Shop Hopping

 So, It's that time of year once again! The All Iowa Shop Hop has begun! I've been perusing the magazine for a few weeks and decided that this year instead of shopping my home region, I needed to see some new shops, so I told Hubs, we need to go West!

So here's my haul from the two days we spent driving around Iowa! We drove through dozens of small towns that I never heard of! Such a pretty scenic drive too!

First stop a couple of shops in the South Central Region, The  Redfield Quilt Shop in Redfield, followed by Gap Creek Quilting in Guthrie Center. 

And on to the West Region, 

 Log Cabin Quilt Shop in Elk Horn then, Annie's Quilting Bee in Harlan, 

then on to Denison Wise Monkey Quilting, then Acadia Quilts in Acadia. Each shop gives you a block pattern for free, so they're in the pictures too. 

Over to Lake City we stopped at Towne Square Quilt Shoppe, we were kind of in a rush to make it to Sac City and Tin Ceiling Quilts, but we made it!

I decided we would stay overnight in Sioux City. Besides Hubs, I'm traveling with our four legged kid, Ringo. I booked us at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Sioux City. We're testing Ringo to see how he does -he's a great rider, he just lays down and goes to sleep for the most part. 

Here he is relaxing in the Hotel room. 

The room was nice, the pillows have guitars on them.....

and the comforter has guitars on it......

Trace Adkins was hanging above the pet food dishes....

and Bruce Springsteen was in the bathroom.... 

and, I made Ringo drink tap water, because, well........$4

The bed was very comfy and Ringo and Hubs were both great! No barking and no issues!

Ok back to hopping! Sioux City has two participating shops

Heart & Hand Dry Goods Co was a huge shop, and Tri State Sewing and Quilting was just a real treasure-so many machines and thread!

Then the last shop to complete the West Region, Cherokee has Quilt n Kaboodle! What a nice shop!

Before heading home we hit two shops in the North Central Region, Clover Cottage in Emmetsburg and then The Quilted Steeple in Lone Rock.

Here's the whole haul! I'm planning to make a 4th of July quilt so my mission was to collect red and blues and whites. It's good to have a plan otherwise I come home with a pile of cool fabrics, but they don't go together and there's no plan, so this is much better. 

I got this fireworks print to use as the background, but I'm not so sure now that I see it all together. 

I also got a free sample of pins and a little ruler too. The fabric for the Hop this year is Iowa State Fair themed.  SO in addition of the red white blue combo, I'm getting some of the fair fabric too. Here's what I have so far.

 It has a panel with the fair on it and then the prints with the main buildings and features of the fair, It's pretty cute fabric!

There's a lot more to shop Hop, but that's all I'm doing for now. Off to sew a flag or two!