Hi Lois & Wendy! The shopping was lovely! I will have to take a picture of the new machine, and did photograph all the new fabric/projects that I brought home!
I took my shopping list with me and bought most of what was suggested, as budget allowed. Well, I went quite a bit over budget due to way too much interesting fabric, but that's okay. I did get all the basics though --- extra needles in the main sizes/types that I will need for my machine; loads of bobbins so I can have some loaded with the main colors (many thanks for that tip!!), extra rotary cutter blades for all the fabric cutting I'll be doing, and all the feet/machine accessories I needed, plus some notions (velcro, fusible stuff) and then glue sticks and my dear friend Joyce brought me marking pencils/pen, Crayola washable markers, another rotary blade and a fun clutch purse/wallet she made for me! So, I think aside from the books and gloves and grippy stuff, I got all the list items I'd jotted down
I think I can get books on Kindle, though, and do have a few already in my collection, so that should be okay, and I know I can get shelf grippy stuff here and also vinyl stuff to use for the sliding mat, but since my table isn't big anyway, most of you said I could skip that.
I did buy my first ever commercial "kit" of sorts --- well, it was pattern & templates (Radiant Suns) and then pick-your-own fat quarters to go with it. I saw this quilt on display at a quilt shop in South Dakota, but not the multi-colored version that is the pattern cover, but a version done all in blues for the background and yellows for the suns, reminded me much of Van Gogh's "Starry Nights" and just stopped me dead in my tracks, jaw dropped. I wandered the entire quilt shop rebelling at the idea of buying a pattern/fabric to do a quilt just like the one on display (remember, my first I found the pattern but did a totally different color-way than the example, and since I've designed my own, not used a pattern at all). Finally admitted that I was so distracted by this quilt I wasn't even seeing the fabric in the shop, no matter how many times I walked around looking so at that point I gave in, bought the pattern, chose the 8 blues and 8 yellows (and tweaked it by doing 4 dark-darks, 4 lighter blues and then 4 yellows, 4 silvers, and mine will be suns/moons....) and then was able to see what was in front of me and found some clay roof tile fabric that is PERFECT for the Brazil/sidewalk quilt which I'll be doing for this architecture challenge!!
So, all in all, a very successful shopping trip (or rather, several; went to 3 quilt shops in 2 states, very fun!) and I was so glad to have my list from here with me!
(sorry, Betty Jo, for the hijack of your thread! I didn't mean to go so long winded! LOL!)