Well, I finished my tour of the Bay Area Quilt Shops that participated in the Shop Hop. I put about 400 miles on my car and only got lost a couple of times and that was mostly due to the fact that the shops were tucked away in some odd-ball shopping center with bad signage.
For the most part, I liked the shops, however, doing a Shop Hop in California was very different than Shop Hops that I have done when in Texas. For one thing, the shops in California did not seem to have quite the hoopla as the Texas ones did. It was more of a "oh, you are doing the shop, yeah they'll stamp your passport back there." Of course that may have also been because I was going on Thursday and Friday rather than on the weekend when most people were probably participating. The other thing that I found to be interesting was the Shop Hop quilt that the shops worked together to create. Here they did a block exchange with each of the shops and then the shops set those however they wanted to. In Texas, the shops came together and designed a full quilt then each shop put it together based on their own color choices. The Texas quilts were actually much more fun and exciting. I have to say that the shops in Texas are also different. Yeah, they all sell fabric, and kits, and tools and what not, but the ones in Texas had their own "flair" their own "flavor"; the shops in California all seemed to be cut from the same cloth, if I can use that analogy.
Now on to what I got out of the trip... I bought stuff, duh!! I picked up a couple of new books with some new quilt ideas, which I'm very excited about getting started on. I also picked up some patterns with people in mind. I'm very much looking forward to getting started on all of my new projects. I just have to finish my current one first. I have two sections left on my psychedelic sampler that I'm working on from a Shop Hop in Texas (I'll post a picture as soon as I have all the parts together). It really is so much more interesting than the patterns from my Shop Hop this past weekend. Oh well, I'll make that quilt as well and donate it or something....
That has been about all I've done this weekend. Shop Hopped and sewed. Not too exciting, but it is my life and this weekend was a good weekend...
3 comments:
That sounds like a good weekend to me!
No surprise here that Texas is better than Cali ;)
I so should've loaned you Carmen for the excursion. From our venture to Chinatown we know how invaluable she can be!
I thought about asking to borrow it as I drove in circles around downtown Pacific Grove and then again in the dicey district of Hollister. Hard to believe that there is a dicey district in Hollister, CA!!
Fun...fun...fun!! Can't wait to see pictures!!
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