Labor Day Shopping Spree

I'm so lucky to have two terrific friends whom love to shop & sew & eat & blab with me! They are both from the next town over, but I'm in Quilt-shop Heaven, Lancaster County, PA. They both headed out my way on Labor Day to do some bargain shopping. Fabric + shopping + good friends + FOOD + a gorgeous weather day = a terrific fun-filled friend day :-) 

The fabric I was most looking for was something having to do with Toy Story. I've been looking high & low for several months to no avail. I could've ordered it online, but truth be told, I'm a fabric fondler -- I like to feel & see it "up close & personal" before I decide if it can come home. I finally found it (rather some kindly quilter woman found it when she overheard us lamenting about not finding it.... we quilters are so nosey & eavesdrop all the time, don't we?? But usually, no one cares either! Cause we all know we're nosey!) at Zook's Dry Goods. We have tons of Amish and/or Mennonite shops out here, and this is one of them. If you ever go, there's a shop next door that sells pretzels & homemade lemonade --YUM. 

Anyway, back to the Toy Story fabric. I want to make a snuggle blanket for a little boy whom I've never met, but who's very special to my heart. He's gearing up for his first back surgery to correct scoliosis. His mom & I are friends online because they're from Australia. Her little boy has Marfan Syndrome. My little boy had Marfan Syndrome. She has two little girls, and I have two girls. My little boy had also had this spinal surgery..... 7 times. I know I've written about Montie before... but just in case you're reading for the first time, Montie passed away March 19, 2009 due to complications associated with Marfan Syndrome. He'd received numerous snuggle blankets during his 13 surgical stays & during other illness related stays. For some reason kids really respond to a cuddly blanket when they're hurting. At some age, they realize, too, that someone's heart & time went into making it -someone who didn't even know them! That's how much they're loved. I've made a handful of these kinds of blankets for donation to  Project Linus and Quilts for Kids . 

Now to come up with a pattern!

I also grabbed some Christmas fabrics and .....

Halloween fabrics (I've got two mini quilt
tops done for my mini frame Zlaty!)

Stan Stan the Hairy Man -- Stanley the cat likes to curl up in my sewing room now that the weather has been cooler at night. I put him up here on my table so Smokey the spastic black lab puppy wouldn't try to chew on him.

I have lots of things I'm either in the process of making or gearing up to make. I'm going to try taking some of my wares to a couple craft shows this November, get my website up & running (it's out there, just with no content!), and set up an etsy account.

Stay tuned to see what I've been sew busy doing!