Quilt Show Booty and my OPAM Prize

Here is my haul from 2 days at the Dallas Quilt Celebration. I think I ended up being somewhere on the far side of "restrained", but not over the line into "hog wild". My best find was the cheetah Minkee. I had been looking everywhere for it to back my green & purple pansy quilt. To the right are several lengths of US military fabrics, Army, Air Force and Marines, (enormously popular at the USO.) I bought three fabric panels: Larry voted for robot and space boy, and I loved Mama Bear. 8) Larry found the quilt block coasters, and thought they would be perfect for the monthly bees. (He's such a good husband.) I needed more quilty stationery (I was running low - honest.) I got the Machine Quilting lessons to try to move past my endless stippling, and I bought the bolt end of the robin's egg blue velvet Minkee for cheap. That just leaves the pink fabric roll; it got a lot less expensive on Sunday, so I snapped it up for some future french braid extra girly quilt. (Take that space boy!) And on Wednesday, the OPAM prize for February arrived all the way from Australia!
Look what I got! Some beautiful pink fabric, lovely sticky notes and a handy highlighter with a sweet little card. This was the first time I won the OPAM draw and it was very exciting. Thanks so much, Kris.

This cold, wet spring appears to have made our ornamental Bradford Pear very happy. It has never flowered this much and for such a long time. Usually the flowers follow the leaves, which is non-optimal for beauty, but not this time. The petals have even hung on through some intense wind and rain. It was so small when we bought the house - not anymore!