Inner Sunshine On A Rainy Day

Today was a very full day! The newly formed little quilting group over at the Alton Senior Center met for the first time today, and I am their "fearless leader" as Walt Kelly's character, Pogo, used to say. That means that I was the one who called all the answering machines and left a message as to when we would meet after the room became available.
Sue, Margi, Norma, and Fran joined me and we had a lovely time! Two of us brought sewing machines, one was hand-piecing, one was cutting out pieces, and one brought a finished quilt that she had made. I remembered to bring the little basket of Hersey's Milk Chocolate Nuggets. I forgot to bring the camera. Sigh.

So these stock images will need to suffice as I tell my tale. I showed them the 5" tumbler top that is as yet unquilted, egad, as you can see in the above photo, it is unpressed, too! But it gave them a chance to see what is meant by scrappy quilting.
I also brought in the little Birds of America wall hanging that I'm doing for my neighbor, Ilse, to be able to send to her blind brother and his wife in Germany.

This was the perfect little quilt to do a demonstration of applying a binding and they really appreciated seeing me do the whole thing.
After the demonstration, there was a little more time for free sewing on whatever. I had my Joann's lined basket of Civil War strippy scraps with the little ziploc baggie containing a couple hundred red chimneys.

So I sewed sloppy log cabins, dropping a red chimney face down on the light strip as it went through the machine. They had never seen this and were very interested.
After we all cleaned up, we had a nice brunch right there at the Senior Center of scrambled eggs, sausage patty, salad bar, fruit cocktail, with milk and cookies as dessert. There were sugar cookies but I opted for the oatmeal raisin ones. Yumm-o!
The gals were delighted to have my two issues of the Keepsake Quilting catalogue and I had mentioned that after lunch I was bound for the tent sale at "The Mothership" in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. One gal brightened up to hear that and said that she might go too. Later, we met there by chance and shared little peeks of our treasures with each other.
It was raining steadily and the crowds were manageable with no lines waiting to get into the tent. I only shopped for an hour and had no waiting at all for a cutting table clerk. The line at the checkouts were being managed by a very pleasant Checkout Concierge who directed each shopper to the next available register. I was done in about ten minutes. So no pictures of the shopping this time, but here's the loot!

This paper bag cost me $145. Wait'll you see the contents!

There were 16 yards of fabric and lots of precuts, too. For those of you who indulge in "Selvedge Snobbery", as I do, these are tan Holly Taylor for Moda, red Jo Morton for Andover, and cream Sara Morgan for Blue Hills running top to bottom,

It is unusual for me to buy a blue that isn't an indigo, but this robin's egg shade by Henry Glass captivated me. I know, I know, it's another floral, will it never end? LOL!

Most of the yardage cost $4.99 per yard, but just as I had selected a green and tan printed gingham, the announcer called out that any yardage with green in it would be reduced a dollar per yard. What fun!

On top of the gingham are my four Civil War 5" charm packs of 50 squares each for 4.99 a piece.

Then there were the cute tumbler packs! These were the four inch high size, with 2 1/2" at the top and 4 1/2" across the bottom and all Civil War. I haven't counted these, but I think that they are also 50 to a $4.99 package.
Now let's see, my 5" tumbler top took me 272 pieces to do 16 rows of 17 tumblers and it came out hmm, 58" x 70", I think it was? Maybe I should've gotten more of them? Nah! I can make more if I need to do it. By the way, please do note the creamy tan with the very subtle stripe where those tumblers are resting.

It was a super fun day and I'm glad that I can share it with you!
Happy sewing!