crowd was crazy and I didn't really want to stand in line, so I did not get to meet her. I did go back to the booth and got a pattern I had been looking at before.

One of the first few booths I visited was the Sewing Party booth. I met the designer of the "Rose for my Boyfriend" quilt pattern and was able to see the original one done for the magazine. I also showed them a photo of mine and they asked me to email it to them so they can post it on their Instagram! I love sharing my quilts and am so happy the designer liked mine.

One of the fun things about the show is they had a lot of areas you can sit and sew. They had booths that were doing charity quilt blocks. They give you a pattern and you can go through scraps and sit down and sew the block for them. These blocks will go into a quilt that will be sold for charity.

They also had a hand stitching area where you got to try out a free hand stitching design provided by sulky. It was printed on a dissolving interface so you can put the guide on and not worry about it messing up the final look. This was a nice area to go visit cause I was really exhausted and needed a bit of time to rest. Also this lead me to go back to the sulky booth for another free design. I found glow in the dark thread that was a must have.

After that it was time to go through the quilts. They had a collection of antique quilts and a collection of youth quilts that were both very interesting. There was a feature of quilts using a mix of fibers like faux fur or knitting. I also got to meet a few of the people with quilts in the show walking around.

Afterwards we went to the Flying Saucer for dinner. I have been to this place before. It's a pub/taphouse type place that has tons beers and ciders on tap as well as in cans and bottles available. I have been trying to do a low carb diet so I did not get one of the ciders that I wanted to but did get a burger. Mom's sandwich ended up being too spicy for her so we swapped what we got.

In all the trip was a success. Mom and I had a huge bag of stuff to split when we got home and I've got a lot of new projects to add to my to do list. I have sprinkled pictures through the post of the different things I saw but I also have more photos available on google photos.

Panels

I've a collection of a few panels. I can't help myself. I see them in the store or in magazine samples and I want to do THAT quilt so bad. I get them and pull together some accent fabrics. I take them home with all the intention of working up a great panel quilt. And that's as far as they get. I

 have the fabrics and panels in my stash and they get buried with the next one. I will admit to having a bit of ADD when it comes to thinking of, starting and finishing quilts. My finished ones are very few and far between compared to what I have waiting. So here are some of the great panels I have, excluding what I went over in a few of my recent posts.

• Natural Thicket by Gingiber. Woodland Critters that's what drew me to it, but Alas I don't know what to do with this thing. I've got it in the pile to find ideas for.

• Geisha Woodprint blocks. This is one that I got from a friend. She got it in a thrift store in Florida but I believe it's by Kona Bay Fabrics. Every time I go to their website it says it's inaccessible so I can't look up manufacturer information. This is another beautiful panel that I've not made up my mind on what I want to do with it. Hopefully I'll come up with something soon.

• Cat-i-tude by Ann Lauer for Benartix. I have a couple of fabrics already picked to go into a project with the panel. I just haven't planned it out. I love cats and the jewel tones in this one is gorgeous. This was one of the panels I got from my recent shop hop post. 
• Van Gogh Iris Panel by Robert Kaufman Fabrics Another much beloved artist. I do love when paintings are turned into something I can use. I don't know what I'm going to do with this either but I have two panels to play with once I figure it out. 

• Haunted House Panel. This is one I got as part of a shop hop back in 2016. It was a fun trip with mom with 4 shops in Oak Ridge, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. I got a quilt pattern at my last shop on this trip and have started it. So this is a bit of a WIP. I'll have more details about the fabrics and the panels once I get the WIP post started for this one. 
  
• Day at the Museum Impressionist panel. I actually only saw the degas square when I had to have this. My cousin has a print of one of Degas's paintings at our house. I've always loved his techniques. Again don't know what I'm going to do but it will be fun when I figure it out. 
  
• Santoro Gift of Friendship Panel by Kori Kumi. I found this one while on a shop hope and couldn't pass up how cute it was. I did start trying to figure out what I wanted to do and then got distracted and put it away. I was unhappy with what I had started to do and unfortunately haven't had the motivation to go back. This is slightly a WIP but I need to give myself a fresh look. I love these sweet panels and want to do something with them.
  
• Santoro The Traveler By Kori Kumi. Another so cute panel, this one I split the panel with my mom so I only have half the squares. I picked it up at my local shop. I want to do a separate project with it and not use it with the other Kori Kumi I have. I think I picked up more accent fabrics that was part of it's collection. 
  
• Crab Shack Panel by Two Can Art for Andover. This one I got lots of fabrics to do something with because I had picked it up on a shop hop and making a project with the panel had been on my mind. I just don't know the lay out yet and I've always tried waiting until I finish a project to start it. Then I forget that it's there waiting for me. I put it in my reorganized project piles so hopefully it will get something done to it this year. This will have to be another project planning/ WIP post soon.

Today's tea is Harney & Son's Royal Palace tea. I made a mistake of getting a glass at Barnes and Noble Cafe and then had to have it. I did end up buying two tins because they had a special on two for $15 when they're regularly $10 a piece. It's a Earl Grey with lemon. I've never had lemon in my earl grey but I do like it. This one is part of their Historic Palaces Collection. It is part of a charity that takes care of the royal palaces.

Shop Hop Saturday

Big Pile of fabric

JoAnn's haul

Last weekend I did a bit of a shop hop with my mom. It wasn't anything strictly planned but that's what it turned into. Mom and I actually started it with a stop at Tuesday Morning and Joann's on Friday. I got a pinwheel by Benartix for half off at Tuesday Morning and a few fun fabrics from JoAnn's. They had a Van Gogh panel for 30% off and I got a cute sushi fabric.

Mountain Creek Quilt Shop haul

Saturday's quest actually started with my recent obsession at searching online for Japanese fabrics. I'd been researching Nippori Fabric town and have been watching too many YouTube videos about it (way too many click the links). I plan to go one day. The main plan was to go to Mountain Creek shop in Greenback because they have a bin of salesmen samples. They fill it up every once in a while and will have Japanese import fabrics. I got some pieces from Food Land by Leicen. They're small but enough to use as accent pieces for a table topper or lap quilt. Sorry the photos blurry but I got a few fat eights and some cute frog and mushroom fabric. I have so many ideas for this I don't know where to start. I also got a cute pair of scissors that is pen shaped. I saw someone using it in a journaling video and was so happy to find it.

Twisted Sister's Haul

Since Maryville is so close and it's been awhile since we went to the shop there we decided to visit Twisted Sisters. They have moved to a new space since I was last there and it's huge in comparison. It's like they have a labyrinth of quilting fabric. The parking situation is so much better also. I wasn't terrified of running into things on the narrow area they had before. Here I got a panel from the Cat-i-tude collection which I just saw in a magazine the night before. Panels had been 20% off so I scored a deal. Also ransacked their clearance section for fantastic deals. I got some Art Gallery Fabrics that I had passed up before because of their price. If you're ever in the area I suggest going just to see how big this shop is.

Gina's Haul

So Much Fabric

The final stop after lunch was also a why not. Mom lives in Knoxville close to Gina's Bernina. I love this shop. It's always got something new and surprising. They also had a sale going on. Surprise! For all the sales we hit I had no clue any of them were going on. I got only a few things from this shop because well I had a big stack already. I did get a cool USA panel in black and white. I also had a package of fat quarters from Missouri Star when I got home.

With all this fabric I've got a few projects thought out. I am going to do some pre-plans soon and sort my existing stash.