The Heart of the Valley (Central Valley, CA) shop hop was this weekend. My two friends, Janice and Elaine, and I hit all 10 shops in 1.5 days. We left at about 1:30 on Saturday and headed south to Bakersfield and then up to Porterville. (4 shops in all on Friday).
Here we are at Strawberry Patches. Their theme was camp out. With smore fixin's, hot dogs and the the campsite. (Even with chirping birds and noises.) I heard on Saturday they even had camp signing around the campfire (fake).
On Saturday we left early to get to the Turlock store Cloth & Quilts at 9:00 am . They had a baby shower theme. From there we went to Bear Paws in Oakhurst, which was a beautiful drive in the mountains. Then we headed to Fresno for Cottage Quilts and then to Clovis (Quilter's Paradise) who still had the rodeo theme going, then to the Mennonite Center in Reedly and then on home to Thimble Towne who had a Kentucky Derby theme--with horse races, mint juleps or infield punch, and all the derby fixins.
Each store gives a little gift and this is the pile of free gifts.
A nice bag, some pin cushion kits, a cup cozie kit, a pouch kit, some computer screen cleaners, a yo-yo pin kit and of course candy (missing from picture because it was already in my tummy). All so generous.
And shopping, of course I shopped. I gave myself a budget and only went off it for a bit because we went to an antique store in Clovis to get some linens for the Cindy Needham workshop I'm taking in a couple weeks.
The black stripe fabric was a real find. On Thursday the guild speaker was Tiffany Hayes from needle in a hayes stack blog. She had this very striking quilt that was in a magazine ad using this border fabric. This fabric is about 2 years old so it was a real find. Of course I took the last 2 yards. I also got some backing fabric for my Pat Sloan BOM quilt, some orange fabric for next years Orange Cove reunion quilt to donate, some pretty green fabric for a back of a linen quilt, a pattern for baskets, the Sew Kind of Wonderful ruler and two kits for baby quilts that were $18 and thought I'd whip them up to sell at our guilds boutique in October.
And here are the linens I got for the Cindy Needham linen workshop.
What a wonderful couple of days spending with some great friends. We laughed a lot and had a good time. So good in fact, we've decided to do the central coast shop hop at the end of May!
And on the homefront, when I got home, my sweet little angel girl brought this little gift in the house for us.
Thanks for looking.
Here we are at Strawberry Patches. Their theme was camp out. With smore fixin's, hot dogs and the the campsite. (Even with chirping birds and noises.) I heard on Saturday they even had camp signing around the campfire (fake).
Each store gives a little gift and this is the pile of free gifts.
And shopping, of course I shopped. I gave myself a budget and only went off it for a bit because we went to an antique store in Clovis to get some linens for the Cindy Needham workshop I'm taking in a couple weeks.
The black stripe fabric was a real find. On Thursday the guild speaker was Tiffany Hayes from needle in a hayes stack blog. She had this very striking quilt that was in a magazine ad using this border fabric. This fabric is about 2 years old so it was a real find. Of course I took the last 2 yards. I also got some backing fabric for my Pat Sloan BOM quilt, some orange fabric for next years Orange Cove reunion quilt to donate, some pretty green fabric for a back of a linen quilt, a pattern for baskets, the Sew Kind of Wonderful ruler and two kits for baby quilts that were $18 and thought I'd whip them up to sell at our guilds boutique in October.
What a wonderful couple of days spending with some great friends. We laughed a lot and had a good time. So good in fact, we've decided to do the central coast shop hop at the end of May!
And on the homefront, when I got home, my sweet little angel girl brought this little gift in the house for us.
Thanks for looking.
Looks like you had a great time! Love the "coming home" surprise !
ReplyDeleteYou guys always have fun! I wish I could have been there. And what a nice present your Little Needle brought to you. Lol
ReplyDeleteNeedle heard everyone was giving gifts this weekend and he wanted to participate. It was given with love!
ReplyDeleteAlways a great time - shopping and visiting in the car between shops. Thanks for being the driver.
What is it? bat? gopher? no teeth. I'm stumped. I give up.
ReplyDeleteShe is thoughtful, though, isn't she?
Glad you had fun hopping and shopping!