Atlanta Shop Hop Day Two

It's a week later and I still have many photos from Shop Hop to share. Don't want you to miss visiting the other great shops we visited. Friday was a day to run errands. My circle  was enlarged slightly to visit the two quilt shops closest to my home. Intown Quilters is located in Decatur, Georgia. Intown was a coffee house, one of my favorite places.  This is the shop for lovers of brights, batiks and "modern" fabrics. There is an extensive collection of 1930's fabrics that I have a hard time resisting.

This fabulous quilt is an upcoming class called "Hot Flashes." 

The shop has an abundance of patterns for clothing, bags, children's styles.

Love the color in Intown's Shop Hop Quilt

a wall of Kaffe Fassett fabrics

The shop closest to my home is Patchwork Cottage in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Patchwork Cottage morphed into a haunted house.

Beware of nurse Sandy, rotary blade accidents are her specialty.

Our passports were stamped by the resident witch.

Mita the Fortune Teller with a serious prediction on future quilting trends. 

Mita, shop owner, with her welcoming smile for shop hoppers.

Wonderful

quilts and samples

transformed the "Haunted House."

Intown Quilters

In the Metro Atlanta area, we are blessed with an abundance of top-notch quilt shops, quilt teachers, quilting activities and other quilting resources. On Saturday, I treated myself to a visit to Intown Quilters in Decatur, GA. The shop is about 20 minutes from my home. At my school retirement party, friends surprised me with  special gifts. A generous gift-certificate to spend at Intown Quilters (refered to as Intown by local quilters) was one such gift. Saturday was my day to "spend" the gift-certificate.

On the Intown  website, Sarah Phillips, owner of the shop describes it as "your fun, funky fabric shop." I totally agree with Sarah. The shop is filled with a riot of colors. If you like bright fabrics, this the shop for you!

 Intown carries most Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler fabrics as well as Heather Bailey fabrics and Lakehouse fabrics. This is the place to shop for bright, colorful fabrics including batiks, orientals, '30's, black and white and novelty fabrics.

 The Cat in the Hat fabric was in stock, but flying off the shelves.

 There were many samples of children's clothing, patterns, fabrics, toys and other items throughout the shop.

It was a pleasure meeting local designer Mary Abreu. Mary designs patterns for children's clothing especially little girls. Her daughter was wearing one of her "twirly" designs. 

Mary's book Little Girls, big style: Sew a Boutique Wardrobe from 4 Easy Patterns will be released by C & T Publishing in November of this year.  Mary will be at Quilt Market in Houston in November. Intown Quilters will have lots of copies available to purchase. As the mother of boys and no grandchildren on the horizon, I might have to purchase a copy for my SIL who has a granddaughter. Mary's website is Confessions of a Craft Addict. (Don't you just love that name:)

 One of Mary's designs hanging in the shop window.

My stack of goodies purchased with my gift certificate. The Christmas fabrics were on sale. I'm planning to stitch several table runners. Fabric for Christmas and winter table runners for me and MIL's new digs:) Visit Intown to add lots of color to your life:)

A bit of Progress

I actually made some progress on a couple of my sewing projects this weekend. I finished putting the sashing strips around the blocks on  one of the T-shirt quilts I need to make this Spring. I measured and assembled the background section. Drat! I cut the borders wrong - well that's not quite right. I cut them the size the pattern said to cut them, but decided I'd like the borders wider. I thought I had enough fabric, but was short just a bit. I check with our friend Melisa at Sweet Home Quilt Shop , but

 she didn't have that particular fabric. I called Intown Quilters where my friend purchased the fabric. They had what I needed and put it aside for me. Here are some of the blocks on this project.

 I haven't taken a picture of the background yet. I still have two borders to sew on. My friend will then pick up the blocks and background and arrange the blocks (sort of like scrapbooking) This step is not my strength so I'll let her fight with it. After that I'll just have to sew down the blocks. Easy! Then bring it to our friend, PJ, to be quilted.

Gretchen worked on a Valentine's Day project on our last sewing day. I had a project with the same fabric, same charm pack, but a different pattern in my UFO dungeon. I took my Valentine's project  out and worked on it a bit. I had to trim some of the snowball blocks. I put the blocks up on my felt design wall. Not bad. I'm liking this project. The blocks are not sewn together. Borders need to be added, too. 

I have another project to report on, but Blogger is being difficult with uploading pictures. I'll post that project tomorrow.