Vacationing as a quilter

    I am finally back from all my travels. I am still not sure what time of day it is, too many time changes in too short a time! My first trip was to Georgia to visit my best friend. She is not a quilter, but likes looking at quilts and using them, so she was perfectly happy to take me to the quilt show they were having in her town while I was there. We talked about different types of quilts, voted for our favorites, and just had a fun day. We also went thrift storing while I was there, and I found these 16 men's shirts. I was so happy to find a few orange ones, as I've been having a hard time finding any here. I really felt like I hit the jackpot when I found the purple shirt! Now I can finish cutting the extra blocks for the guest room quilt. YEAH!

    After the trip to Georgia, I was home for about 8 hours, when my husband and I left for an anniversary trip. It was our 25th anniversary, and we started talking about doing something right before I left for Georgia. I wasn't sure it would work out, so I hadn't told many people about the possibility. I left all the arrangements up to my husband and oldest son, and I left for Georgia not knowing what would happen with that.

    It helps to have a little background information. I have been to 47 states, and my goal is to go to all 50. The last three I need are Hawaii, Alaska, and South Dakota. I had looked up trips to South Dakota and Hawaii before I left. We plan on someday going on an Alaskan cruise, so I wasn't really thinking about going there now. 

     My husband and son really came through so DH and I went to Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii! How's that for an anniversary present, my 48th state! We had a wonderful time exploring the island and relaxing. We went to the volcano, saw waterfalls, watched manta rays, toured a couple of coffee farms, and went to a luau.

      But wait, I am a quilter....I am on vacation, and I must bring home....fabric! I was willing to go to just one fabric store, but DH was VERY good about spoiling me on this trip, and took me to three fabric stores. Hawaii has such a nice selection of oriental fabrics as well as the traditional Hawaiian prints. I found their prices surprisingly reasonable. I mostly bought fat quarters in an effort to be good, and the fat quarters ranged in price from $1.40 to $2.50, with most being under $2.00. The one piece of yardage I bought is the purple Asian print on the far left of the picture below. I just loved it and bought 2 yards. I think it was $5.99 a yard. All together I bought 13.5 yards of fabric. For me, that is good.

      These are the Asian prints I bought.

     Here are some of the Hawaiian prints I bought.

    Here are 3 different volcano prints. The store I purchased these at had a fat quarter of the black framed and hanging on the wall. It looked good just like that!

    These last four I got with I Spy quilts in mind. How fun to look for hula cows or cats playing the ukulele!

    I guess it's a sure sign that quilting has taken over my life when on a dream vacation I'm still thinking about quilts, searching for fabric, evaluating people's clothes for quilting possibilities, and looking for possible quilting patterns everywhere.

     Of course to be fair, my DH is a scooter enthusiast, and we have at least 20 different pictures he took of scooters, plus a souvenir wooden scooter with a little surfboard on the side! I guess no matter the hobby, it comes out in everything.

      Two of the stores I went to have a website. One is www.GotFabric.com   I need to search for the other site, and I'll post it if I find it.