SoCal Quilters Run

Tomorrow's the last day of the '09 Quilters Run, but I'm finished. We managed to get to all of the stores in area 4 (12) and all of the stores in area 2 (11+1 highjacker), then I was coerced into stopping at one more store -- Stars & Scraps in Corona -- for a grand total of 25 stores in 10 days. I'm pretty sure I won't be attempting anything like this again. The 'highjacker' store was a new store that posted signs & a young woman at a streetcorner, all to lure Runners into their clutches. I was willing to visit the store, but didn't even take my wallet in, just knowing it wouldn't be worth the effort. Wrong! It was Cranberry Quiltworks, whose booth I'd visited last year at the Loma Linda quilt show. I bought 2 kits there, and they're both finished! What a treat to see the brand-new store, stocked with some great, fresh fabrics and patterns. Definitely worth the detour.

I'm not going to flame any of the lesser stores, but we really enjoyed Flying Geese in Tustin, and The Fabric Patch in Montclair. Favorites in the San Diego area were Cozy Quilt shop in El Cajon and The Crazy 9 Patch in Ramona. Of course, closer to home are the Quilters Coop in Temecula, and my personal local quilt shop, Temecula Quilt Company, both of which are terrific shops.

We had a great time over the 4 days it took to get to all these far-flung places, and I got to see a lot of places I'd never been before.....not to mention my first time driving the Ortega highway. Yikes. I didn't tell my passengers it was my first time until we'd descended in Orange County.

I'm having a hard time deciding which of my purchases is my favorite. I'm tending toward the new June Tailor ruler that has 1/2" slits, with lines to square-up blocks up to 6" -- plenty big enough for most of what I do. Or maybe it's the fabric I bought for a special relative's birthday present. Or, it might be the gift I bought for a friend's birthday. There were some great patterns in my shopping bag, too. Patterns for little quilts, runners, bags & even a couple of big quilts. So much fun, so much laughter, so many miles, so many quilts, so little time. Very satisfying.

SoCal Quilters' Run!

OK....I procrastinate. I admit it. BUT!

I've been exercising with Linda every other day in her pool. The woman is a hard taskmaster, but I've actually begun looking forward to those sessions & feel so virtuous afterward. Yay us!

AND We did 1/3 of the Quilters' Run over the last 2 weekends, ending with 6 San Diego Co. shops yesterday. I'm whipped! It was a lot of fun, even though I was totally unprepared: no bars, no snacks, no camera -- what was I thinking? So I don't have pictures for you, but I will tell you about our favorite shops. And the adorable charms the shops were giving out -- too cute. Check out the charms at my flickr badge.

Our very favorite of all the stores we visited (13/39) was Cozy Quilts in El Cajon (www.cozyquilt.com) where we laughed till we cried, Elaine got a sweet deal on a new Bernina with bsr, & we were fed chocolate chip cookies, warm from the oven!!! How could we not love this place & these women, I ask you?!? This was the best fun we had at any of the stores, & we did have a lot of fun on this run, I assure you.

There were only a couple of clinkers in the bunch, but I won't bore you with those. I'll just tell you that the best non-machine deals to be had were at Temecula Quilt Co, where sweet Nicolette gently coerced us into buying the darling mini-bundles to make the wonderful little quilts in the booklet. Ten bucks for the booklet, ten bucks for the bundle & the backing muslin was thrown in as a bonus. Of course I came home with several, & I have it on good authority that the owner of another shop actually made a special trip to TQC to collect some of this tiny goodness for herself! True Bill!

There is one San Diego County store that I've now visited twice, & I won't be going back. I just didn't feel the love either time, so too bad, so sad. If ever there was a time for the staff to put themselves out for their customers, it would be during the Run, but no! They just couldn't do it. Ah, well. Their loss. I'm a loyal girl, but there has to be some love first, you know?

