Festival of Quilts: Part 1

I am back in the hotel after a heavy day of shopping at The Festival of Quilts. Note to self: when you're going to be on your feet shopping for 7 hours, don't go to the bookshop first!

I very stupidly forgot to take my camera so settled for shopping today, quilt ogling tomorrow. Here's a run down of my splurges tactical purchases.

For the hex-a-long I decided on shot cottons instead of solids to frame my spots. I thought they would give the quilt a little bit more interest. I got both of these fat-eighth stacks from Oakshott Fabrics and have just spent a fun half hour in the hotel bar matching up fabrics to spots. I guess that doesn't happen often because the waiter moseyed on over to ask what I was doing (I wonder what he'll think when I start basting my diamonds!).

I also fell in love with this large scale floral by Kaffe Fassett. I thought I could fussy cut the large flowers for the odd non-pieced hexie. They will probably have other flowers poking in the edges but I'll see how it works. I bought a half yard which should give me about 8 big flowers. This beauty came from Doughty's. 

I didn't plan on buying it but mum was inspired after getting her book signed by Kaffe himself and spent 45 mins picking 21 different prints for a quilt. I had to buy at least one. It would be rude not to!

For non-hex-a-long quilting I bought this book:

Seriously! There really are 5500 quilt blocks in there. Do I just start at number 1 and keep going?

I promise I'll have my camera tomorrow so you can see some of the beautiful quilts in the exhibition, including the hysterical winner of the group quilt section which has a lot of meerkats.