First, what I've been working on...
Was watching Bonnie Hunter's Quilt Cam the other day and decided to start using up some of my multitude of scraps in my bins. I've been having a blast sewing up these little 3-1/2" string blocks. I have no clue what I'm going to use them for, but I'm sure there will be a project or two or three down the line where they will come in handy. I'll be working on lots of these off-and-on between other projects.
Second, guess who I saw on Tuesday evening? Bonnie herself!
My girlfriend and I drove all the way from the East Coast of Florida to Tampa on the West Coast to attend a lecture/trunk show she was giving at the Cypress Creek Quilt Guild. The trunk show was scheduled for 6:30pm so we decided to make it a mini-getaway and left my house at 8:30am, spent the night at the same Holiday Inn that Bonnie and some other quilters were staying at, and returned home Wednesday afternoon to spend the rest of the day with our usual Wednesday quilt friends. It was a wonderful lecture and Bonnie is a gifted speaker. Poor thing, though; she caught something and was losing her voice and not feeling up-to-snuff. I don't know how she does all that she does...
Funny story: We got to our hotel around 3:30pm or so, checked in, dropped off the luggage and then decided to head off to where the lecture would be held as it was then just beginning with rush hour traffic and we wanted to be sure we knew where we were going and all. Well, coming back down from our room, I was planning on heading out the side door since we parked near there, but my girlfriend, Mona, said "No, let's go through the lobby in case Bonnie's there." She's never met Bonnie in person, so she was psyched. LOL. I said, "There's no way she's there, she's probably giving a class or something." But I went anyway to appease her. Of course, Bonnie wasn't there and I kidded her. As we went out the front doors, there was a car parked at the entrance. The ever-positive Mona said, "Maybe she's in that car." I couldn't stop laughing at her excitement and rolling my eyes. She kinda discretely peeks in the driver window of the car and says, "OMG, she is in there!" I, of course, am in complete disbelief, thinking she's pulling my leg to get back at me for making fun of her, but I peek in the car anyway. Don't you know Bonnie was in there on the passenger side! Of course, then I couldn't contain my excitement to see her again, and Bonnie was so sweet and waved us around to her side and gave me a big hug and I introduced her to Mona and we chatted for a few. That's when I found out she wasn't feeling so great. Poor thing. They were on their way to the venue to set up.
We also ran into her coming back to the hotel after dinner. We were just walking into the front entrance, and the car she was in was pulling up to let her off. I couldn't help myself when we saw her again, and walked over to her as she was getting out and quipped, "Are you stalking us or something?" LOL. She was bone tired, but clued us in on where the Klondike bars are hidden in the lobby and we all walked to our rooms together. She's such a sweetie. I sure hope she's feeling better soon.
Back on track with our Tampa trip: Of course, we had to make some pit stops to and from our ultimate destination, so we made it a point to head over to Dunedin, near Clearwater, and check out the huge quilt shop they have over there called "Rainbow's End." I'm not lying when I say I was majorly overwhelmed. I only walked out of there with two jellyrolls for a class I'm taking on Friday. I think we were there for 2 hours or so, just taking it all in and ogling the fabric. They had EVERYTHING under the sun!
On our way back on Wednesday morning, we hit Lakeland and the "Fabric Warehouse" there. It was a nice shop with great prices. I scored a lot of bargains there. Check out my complete "weekend" haul... The "More Adventures With Leaders and Enders" book I purchased from Bonnie at the event. You can guess it's autographed. :o)
Next, remember the Fig Tree Contest I entered? I previously mentioned I won the one for the Fat Quarter Shop, here; but I ALSO won the one from Fig Tree itself! I've been holding off announcing it because I wanted to coincide it with Joanna's announcement. She mentioned she was planning on blogging about it on their website, along with pictures of the winning quilts (I think there were 4), but she's been busy with deadlines, so I guess it was overlooked. Anyway, I received my prizes yesterday! They were there waiting for me when I walked in the door! Woohoo!
There are 7 Fig Tree patterns, and a fat-eighth bundle of each of the fabrics in her new line "Aloha Girl" to be released this month. I was sooo hoping the fabric would be from the new line! I'm very happy, as you can guess. :oD
I'll have more soon, as tomorrow is our Guild's Gathering. I'm taking a Jelly Roll Race "class" from 9am-12pm and teaching Bonnie's Scrappy Mountains Majesties class from 1pm-4pm.
'Til next time,
Suzy
