Chip and Dale Designs

                                                                         Shop Hop Fever

        What is shop hop you ask? It is a little like Saturday Night Fever, but without a  hotty in a white pant suit. Well, now that I think about it a shop hop is not even close to that- unless you are listening to the Bee Gees on your car stereo in between stops, which is a grand idea if you ask me. 

 

    A quilt shop hop takes place when local- and some not so local- quilt shops get together and plan an event that usually has to do with shopping at their stores within a certain time frame.  Once you get done hopping, there are usually prizes to be given out to those that shopped at all of the shops in the time frame allowed. Some shops give out prizes if you get to so many shops- I know there are a few states that have state wide hops- that is on my bucket list- Bob are you reading this???

    Our local shop hop is this weekend. Being the insane person that I am, I have volunteered to help out one of my very favorite shops. So, in addition to my full time job I am working there Fri night and the weekend. I am a glutton for punishment, but I love running into previous students and friends I have made along my quilting journey. Plus my shop is so good to me it is the least I can do for them. Please say hello- I will be in the orange shirt. Well, we will all be decked out in orange shirts but I won’t be hard to find!

  This year’s theme is post cards. Every store has a Colorado- themed fabric postcard for sale. The shop I am working at has sunflowers on it. I have designed a quilt pattern for the shop- here it is-

 

      The quilt is only 12” x 18” and hangs on the little display metal frames you see all over. My talented friend Lexie re-drew the pattern for me. The drawing I first made looked like Stevie Wonder drew it. (If you are blind and reading this blog, please do not be offended. I am sure you can draw better than I can. Trust me.) Once Lexie got ahold of it she turned it into something a person could actually stitch! Thank you Lexie! My sketch looked like this:

      I love hand embroidery- it relaxes me when I can sit still long enough to do it. This one I stitched on our porch one lazy Sunday with a wiener dog in my lap the whole time. I am sure if you look closely at the finished quilt there will be dog hair on it!

     My goal is to have many more of these patterns available soon. I am in the process of converting 3 others to pdf’s and then I will put them for sale on the Craftsy web site. I will keep you all posted when that happens.  In the mean time, run by B Right On in Brighton and purchase a sunflower pattern-it will help support my crack addiction.  THANKS!