Wow, that's a lot of stuff.

My family decided to get away this weekend, just for a couple of days.  It's a three hour drive from our house to Atlanta, so we decided we'd go overnight and just hang out, hit some shops, eat at some good restaurants, and have fun!

Of course, I mapped out the quilt shops we'd be passing on our way down, so I could stop and check them out!

Our first stop was in Chattanooga at Lavender Lime Quilting.  This shop was very cute.  They had some of the best displays I've ever seen!  Beautiful quilt samples up, super cute packaging of fabrics (for example, coordinating fabrics in what looked like a Starbucks kind of cup, called something cute like a sundae or something like that).  The shop had mostly traditional quilting fabrics, but did have some nice more modern fabrics.  I picked up some Amy Butler fat quarters, a cute Christmas panel that was on clearance (don't know what I'll use it for, but it was cute!), and some Mary Ellen's Best Press, which I've heard good things about.

Our next stop was Red Hen Fabrics in Marietta, Georgia.  This place was huge! They had more notions, books, patterns, rulers, doodads, etc, than I have ever seen in my life.  This store is worth visiting for that reason alone.  They also had a TON of fabric.  Again, mostly traditional quilting fabrics, but a few cute modern fabrics here and there.  Here, I did have one super awesome find...some Flea Market Fancy!  They had TWO BOLTS of the pink freckles/dots fabric.  I was good and only bought a fat quarter to add to my FMF fat quarter collection.  But if you are looking for this fabric, give them a call.  It was $7.99/yard, I believe, and like I said, two bolts!  I picked up some other fun fat quarters, and a drunkards path template so I can make a scrappy circle quilt (like the Roundabout quilt I linked to here).

Next stop, Little Quilts, also in Marietta.  This store was AWESOME.  When I walked in, the front room was mostly repro fabrics, traditional stuff.  But beautifully laid out, very charming.  Then I walked through into a back room, and holy cow!  They had a whole section with modern quilt fabrics, I was drooling.  Nicey Jane, Meadowsweet, Amy Butler Love, lots of Kaffe, Michael Miller...TONS of great stuff.  I grabbed quite a few fat quarters, including a super cute fat quarter bundle of Michael Miller fabrics.  They also had a corner full of 1930's repros that were very cute. I grabbed a charm pack that had a nice selection of those as well.

While in Atlanta, we also made a stop at Ikea.  Love Ikea!  While there, I also picked up some sewing related items.  First, I was on the lookout for Dvala sheets. I read a tip over at CrazyMomQuilts about this, so I wanted to pick some up. I got two in white, one in red, one in navy, one in khaki, and one different style sheet in a dark gray.  So awesome, at around $5 each, for yards worth of fabric!  I also grabbed some fabric bundles (they all look like they'd be super cute for baby quilts), a little ironing board, and some boxes that I'm going to use to store my fat quarters.

We returned home last night, and today we went out and searched out some quilt shops in our town that I hadn't been to yet.  I have to say, I have the most fabulous husband in the world!  He was totally happy to drive me around, stay with the baby in the car while she was sleeping, or come in the store and wrangle her while I looked around.  He really spoils me.

So we visited three more shops in the Knoxville area, where we're at, and I bought a few more things.  Of the three shops, I'd highly recommend two of them.  One is Mammaw's Thimble (sorry, no website).  Huge shop.  Absolutely huge.  Again, mostly traditional fabrics, but tons of Moda Jelly Rolls and charm packs, and a few nice modern fabrics.  I was super excited to see a Sweetwater Make Life charm pack, which I grabbed up!

The other shop I'd recommend is called Kat Lover's Pur-fect Quilts and Fabrics (again, no website that I know of).  It's a tiny shop, but the staff were SO nice.  The nicest of any shop I've ever been in, I do believe.  They had a very small selection, but I think it's worth stopping in just because of the service. I did manage to find a very pretty fat quarter pack plus a couple of other fat quarters while there.  The fat quarter pack is not my usual style but I was very drawn to it for some reason!

The last shop we visited didn't have much that was my style.  It was a bit disorganized and most of the fabric wasn't what I like (I won't mention the name since I'm giving it a less than stellar review).  But they did have a ruler organizer there I've been wanting, and I did find two interesting fat quarters.  So I grabbed those.

Overall, I'm feeling a little dizzy over the amount of money I spent this weekend on fabric!  No fabric buying here for a while!  And I just realized that I've bought tons of fabrics over the last month or two that I haven't posted here yet.  I need to put those pictures up.  You all will think I'm crazy when you see it all here together but know that it was all purchased over time! :)

Anyway, this was a great weekend, I had so much fun with my husband and daughter on our little excursion this weekend (the baby girl was SO good, what a trooper!),  and my husband is really a great guy to put up with all this shopping, with a smile the entire time and not a complaint about how long I was taking in each shop!

Now, I need to actually USE some of this stuff!