Vacation Buying

This might get too long for one post, we'll see. I've taken some pictures of what I bought while on a short vacation with friend Jaye. We hit up a whole lot of quilt shops during our drive, the first of which I wrote a bit about yesterday, Pioneer Quilts, in Portland.

 I found this purple fabric with an op art sort of design of green and yellow circles and decided it would be a great thing to make a medallion quilt around. I also found some interesting kind of coordinating fabrics there.There was some Eleganza thread that I picked up and another pack of Chenille Needles that I really like to stitch with. We also saw this new Scanfil organic cotton thread and decided to split the package between us. I'll report back about how it stitches when I use it.

The second shop we visited in Portland was Sewlarium (love the name!). There was a great selection there, I found this Moda Halloween toweling, a Sasquatch print, and two more fabrics to possibly be players in my medallion quilt.

At Powell's City of Books, because I'd flown up, I hadn't brought along the usual journal kit. So I got a new journal, some Micron pens, a couple of cards and postcards. The two actual books that I bought were Japanese Quilting Piece by Piece - Yoko Saito and Patterns by Drusilla Cole. The first one, all the projects are super interesting (although quite brown!) and the patterns are included with the used book. The second is so interesting, apparently it's a series of books from this author, some of which are strictly focused on surface design. Very fun and inspiring stuff to see on every page.

On our way over to the Oregon coast we detoured to McMinnville to visit Boersma's. I found a pencil shavings in a bright yellow in the basement sale zone, and three purples to maybe be in my medallion quilt. They had a ton of Sashiko stuff and I bought an unusual thread that combines red and blue in it.

This is a converted downtown three story brick  building. I took this picture because I loved the  colors of the Boersma's sign along with the brick and the "love you" graffiti.

Check out that moving lit up arrow sign! Have you ever seen a quilt shop with one of those?!?!

They had some nice displays of completed quilts and hung up circles covered in various fabrics in the big front windows, very eye-catching. Inside, the top floor is classrooms, the middle floor offices, and the main and basement is all fabric.

Okay, that's probably enough for today, tomorrow I'll finish off documenting the vacation buying spree.