I was in the Tampa / St. Pete area of Florida for a meeting over the weekend. Since my flight got me in a few hours before the meetings started, I had time to locate a few quilt shops.

Last time I visited St. Pete's Beach (almost exactly a decade ago), I convinced my traveling partner and long-time friend Lisa to run up to a quilt shop with me, so that was the first on my list of possible stops. Rainbow's End in Dunedin, Florida had some fabulous fabrics, as you can see from my selection. I mostly purchased fat quarters, but I did buy a yard of the black-and-white pin dot with the pink flowers because I thought it was unusual and felt a little nostalgic.

Next shop was in Country Quilts and Bears in Clearwater, Florida. The marble print in the top left is a flannel, and I fear it might be a flannel I bought before. The three below it along the left side are fat quarters. However, I bet it comes as no surprise to any of you that the farm print in the middle and the two on the left are more than a fat quarter. I bought yardage of all three. The farm fabric will make very cute and very easy baby blankets, just cut 36" by the fabric length (45") and quilted along the design lines (great experience with that quilting machine, right?). The other two just had such great colors that I had to have them and the ideas are swimming around in my head.



By the time I finished at the second shop, I had to high-tail it to the hotel and made it to my first meeting just in time. It was a great meeting, and after it was over, I shot this picture of sunset over the Gulf. I thought you might appreciate a great view after the colorful fabrics, so I'm offering this one to you. Thank you, Florida for a great weekend!

As I mentioned before, I flipped the bedrooms in my house to give myself a little more space in the sewing and craft room and to get my cardmaking station out of the living room and into the craft room where it ought to be. I shared the "before" shot last weekend and thought I'd give you an update. Over the weekend, I organized the fat quarters into great containers from Ikea that fit perfectly on the shelf in my closet. Here's the mound of fat quarters, sorted by color with the help of my favorite four-year-old. It may not LOOK sorted, but it is.

Next, here's the closet "after", looking a whole lot better than it did in the "before" photo. The shelves were all already in place. Before I got organized, the plastic containers were on the top shelf, leaning over because the shelves were sagging. Now, with everything organized and in proper containers, I have a lot more space and everything I'm looking for is in its place. As you can see from the picture below, the little containers that fit so perfectly on that shelf are filled with fat quarters by color. And the nine-section shoe sorter holds fabrics that I bought in the past to make some quick quilts on which I can practice using my quilting machine.

I'm thrilled with how the closet is looking. This is the first step in getting this room pulled together. I still have to put the rest of the fabric, the non-fat-quarter-fabric, in containers by color. That's this weekend's project.

Stay tuned from the next section of the clean-up: the cardmaking station.

What a weekend! I got a bit of reorganizing done in the sewing room and I found the pattern that I'd misplaced. I was able to organize the fabrics that I've bought over the past year-plus on my travels, especially all those fat quarters I've amassed. First, I should share a "before" photo. As you can see in the photo, all those bags across the shelf were fabrics that I'd picked up at shows, on travels, and along the way the last year and a half or so. And that closet is where I'm hoping all of it will live once I get it organized. So organizing suggestions are welcome--any ideas would be great. I don't want to build shelves, which is the logical solution, so it will be containers and such. I tried sweater storage things that hang from the curtain rod, but they aren't built strong enough and most of them are too long and hit the shelf, so I'm somewhat back to square one. When I stack the containers on the shelf, the poor shelves sag so badly! So I'm still working on solutions--we'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I'll try to keep you posted via photos of the progress.

For updates, see the closet "after" post and the cardmaking station "after" post.

Some days, a quilter just needs to be surrounded by fabric. And when you're away from home and can't surround yourself with your own fabric, you find a way to get the fix you need. For me, that usually means visiting a quilt shop. And sometimes it turns into more than a visit, it turns into a shopping excursion.

Case in point, November 29. After a very crazy, five-day break from what has been a very crazy couple months at work and in my life, I found myself feeling the need. And since I was away from home, Quilter's Destination was the closest solution. In case you've forgotten, I've been there before and I blogged about some yardage from there just a few days ago.

While there, I found some smaller pieces than the aforementioned yardage. Just a few fat quarters to round out my colleciton. Turns out, I bought two duplicates from my previous visit there--the little tiled fabrics toward the bottom of the right corner. But otherwise, I did pretty well. Looks like I'm in a green phase. And I love the line in the center bottom--the pink, green, blue and white with the black prints.

A while back I heard from my old boss, Judy, from the quilt shop I managed in Florida. She was going to be in town visiting her family and wondered if we might be able to catch up over Thanksgiving. So, between my nephew's wrestling meet and the gingerbread house party, we did just that. But what to do? Well, as I drove to the meet, I noticed a quilt shop, and, wouldn't you know, it turns out it was just down the street from her son's house. So there we were, wandering around someone else's shop. It was a little strange--so often, when I'm in a quilt shop, I look at fabrics and think "That's so Judy" or "Beth would love that." Beth and Judy were the owners of the shop. When the fabric reps would come to the store, it was always a hoot picking out fabrics with them. And I could almost predict which ones each of them would be drawn to. They had similar tastes, but there were subtle differences in their choices. So it was fun to look around someone else's shop and point to a fabric and say "There's one, Judy" and know that she'd say "oh yes!" But we spent a lot of time chatting as we wandered around the store so it was tough for me to focus on shopping. I did find a few fat quarters--three batiks and a flannel (light blue with polka dots, though you might not be able to tell it's light blue from the photo).

More to come from my "I really needed a creative fix" shopping trip the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I know, I thought there was a moratorium on fabric buying until I made something, but sometimes that just doesn't work out.