Monday, March 21, 2011

First Shop Hop, Or: A Brief Introduction to Mud Season in VT

I'm hooked!  Shop hopping was SO FUN!!  My mom came up from Texas to hop in VT with me this past weekend, and we had such a blast!!

This hop had 17 (!!) shops, spread out over the whole state of VT (which sounds like not much since it's a small state, but a lot of the roads are backwoods and windy, and while they're beautiful, they're also not always terribly well-marked...)

http://vermontshophop.com/index.htm
So there's the shop hop map.  Originally, we'd planned to hit maybe 9 of the shops, if we were really ambitious.  It turned into an adventure and we ended up hitting 12 total.  Day 1 took us from point A through point E ("home"...more on that later).  Day 2 took us from point E through point L ("home" again).  And finally, day 3 took us from point L through point Q.  We actually only drove past point P, but it was integral in getting us back on the right road to get us home, so I left it on the map. 


View Larger Map

I'm having issues uploading pictures from my phone right now, and I don't have the majority of the pics (on my mom's camera), so these will have to suffice for the time being. 

 The spoils of war.  A new book, 5 total yards (20 FQs) of Civil War fabric, probably 10 total yards of batiks (all in FQs, including the shop hop fabrics), and 2 or so total yards of animal print fabrics which I'll need to get better pics of later.  There were some other misc purchases/free FQs as well. 
 One of my favorite quilts.  So fun!

I liked the colors on this one.

UPDATE: A few more pictures (in no particular order):

 The shop project from the last shop.  The star parts are all the shop hop fabrics (which I don't have a good picture of, but will get tonight...promise!)
 I love the modern, blocky feel of this.  It's simple but powerful. 
 Quilts quilts quilts.
 This one store had over 5000 bolts of flannel alone!  They also had thousands of fat quarter bundles...most were in the $45 for 17 range, but I snagged one (a Civil War one) for $35 for 20! Inspiration for that one is coming.
 More bundles.
 Most of the shops were little houses converted into shops.  Love love love.
 Here are 4 of the 6 SH fabrics, but still not a great picture.
 Inspiration for the CW quilt.  There are 121 blocks, and I'm going to make them all...eventually.  I figure I'll QAIG and do a block here and there when I have time/inspiration.  Have I mentioned my sewing room needs serious reorging?
 Cute cute placemats.
 More inspiration.
 I loved this one!  I'm starting to think my next endeavors are going to be sampler quilts.
 This was called something like "butterfly house"...you're looking into the butterflies' home, from the window.  Can you see the shutters and clapboards?
 More inspiration.
One of the stores was a bar converted into a shop!  LOVED IT!  There were even still booths for the menfolk to take a break, and the quilts were hung from glass racks! 

There are dozens more where those came from, but for now this will have to suffice.  I've got big plans for the fabrics I got (3 whole new quilts came out of this weekend!  At least!) so stay tuned for design walls galore.  I also need to reorganize my sewing room...anyone want a treadmill??

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