I have been sewing for a long time and I went on my 1st shop hop this past week.  It was so fun and I learned somethings.  One is go with friends, it makes it even better.  Second save all you can for a year before you go...they have great deals.  Third is take vacation from work during the time.  I didn't make it to all 7 locations, but I did make it to 4, next year I want to go to all 7!  This shop hop was called the Dogwood Days and there was a special fabric sold exclusively by the shops just for this hop.  Each shop did an item with the fabric and you got the pattern free and then you could purchase the fabric or kits made up with the fabric for the project.  This one is an example from Sew Biz in Radford.  They also had door prizes, etc.  I got some of all twelve colors and then I got two kits.  One from my local shop in Roanoke and one from the Lynchburg shop Quilted Expressions.

I want to make one of these.  I saw these at Sew What Fabrics & Batiks in Wytheville.  What a great store with a wonderful staff.

This was their quilt for the hop.  I forgot my camera the second day and have the other two shops' items on my phone camera...now to figure out how to download them.

I have actually got some sewing done this week too.  I am on the applique part of the next row of the Memory Lane.  I put the sashing around my mother-in-law's quilt, so I did do some actual sewing.

Sew Long For Now