Awesome Score!

Since I'm still in the middle of October Overhauling, I'm still on a buying ban.  Which means every online quilting store I've ever bought from is now bombarding me with discount coupons and deals and just working my last nerve making me want to buy.

(ok, so I'm being a tiny bit dramatic there. . .I haven't seen anything that I couldn't tell myself "you can wait", but still, some of the sales have been very good and I can't help but feel like I'm "missing out".  Don't you hate how sales give you that feeling, that if you're NOT spending money your losing out?  That's some messed up thinking right there.  But I digress.)

Thankfully the ban is just on buying new stuff.  Swaps and giveaways are still ok.  So I still have chances to get new stuff because I just love getting packages in the mail (true fact).

Lately I've (finally!) won a few giveaways.  The timing is perfect.  I get some treats in the mail to help tide me over until I can start buying again (though I plan to be very frugal with buying from now on--I see don't need to buy stuff constantly).

I entered a cool giveaway on the 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks blog.  It was for the leftovers from an I Spy quilt Marti finished (check it out, it's fabulous).  When she said "leftover" I heard "scraps".  So I was expecting what I normally get when I buy a scrap pack.  Usable fabric in strips or squares.  Or (since she was making an I Spy quilt) small pieces left over after an image was fussy cut.  Great usable stuff but SCRAPS.

I got way more than mere "scraps".

First off, it arrived in an amazon box.  One of the 4ish inch deep ones.  (I was expecting an envelope).

Yeah, bursting with fabricy goodness!

Those pics don't even show it all.  (I really focused on showcasing a few of my very favorites).

I spent about 45 minutes just unpacking the box and organizing the fabrics.  I like to categorize them (animals, people, transportation, etc).

There were only about 3 little bits that I would consider "scraps".  But they were still neat little squares (few inches big).  The rest were all what I would classify "remnants".  Generous remnants.  Remnants big enough to actually make an item from, not merely snip out a square for a quilt.

AND, at the bottom of the fabric heap was. . .

This great book.  It's so perfect for me, the beginners beginner when it comes to quilting.  It even has little templates in the back that you can hold over fabrics to see if the images will be right for the square you want to cut.  Yeah, you know I was running it over all my new fabrics and getting super giddy.

This, by far, is the BEST giveaway I've won to date.  Super generous and fun and so useful.  In fact, I used two fabrics from the box to finish off my sock monkey commission (I'll post that next).

So big THANKS to Marti for having a great giveaway.  Your leftovers are a real treasure.

(and I'm thinking I may just need to have a giveaway of my own at the end of this month)