I did some retail therapy this past week. I visited my local quilt shop/Bernina dealer to buy some neutrals and ask about a needle set screw. I found a few neutrals, I was hoping to get ten different ones, a half yard of each to beef up my neutral bin. The store now has a one yard minimum for purchase rule, oh, I guess that’ll work. The selection wasn’t large, not much was enticing me, and I felt a little rushed. The store only allows one person at a time in, for 15 or 20 minutes. It’s not really conducive to browsing, in the end I got six different neutrals and the Minky I needed to back the tee shirt quilt. I also got a replacement needle set screw for the L890. They are tiny and I didn’t realize that they need to be tightened when not being used, the vibration and movement of the machine makes them wiggle free.

The Minky I bought was 60 inches wide, and I thought my tee shirt top was 72 inches wide. I say thought because I sort of measured it while it was hanging on the design wall. I cut the backing down the middle and inserted a 12 inch wide strip of scrap minky I had on hand and I thought I was good. I tried to load it on the frame and realized that the top was closer to 82 inches square. I needed to get another yard of minky, Amazon to the rescue. I am hoping it’ll be here soon, so I can get this quilted. In the meantime, I loaded one of the farm animal quilts. The backing on this one took me to the edge of crazy, as it took me a few tries to get it to be wide enough too. I ❤️ pieced backings, not really.

Another shopping spree was completed on etsy, in the cross stitching aisle, I write completed because it started in The Fat Quarter Shop. I have been eyeing the sampler called ‘Heaven and Nature Sing’, by Teresa Kogut for a few months now. I am working on the ‘Pet All the Dogs’ one now, so I thought it might be a good idea to have the next one I want to do ready. The FQS has a large cross stitch selection too, but I really was shopping there for binding fabric for the tee shirt quilt. I wanted shamrock print, but I’m too late for that, or they didn’t have any. I settled for green, but then found a few other fabrics I couldn’t resist. The chart in my cart led to looking for floss and linen. FQS has a pretty large selection of floss, but they are sold out of many colors. I put the order through and went to Etsy for the floss and on a tip from another blogger, saw some linen of the right color and count at Needlecase Goodies . They didn’t have all the colors of floss, which led me over to Hollis Hands Create another cross stitch shop I haunt. They had some more of the colors for Heaven and Nature, but not all. I was looking for substitution floss when I saw this cute line of samplers from Blackbird Designs. There were six different ones available, from the Magical Mystery Tour collection, I got Strawberry Fields. These are Beatle song themed, the Yellow Submarine one is obvious, but the others are a little more whimsical. The Long and Winding road, Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird, and Octopus’ Garden are the others.

New patterns necessitated more floss, which after much clicking between three different stores, I was able to get most of the colors for the two designs. Today I got an email from Michaels, telling me I had $60.00 in rewards that was expiring soon. Really? This past year we have had a bunch of posters framed by them, but I never saw any rewards from those purchases. I even asked the framers if I should get credit for them, and they said yes. I checked a few times and nothing, then after the last poster framing, I checked and there was a credit, like 5 dollars. I don’t know how the credits caught up to me, but they did, maybe because I logged in on line, or triggered something. I spent my credits on a nice embroidery frame holder, with the credit it was $15.00. Well worth it, and I really don’t buy much at Michaels, besides frames, so I’m happy not to waste it.

Now I just have to wait for the floss and linen to get here, and the minky. I want to “kit-up” the cross stitch patterns so I don’t loose the floss colors. I think I can wait to start them, maybe.

I am thinking of starting another quilt kit I have, it is a BOM (reflected harmony) that I bought from someone on Sew-its-for-Sale. I also need to do the Holiday Snow village block from January. I’m not really enthusiastic about this BOM. I just don’t like the fusible appliqué pieces. I am trying to do something a bit different with the embellishments, but I stalled out on the first block. This second block is a restaurant, with windows that have a picture of chairs and a table in them. Might do something with cafe curtains or such, but it just doesn’t excite me.

Be Kind.