Field Trip!!

We started this last year, doing a field trip to Marden's (store in Maine), and this past Tuesday was our day. I got a 'heads up' to call the fabric dept manager and 'alert her' that we were coming and I thought considering last year's trip, that would be a good idea. She was excited that we would come all the way up to Maine (from CT), she even put out the cookies! Literally!!

They gave us sooo much fabric for our Project Linus event for this Saturday, probably thousands of dollars worth! FREE! And 10% off everything, some things were even 50% off when they were already on clearance. Amazing.... They are such good supporters of our charity quilting. We are so blessed to have them on our list of contributors.

Here are some of the fabrics and the tops that I had to match up....

This is one (front) that we made a pieced back for and no one wanted me to waste it on the back. So I said if I found a backing for BOTH of them, I'd make it into two tops vs. a top and a bottom.

Well, I found the backing for this one, too (the dark purple/blue will be the binding), so we have an extra top.

This is a green lasagna quilt...great 'forest' backing.

This Shattered Italian Tiles will get a brown backing, and we'll use a section of the leftover tiles for a part of the back. It'll be cool, you'll see.

This aqua was voted by all the ladies, as it will go around the outer edges and be the binding, too. It should bring out all the beauty of the border's feathery strokes.

This one looks weird, but in person, the striped backing will be beautiful. We'll use a black binding which will look great on both sides!

These two fabrics will be great in some future block.

This 'shirting material' will be beautiful on both of these two tops...We still have to put a blcak border around the second lasagna quilt.

We did learn something valuable last year.... After taking 3 hrs to get there, we decided to eat first, before shopping. Come noontime, we were 'fed and happy' (so to speak...) and ready to shop. when we got to Marden's, Bonnie did indeed have the cookies out. lol...

I only bought what we needed for the backings and some replacements for the frontal altar cloth I've been commissioned to make for the church's main altar by our priest, for a total of $70. Some of the other amounts spent were in the ranges of $160, $124, $48, $80, etc.... Not too bad for the 2 1/2 hr of shopping.

Maybe we'll go again in late summer. Who knows what we'll need. (Actually, we won't need anything at all). It's always a fun trip though....Re-energizes us.