a successful national quilting day celebration . . .

What a fun weekend!!  Our guild's pancake breakfast fundraiser and the scavenger hunt that followed were both huge successes.  I had a BLAST!  Mostly because I was part of a great team . . .

We were "The Bloomers".  We didn't win (though we were close) but we had a lot of fun and collected all our clues! We drove close to two hundred miles. Yikes! One of our tasks was to grab a picture of the shop with the most thread on display . . . 

I was so tickled that I could take a panographic shot!  It really was a LOT of thread!

We also did lots and *lots* of great shopping.  I tried to purchase a little something from every shop:

I tried and succeeded!  LOL!!  Lots of fun things. Several were freebies. I picked up the specialty thread I needed for an upcoming swap. We also got some nice freebies. The SEW embellished! book caught my eye right away and felt like a needful thing. (Haha!) Notice what's not there??  

Not a single bit of fabric.  Not even a fat quarter!!  LOL!!  Consequently, my stash report has a little movement on the outflow and none on the inflow:

Used/donated this week: 1.5 yards

Used/donated year-to-date: 12.0 yards

Purchased/added this week: 0.0 yards

Purchased/added year-to-date: 37.0 yards

Net used/donated for 2013: -25.0 yards

I was actually pretty impressed that I managed to shop for five hours ... in fabric stores ... and not purchase the first yard. I truly just didn't see anything that "called" me. Lots of pretty stuff, though, trust me! 

I did get these fun Kanzashi flower makers ... there are several different templates available and I got three of them.  I tried my hand at a couple of flowers Saturday night . . .

Are they darling?  And they took no time at all.  I see matchy-matchy dresses and flowers for barrettes or headbands.  That's what I see!

Sunday I enjoyed the lovely, lovely weather ... I took some fun shots of the camp, too . . .

Everything's starting to bloom out ... and even the fishes were out, finally!  And they were hungry, too.  Wish I'd had Sawyer with me.  He'll make a good fish-feeder, I have no doubt!!

And since it was quiet, I had the afternoon/evening to finish up my Crazy Quilting course!  Whoohoo!!!

I'm so happy to have successfully completed the class -- and to have such a pretty set of stitching tools, to boot!  Now I'm itching to create my first solo block, which will definitely be tea-themed.

Nothing really on the design wall per se.  I've got Joc's wedding quilt to work on, still, as well as the pineapple center to put together (for this month's "get 'er done") and I've got this month's doll swap quilt to work on.  I've got the overall design/theme . . . 

I am just trying to decide which way I want to go with the Irish chains!  Any thoughts?  I posted the two pics on facebook and have had some great feedback!  I'm really wishy-washy on this one.  I guess because it's not for me?  

Linking up today's post to Stash Report #11 and Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and to Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts!

I've got a lot of ministry / Camp MACOBA catch-up to do this week.  So that's on my calendar and will keep me from stitching today and tomorrow, probably.  But last week's time with family was *totally* worth it!  And we had a glorious weekend for our campers -- and our D-Now girls came in and did a FABULOUS job in their service project!  So even though it's raining and grey today, the camp looks *super*!  Have a great week, y'all!

:)