Shop Hop Swag

Yesterday I went shop hopping with a friend of mine from Comfort Quilters. Every year, our county quilt shops come together to throw a shop hop. For $5 you get a passport (and a little charm for a bracelet or something) that you get stamped at each of the participating shops. This year there are 13 shops across the Valley, and in order to get a stamp, you must watch a demonstration at the shop. This was especially neat to me because I've seen a bunch of quilt tools out there, but I didn't always know how to use them (or what I would use them for!) And along with the demonstration, we got to see how each shop used this year's theme block. The theme block this year is the Arizona, in honor of our state centennial.

Some shops used it as a potholder. Others, pincushions. A few others went ALL out and made entire quilts featuring the block!

Anyway, here's my swag.




I was SO excited to find Tula Pink AND those amazing feather prints at an LQS I'd never been to! One of the great things about this hop is it gives me the opportunity to see places I wouldn't normally go to, and now I know, I WANT TO GO TO THERE!

The tools I got are the binding tool, which is fabulous. I'm not really sure what my problem is. No matter the number of quilts I've made, I still ALWAYS screw up the binding. {fail} This tool will help with that and I'm excited to put it to use. The other tool there is a cutting ruler for piping. PIPING! I mean, seriously. Brilliant people out there. I just assumed I would always have to balance my ruler on top of the piping and pray I didn't take out a finger when trying to cut it down.

I also picked up some solids for use in SS goodies.



At some of the other shops, I found these pretties. A yard of Chocolate Lollipop in the clearance bin!! What?! So happy.

This shop hop runs all week and I only got to 8 of the shops yesterday, so I've got some more shopping to do tomorrow. If you get all the stamps on your passport, you get entered to win one of 14 prizes. There are $100 gift cards to each shop in the hop up for grabs, and the grand prize is a brand new Bernina 330!

Now you see why I HAD to do this? Um, yeah.