Shop Hop

Last week the kids and I did the Western Washington Shop Hop. We only went to six shops becasue of the price of gasoline and my back wouldn't hold up that well for much more driving. The kids each got a passport just like me to get stamped at each store. While I was picking up my shop hop block the kids got a square of fabric. They came in all sizes and some shops had squares of the same fabric cut out and some had a bunch of different prints and the kids got to pick. I told the kids I would make them a small quilt or pillow or whatever they would like using their squares. My daughter picked a small doll sized quilt for her blocks. She picked white for the background, blue for the binding, and picked the big block for the back and she wanted it fussy cut. Other than that I picked the arrangement of the blocks and had fun with the free motion quilting. Here is the front...



here is the back...

My son was pretty funny. He knew exactly what he wanted and told me in detail. He wanted a small pillow and a small quilt. He showed me which fabrics for the pillow and which for the quilt. I asked him about decorative stitches for the quilting part and he picked out two that he liked. Here is the front of the pillow and quilt...


As you can see while at one of the shops he wanted them to stamp his fabric with the stamp they were using on the passports.

The back of the pillow and quilt...

I am glad I did their projects right away. If I hadn't I don't know when I would have ever done them. I also wanted them to get the benefit of the shop hop right away. They were so good and really enjoyed going from quilt shop to quilt shop, I wanted to reward them for it. Now they have a keepsake of shop hopping with me!



At the last shop they had these little coin purses...



My son wanted one so bad. He loves little containers and holders. They also sold the pattern and I told him that for the same price of buying them each one, I could buy the pattern and make lots of them. He did not like that idea. I think he realized that buying the pattern didn't guarentee that he would get one of them because who knows when mommy will actually make them. He did have a point, so I went ahead and let them each pick one out. It was not easy to find a "boy" one but he thought because it was black and had cool scrolls that it was masculine enough. My daughter picked the cheetah one because she loves that print and I won't let her wear it because most of the cheetah print clothes are tacky. So she gets her hands on it any way that she can.

I am not crazy about the block patterns that I got at the shops, so I will probably just make something with the fabric they gave me. I did try to buy a little something at each shop to show my appreciation for their participation in the hop. And I can't say enough how awesome it was for them to do something that included the kids. We had fun and I am glad we did it!