A trip to the mega sewing store

Today I went to JoAnn's.  I really dislike going there, it has more crafts than fabric and such a poor choice of fabrics that I really am not inspired to sew - and certainly not to quilt being the quilting fabric snob that I am -and it also always has a horrible manmade scent in it that reminds me of wet straw.  With my scent sensitivities i really try to stay away from candle/potpourri/diffuser places.

But, this past week I got an email update from Nancy Zieman for her new McCall's pattern 6607 and fell in love with it.  It will be perfect for either our fundraising event this October.  Or if my presence is needed, at a smaller gathering at a Board Member's home in early September.  So after getting my two cuts of foam-50% off this week and the main purpose for my journey - I was off to the pattern table and found the pattern and headed to the knits area.  tons of solids in a cheap-ey THIN fabric but nothing like I saw this pattern being made in.  Then on a round table near the front of the store was a group of animal type prints and one of them was in black and white like I thought I wanted with a bit of sporadic clear sequins on it.  2 1/2 yards later I went looking for thread. 

I always feel like I treat a trip to the town only 11 miles north of us as if I lived in the hills 50 miles from anywhere.  See I really have no reason to go to "town" anymore.  I have a Publix and a Sweet Bay 1 1/2 miles from my home.  Sam's club is only another tenth of a mile.  There is a Panera, a Starbucks, too many pizza places to count-but only one counts-East Coast Pizza.  We have a bowling alley, a McDonald's, Burger King, Applebees, Beef O'Brady's, two Chinese restaurants and even a Japanese Restaurant now.

WalMart is an 8 mile drive north or an 11 mile drive south of us and we have at least 6 WalMart stores within 20-25 minutes of my house.  All the "real" stores/mall/movie theater etc are all up in that 11 miles away place that also has JoAnn's.  So when I go to "town/JoAnns" I make sure to take care of purchasing as many things that are on sale or I have a coupon for as  I can to justify the travel time and the gas.

I got two pieces of foam.  One piece for the sitting area of the bench in the front bedroom at the condo and the other piece is for the coat rack/bench I have in my office at work.  I bought black, white, red and navy 100% cotton thread,  a black and white rayon thread to sew the fancy material I bought for the McCall's 6607 pattern.  I also purchased the last 4 packages of plastic carbiners(sp?) to use in a couple of future purse/tote type projects,  5 packages of machine needles, a skein of pink and white dishcloth cotton yarn from the Breast Cancer Awareness display for Bernat, and something else that I cannot recall.  I did not even splurge on a magazine or a book!  I was gone 2 hours from home to home and I guess the splurge was well needed as I felt great when I got back...except for the nasty wet straw smell on my clothing which I promptly switched out.

I didn't think to take pictures of my haul but I'm sure I can come up with something for you to view.  In the mean time, have a marvelous day!

in September of 2011 we went to the local boating and fishing show.  In the 1st shot I am learning to fly fish.  I'll just say that all fish are safe from me if I ever use the fly fishing techniques.  While at the show I attended three different lure/bait rigging demos.  The last one I did was to rig a nasty ballyhoo for fishing for big fish!  At one point I had to break its back and squeeze all the poo out of it.  Not only did I reek of fish, but of fish guts and waste too! And yet, I'm still smiling.  Gosh I love to fish!