Our first stop was about 40 minutes away in Mineola TX. Stitchin' Heaven was one of the stores I really wanted to check out.
They are big into block of the month quilts and although I've never done one I always adore them. This is one big shop. There is a very large show room that looks like many other quilt shops, then there is the gigantic cutting and assembly room where they put together their kits and have shelves and shelves of kits for sale and then add to that a whole building of sale fabric. Woohoo!!!!!
As we drove up to the store there were about 10 women waving us into the place. It was so much fun. Upon entering the store we were handed these awesome bags and with all kinds of freebees in them. Score!!!!!
Immediately I was drawn to the house of the month from Zebra Patterns. I've been enamored with these since I first saw them at Road to California in Jan. 2014.
I bought the August house at that time and put it together for the Round Robin we are doing at Table Rock Quilt Guild. This store added some bling to some of the blocks which made them even cuter. Had to buy the December block. The fun thing about these is that the kit includes little preprinted windows and accessories. So fun.
There were so many beautiful samples in the store and I think almost everyone had a kit available.
Even our bus driver, Bobby found a quilt he liked.
I encouraged Peggy to get a kit she was waffling about because it looked like it was right up her alley and all the pieces are there. How could she pass it up. She didn't!!!!!!
One of the fun things about this trip is as we chatted on the bus and over meals we found what people were looking for and you could hear people shouting across the store telling someone they had found just what they were looking for. It was awesome.
Our next stop was Quilter's Apprentice in Terrell TX.
It is a nice store and the staff was very helpful. The store was bright with lots of beautiful samples all over the place.
I have to say I was a little nervous about this place because I really didn't know much about it but it was a good choice. They had some machine embroidery patterns and lots of fabric choices.
This shop is worth a visit. There were a lot of different styles of quilting and beautiful samples everywhere. I'm pretty sure almost everyone bought something but that is probably true of every store we visited.
There was a lovely BOM on the wall as we came in that I really liked and was told you could pick different colorways. Love options. The store owner was very nice and let us have pizza delivered to the classroom at the shop. The pizza was pretty good and with 14 different kinds I'm pretty sure every found something they liked. At least I hope so.
The checkout was fairly quick and easy which was good since I was trying to keep us on schedule and this day was starting off very well. One nice thing about this day is that there were no long drives. 40 minutes max.
Quilters Connection in Dallas was our next stop. It is a small shop and small aisles so 37 women in the shop was a bit close but that was okay we were having fun.
I immediately homed in on some Casper the Friendly Ghost fabric and bought 1 yard of the 3 I could find. I'm a one yard girl most of the time but Kathy Bandy told a story about advise she got from our friend Sally. Sally's advise was that if you are on a road trip and find something you like you should buy at least 3 yards which should be enough for most projects. Kathy was following that rule too.
This shop had a number of older machines on sale and I spotted a Singer Rocketeer. I saw this machine on Pinterest a few years ago and wanted to own one. Luckily I found one at White Chapel Quilts in Arkansas. I just love the space vibe of this machine. I'm such a geek.
The fabric stacks were pretty high and you could just barely see some people over the fabric. Such fun. 
There were these great necklaces in the shop and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them. They had taken parts off old sewing machines and polished them up and hung them off chains. They were very pretty and the owner made sure to let us know that they were only taken from machines that couldn't be fixed.
We were on the road again to our last shop of the day, Cabbage Rose in Fort Worth. Driving through Dallas was difficult because just about every road was under construction. Bobby did a great job of getting us through that maze of traffic and orange cones.
Cabbage Rose is a great shop with mostly modern fabric and bright colors, which are right up my alley. Several women in the group never made it out of the Kaffe Fassett corner of the store. I was happy to see some Tula Pink and picked up a yard of her Queen Elizabeth selfie fabric which I've loved since the moment I saw it.
There were some nice samples on the wall and the prices were great.
Instead of the typical $12 per yard we'd been seeing on this trip most of the bolts had be marked down to $9.95. I asked the owner about it and she said she was tired of losing business to internet sites so she chopped her profit margin to keep people purchasing at her brick and mortar store. Oh by the way, she ships and has an internet site as well.
Dinner was at Flying Fish which was just across the street from Cabbage Rose. So when folks were done shopping they headed over and sat down to eat. The folks I sat with weren't impressed with the meal but I liked it and I LOVED the fried dill pickles. However, a number of others felt it was great and made sure to tell me. Rose was poopooing a fish place in Texas before we got there but was a believer after her meal. I found out they have locations in Bentonville and Little Rock too. I'm going back when I get a chance.
At the Microtel in Fort Worth, the check in process at the hotel was a nightmare and I strenuously complained about it the next morning to the manager. We also ended up having show and tell cut short because another group thought they had the room. Not happy. The rooms were okay for the most part, but the management fell down on the job as far as making it a pleasant experience.
Show and tell was a blast. We basically share with everyone what we have purchased over the last two days and we laugh and laugh and laugh. There were two really funny parts that I remember from the evening. Julie who is new to the group seemed to be having a good time and was listening to all the stories about some encouraging others to buy stuff. She said it sounded like an AA meeting and someone piped it "only in reverse".
Juanita started her show and tell by holding up a spider quilt pattern and then proceeded to tell us how afraid her granddaughter was of spiders so she was going to make this spider quilt for her.
We all left the room laughing.!!!! End Day 2.
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