Happy Friday!

Falling leaves applique-- first time ever doing hand applique!!!

 So, Wednesday evening I finished my first applique project! It's a little rough, shall we say, but I'm proud of it. I think I am going to make a border of scrappy browns... maybe work in the word "Fall" or maybe not. I"m undecided. That's the beauty of it-- I can do what I want!

Thursday morning, my MIL and I started out on the shop hop. The map turned out to be VERY DECEPTIVE, so the hopping took all day long! Not to mention that one shop had outdated directions that failed to mention construction, detours, and the fact that there are THREE roads labeled State Road 2. But we found all the places, got a bunch of free patterns (some really neat), some cute projects, a fun tote, and then there's the stuff I bought... see the pile?

Shop hop score!!!

Guess what I spent.....
Not $100....... not even $50....
 $44 for it all!!!! Bravo for using my thrifty gene and finding good deals!!! I was really excited to find a THIMBLE, too!!!! It's leather with a small covered metal tip... it works great for me. Another thing of which I'm proud? I have a plan for every piece of fabric that I bought!!! The Christmas ones will be for a throw that I can pull from my stash to complete, the Halloween ones are for Halloween basket liners so I can have candy out :) and the green/purple/blue Chrysanthemum will be for a project I designed while doing the shop hop-- it will be mostly used for a large middle panel, surrounded by several borders made from my stash!!! There is also a piece of fabric with houses on it that I bought to make an ornament. I also got some perle cotton to hand-quilt my wonky houses, some flat flower pins, and to top it off, for participating I got the reusable green tote!!!

Off to go get milk-- the hop took so long yesterday due to the distance that I didn't get home until 8 pm, and forgot to get milk!!!