The final stop of our personal Run was in Santee, at Memory Lane (http://www.memorylanequiltshop.com/). What a lovely store, & the owner, Chris, is darling. Beautiful skin, too, but I digress. She has designed a number of nifty quilts & her patterns are actually for sale in the store, with some terrific samples to show them off. Her husband was on hand to do lots of the scut work, & he maintained a happy attitude throughout. Mind you, this was LATE on Saturday night, the next-to-last day of the Run. These people were TIRED, but they were a lot of fun, nonetheless. We had a great time there, & when we left, we were content to call it a day. None of that 'feeling like we missed something' for us!

The full list of shops we visited is: Calico Cottage, Quilter's Coop, Temecula Quilt Co., A Time to Sew, Bears Quilts, Stars & Scraps, Quilter's Paradise, Quilter's Cottage, Sowing Sisters, Quilt in a Day, Flying Geese Fabric, Cozy Quilt Shop, and Memory Lane. There were 26 more shops on the Run, but we were out of time & way past out of money, so 13 was darn good, I'd say. whew! Good thing I don't plan to go to Long Beach next week, huh?

I know, I know: nothing at all for a solid month, then 3 posts in a single day. Well, feast or famine, you'll get what you get. I make no promises.
I completely forgot to tell you about my outing today. Friend Linda told me about a quilt store going out of business (ooooohhhh, nooooooo!), so we headed down to Vista (CA) this morning for a little quilty therapy. We managed to assist the ladies at Sew Special in their quest to retire while they're still young...in other words, we bought a boatload of fabric. I found some great dinosaur fabric & coordinates for a quilt for little Charlie; a nice Hawaiian print that will coordinate well with the UM yardage I have for Josh; some pretty border prints for table runners, & a couple of panels that will make cute kid quilts. All in all, a good outing. Lunch at Panera (thank you, Linda) followed, then we headed home. There is still plenty of fabric left at the store: lots of different-patterned chenille, flannel & Hawaiian prints, some kits, & the cutest little dresses & jackets made from cottons & chenilles. It's a nice, small store with a lot of good stuff.
Abi, over at Snippets & Blabbery, is touting the Indigo Girls, & I have to say I'm grateful to her for exposing me to those lovely harmonies & great picking/strumming. Nice work, ladies. OK. Now I have to go do some shopping at iTunes. 'scuse me.

Creative Everyday

Now I want to return to including some creativity in each day's activities. Yesterday, I was able to make all the snowball blocks for my current red & white effort. I'm liking the way the 9-patches & the dark corners of the snowballs create a star. It took me awhile to see it, but whoomp! There it is. I'm liking it. Later on, I finished hand quilting one of the Glory Be minis & started on the next one. I so love this little quilt.

Busy, busy, busy. Friday's Stashbusters was all about Saturday's Little Women: I spent hours cutting all the little pieces for the Double X blocks, only to find out I could've done fewer than 1/2 & had enough for the sample size. ugh. Well, I'll get a couple of little quilts out of this one. It turned out to be pretty tedious to piece, too. It winds up being about 4.25". oof. I like my color choices. Maybe I'll use one or two of each combination in a quilt & be done with it. That should work.


The Garden Maze blocks continue to fascinate me. I did a little more cutting & piecing on that Friday, too. When I get more blocks made, I'll put them on the design wall & post here, but for now you can see what one block looks like.


While I was taking pictures, my DH poked his head above the design wall, so. . . .

The "Red Square" project was itching to progress, so I pulled it out & got it sandwiched & ready to quilt. I'm not ready to do that yet, but at least it's ready to go now.

Monday

Saturday's Quilt Show committee sew-in was a lot of fun. Six of us spent several hours together, sewing & laughing & eating. Now what could be better than that? Well, I would've preferred a little more warmth from the sun, & a little less noise from the dogs, but otherwise, it was a great day. At one point, the dogs did settle down, but as I was taking some of the food back to the kitchen, I saw that had been occupying them: they had removed a little quilt I'd been working on from its hoop & shredded one end. They managed this without damaging the hoop, mind you. Notice in the last picture that they very kindly left the needle I was using in the quilt, & chewed on the other end! I've decided I must just smell yummy to these guys, since they never attack my husband's things -- only mine. Not making me feel special, though. I'll be taking this to guild tomorrow as an example of hand quilting for my demonstration. This will be the cautionary tale about leaving one's handwork lying around. sigh.