Firsts - french seam and Dresden Plate

Yesterday, the kids and I took a road trip to Patchwork Plus, a quilt shop outside Harrisonburg, VA.  My friend, Nancy, gave me her punchcards for the place when she moved to GA, so I had a $20 credit to use.  Now, we all know I spent WAAAAYYY more than $20, right?  First, my boys were with me, so they both got to pick out a yard of fabric for themselves.  They both picked novelty flannel - Jason got the soccer balls and Donald got the robots.

And while I was supposedly there to get batting, I was drawn to the sale fabrics.  I found these adorable piggy banks in orange and green and yellow that reminded me of growing up in the 70s, for some reason, and I had to get them.  I picked up the geometric in similar colors to go along with the piggies.

I also picked up these black and cream dragonflies, and as is my rule when I buy new fabric, a couple yards of a neutral - this time a cream on cream that works well with the dragonflies.

And finally, I picked up another black and white print because I don't think you can ever have too many of those.  Add another thimble and some sewing machine needles, and I called it good.

On the way home, the boys and I stopped at the skatepark and I sat in the car quilting while they did their thing for nearly 2 hours.

Today, the appliance repairman came to check out all my broken down stuff.  The bad news is that I need a new oven - the part that I need to make my oven work again isn't manufactured anymore.  How old does that make my oven???

The good news is that my washing machine WAS fixable, so I'm back in business there!  Going to the laundromat these last few weeks darned near bankrupted me!  And lucky me, it was a clothesline perfect day, so I put a couple loads out there (including my new fabric!) before the sun went down.

Speaking of that new fabric, you know I had to cut into it right away, right?  And although I don't need more "green" shopping bags, I made another one anyway.  For this one, I used a plastic Walmart shopping bag as a template, so it is the same size and shape, just MUCH stronger and prettier, fully lined and machine washable. 

Plus, it has a pocket on the front into which you can fold the bag, nice and neat, for when you aren't using it.  Kinda like a quillow, right?

I used a tutorial that I found online, and I love how "finished" the bag is.  I made my first french seam, something I've never done before.  I will definitely be using that technique again.

Saturday is quilt guild meeting day before I board an airplane for ATL for work.  Gotta get to quilting - I want to finish quilting the Charm quilt and get the binding sewn onto the back so I can not only have something to work on during the meeting, but also something for show and tell.

Oh, and last thing - this weekend's quilt show at the Quilting Gallery is Delightful Dresdens.  How ironic since that is the next quilt I will  be working on!  But those of you who have been with me a while remember my first Dresden Plate, the stack and whack style that I made for my younger sister's college graduation - I think I called it "My Sister, My Friend" because that is what I quilted around the center dresden plate, although I may have called it Hello Yellow! (Unfortunately, I had all this catalogued on my old blog site which crashed, and my memory is crap! Also, I don't seem to have a photo of it with the binding on.)

I entered it in the Delightful Dresdens Quilt Show at the Quilting Gallery this weekend, which goes up Friday morning.  I encourage you to check out all the Dresden Plates that are entered - you are sure to find inspiration there!