the up side

Now that I have the raving off my chest I need to point out the up side of traveling to Madison, WI. :o)
When you travel for work there isn't much to do during the time that you aren't working. So early on I started checking the phone book as soon as I checked into the hotel to see if there were any quilt shops in the area. As I mentioned I don't travel as often anymore and only travel to one client in Madison. I have on one trip or another visited all the shops in the area. My favorites are JJ Stitches in Sun Prairie and Mill House Quilts in Waunakee. Sun Prairie isn't very far from where we stay. There are 3 decent shops in the small community of Sun Prairie, but JJ Stitches is my favorite and they are open week nights until 5:30 so I can usually get there at least once. Mill House is more difficult since they close at 5 except on Thursday and this trip we left on Thursday. It's also a little more difficult when I travel with the guys from work. Funny they don't think that fabric shopping is that fun. Go figure. :>\ The first picture is my purchases from this trip. The top 2 are to add to this collection I have been working on for about a year. I collected the fabrics for the Morning Star quilt on my bed the same way starting with one I really loved and collecting from there. I really like how it turned out. I haven't yet figured out what I want to use for a pattern for this, but I think I have almost enough of a variety to get started. I am thinking of something along the lines of Whimsical's Fireside Cozy or Miss Rosie's Quilt Company Cracker Crumbs. Something very scrappy. Anyone have a good really scrappy almost charm pattern?