Yesterday and Tomorrow

If you read my most recent posting you will remember it finished with a comment about Tuesday (yesterday) being National Polka Dot Day. I wondered if you would either wear something polka dotted or sew something with polka dot fabric.

I cut out and stitched these two little blocks. I wanted to try out the pattern (in this instance I was looking at the Lil Baskets Quilt in Edyta Sitar's book Scrappy Firework Quilts) as a potential to use in a couple of current projects. The influence of Dustin is creeping into my  fabric choices! In case you're wondering, Dustin is the flickr site guru for the Grandmother's choice project that I work faithfully on each weekend.

Today, in a combination of yesterday and tomorrow, I visited a quilt shop to add to my stash of polka dot fabrics, find a backing fabric for Strawberries and Cream, and to look for pink fabric "in case" I might feel as though I really need another project and will succumb to the Dixie Diary project which Barbara Brackman has introduced. For the DD project "if" I join in I thought I would use the large stash of greys still remaining from the Civil War BOW with perhaps pink as an accent color. And just maybe some of the pinks from the Metropolitan Fair collection by Ms Brackman might work out.

So what is tomorrow you might wonder. Well, it is "Visit Your Local Quilt Shop Day". I try really hard to support my local stores; if we all buy our fabrics online then the small local stores will go out of business and that would be a very sad day indeed because there is no substitute for visiting the store and getting the instant gratification of fondling the fabric, taking the bolt to the cutting table for  cutting and bringing it home right away. As well we can find out the latest scoop on what new lines are coming in, which local quilter recently won an award/published a pattern/sold a quilt, who is the latest longarmer to start a business, browse the books before deciding which to add to our home collection to say nothing of taking along your current project that is on hold because you need input on how to proceed and asking the opinions of the shop ladies or other customers.

I love a trip to the local quilt shop; it is an instant "pick me up".

H'mm, now I come to think of it, I was in one on Tuesday, one today and then, tomorrow, I plan to visit a third. I am doing my part to make sure they stay in business.

Will you participate in "Visit Your Local Quilt Shop" day? And what about the Polka Dots?

Gotta go now, I have fabric to iron.