Holiday shopping trips...

I've done lots of shopping this last week.. whenever we head up to visit my grandparents there is a standard list of places to visit:

* The second hand bookshop

* Katies 

* Rivers Clearance store

* Good Sammy's (thrift store)

* Spotlight (I know this sounds weird considering there are two Spotlight stores within a 30 minute drive of my house, but it's just what I do!)

This trip Mum and I added the local quilting store, farmers' market and the regional patchwork & quilting exhibition to our list as well. And I must say that we've had a very "successful" trip so far.. we head home tomorrow and we've actually managed to cross almost everything off our list! While I haven't specifically taken photos of the other things I've purchased, I found a top & 2 pair of pants at Katies, 2 pair of sandals & 2 shirts for my husband at Rivers, a Fred Bare pinafore and a pair of Clarks shoes for Blossom at Good Sammy's and we managed to trade 2 and a half bags of our own books in at the bookstore ($100 instore credit) for a bag of new books with no extra to pay! Woohoo!

But I *will* share with you my fabric/sewing related purchases with you:

Spotlight shopping trip #1 (Thursday)

 The local Spotlight was having a sale, with 30% off new release Christmas fabrics, buy 1 get 1 free patterns, $6 off Fat Quarter bundles and $6/metre clearance quilting fabrics (amongst other things!). It also turned out that today (Saturday) is their 5th birthday celebration, so they were running other specials/prizes/activities today and haf even more quilting fabrics still to be marked down so of course I had to schedule another trip for this morning. But more about that in a moment (or another post if this gets too long)..

Have I mentioned I have a thing for Holly fabric?

Pillowcase dress & pants pattern & fabric

 I found some cute strawberry print fabric on the quilting cotton clearance table as well as some blue checked fabric and another blue fabric that coordinated nicely (not the same range specifically) that I just couldn't walk past but couldn't justify without a project.. so I went and trawled through the pattern books for like an hour until I found 2 patterns that I thought I might like to add to my immediate project list. The first pattern was a pillowcase dress/top/pants collection that I thought would be lovely to make for Blossom. The top fabric (above) will be the main fabric for the top, with the strawberry print as the contrast panel at the bottom (see image D below) and the blue check fabric will be the pants, again with the strawberry print as contrast. I still have to go looking for ribbon though.

Another apron pattern - I plan to make design B 

Much as I love the apron that I made, I think it's too pretty to use every day, and I had originally wanted more of a smock type apron so when I found this Kwik Sew pattern I decided it would be perfect. I plan to use the strawberry print fabric I bought a while ago (before I found the rose print fabric and got sidetracked).

$6.95 - bargain!

I'm not sure why I bought the "Flat Fats Bundle" aside from the price, at $6 off it came down to $6.95 which made it hard to pass up. The top fabric is the same as the one I used for the beaks on my Hedwig the Owl blocks, and it makes me think of my friend Phillipa's daughter Miss J who LOVES orange.

And last but not least I found this cute Belle cross stitch pack for $3 so I thought I might do it up for Blossom to hang in her new bedroom.

I'll post about today's shopping trip later - right now I have to run off to buy wine and go to a seafood BBQ at my Aunt's house! Yummo!