Rainbow, Rare and Knotty

After a visit the other day with friend Jaye to the long arm artist, Colleen Granger to drop off quilts (City Sampler is now approaching the finish line), we made a stop at Bay Quilts just before they closed.

I managed to find some good stuff in a short amount of time, a few fabrics to add to the Medallion Quilt box, as well as this FQ rainbow pack of collage images. Now I need to find a good fat quarter chunky sort of pattern as I don't want to cut these up into too small of pieces.

In the fat quarter bins, this Tula Pink neon lion caught my eye, the store clerk was very excited for me as she said it was a rare one now. I also got two more colors of Spagetti embroidery thread. I also couldn't resist the small retablo, especially once I read the back of it.

Here's the back of the Our Lady Undoer of Knots retablo from Lynn Garlick Retablos, cool huh? I might have to do an Undoer of Knots quilt.

Now to go update my fabric tracker for the year.

A Visit to Sew Creative

 

On a trip last week with DH, we stayed in Ashland, Oregon and walked around the very cool downtown. We were desperate for a bathroom opportunity, and lo and behold, a quilt shop appeared. I knew they'd have one, I don't think I've ever been in a single quilt store without facilities. Sew Creative is a really nice shop, they had great selections for all types of fabrics and many clever fat quarter presentations. Like the plastic sushi container filled with FQ's above. DH saw these at the checkout and grabbed this one insisting that I needed to get it. Apparently the shop owner is big on recycling and takeout sushi, so she recycles these perfect containers to make appealing FQ combinations.

Some of the pieces were even rolled up just like sushi which was super cute!  They also had packs of FQs tucked into painted metal cages hanging all around the store. They turned out to be suet cages that are supposed to be squirrel proof. This was a very clever marketing idea to go with their new BOM quilt Sweet Tweets which involves appliquéd and embroidered wool birds.

It was very fun to unpack this tray of goodies. And there was no sushi fishy smell at all. I would imagine they get run through the dishwasher or something like that. I love when business find ways to reuse plastic containers in such a clever way.

And then there were the bag patterns! I saw a bag designer on offer that I'd never come across, Charlie's Aunt - Vintage Sewing Patterns. Not that I'm claiming to be an expert or anything, but I have recently been on an extensive quilt shop trip with friend Jaye who is a literal expert on all things bags. I couldn't resist and chose this one because they had one made up in a great combination of solid wool. I love the angles of the flaps, those intriguing layers, the size of the bag and the three buttons. And yes, I'll admit, the beautiful leather gloves and cool coat on the model. I really like the sun hat pattern that Charlie's Aunt sells on Etsy.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took inside the shop, obviously in the bathroom. But is this not the cutest re-use of wooden spool and a piece of a vintage advertising ruler?

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.

Wandering Wednesday - Portland

Some actual wandering, I went to Portland to visit with friend Jaye who was already up there. On my first day there we went to Powell's City of Books. Imagine our surprise to see quilts on display up on the top floor! 

It was a really excellent Pride month display put on by the Portland Modern Quilt Guild.

It was really fun to sit on the benches to rest a bit and take in all that rainbow goodness, good vibes for sure. Here's a link to their instagram with some more closeups and info.

There were many many books that I sat and browsed through and considered buying like this one, Boro & Sashiko: Harmonious Imperfection by Shannon & Jason Mullett-Bowsby. I really want to make this reversible rectangle wrap vest that was one of the highlights of the book. They had so many used and by now vintage (from the 80's and 90's) quilt books that were fun to look through. 

Jaye had rented a small house in one of the many suburbs of Portland, we had a great time walking around checking out all the street vegetable boxes.

This cabbage reminded me of the monstrous plant, Audrey II, from Little Shop of Horrors.

I loved this old junior high building with this very excellent quote on top of the door way: "Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and Power are scattered with all its beams" - Daniel Webster

The extended version of this quote is even better and quite timely I think.

I think this was likely a repainted Coca Cola advertisement, but I still liked the colors and fonts.

I liked the walkway near the house that we stayed in, it had a great ground cover combination with flat stone. No tripping, but still pretty.

We also went to a couple of Portland's many quilt shops (of course!). This one was Pioneer Quilts, in a really lovely historic home called the Broetje House. The two main buildings are connected by a glassed-in walkway. Which I would imagine would be really handy in rainy Portland. It made for a nice space to display quilts and bolts of fabrics.

Really enjoyed this shop, they had a wide variety of fabric on offer that was really well-displayed. It's one of those packed-full quilt shops that is still easily navigable and organized. I'll post more later about what I ended up buying there. I resisted buying a Kaffe Fassett glasses case or umbrella (just barely).

Down At The Ol' LQS

LQS is an acronym for Local Quilt Shop (Shoppe, Store). And mine is Judy's Sewing in Scotts Valley. These two pictures were recently recovered from my old cell phone (the one that took an ill-advised detour into the toilet, don't ask). The cell phone doesn't work, but the teeny tiny SD card decided to work after a couple months of drying out. How about that ? Miracles of technology and all, which are usually utterly defeated by just a little bit of water.So last summer I walked into Judy's and there was my friend, Terri Thayer's first quilting mystery book, Wild Goose Chase: A Quilting Mystery prominently displayed. I was thrilled and rearranged stuff so you could see the book a bit better. Her second book in the series came out Old Maid's Puzzle: A Quilting Mystery (Quilting Mysteries) .

I find them to be much better reading than the Chiavarini quilting books, maybe because I know the author, but definitely because I like the writing and characters and setting a whole lot more.

I'm looking forward to the third one coming out in April, Ocean Waves: A Quilting Mystery . It is fun knowing a published author, we all were quizzing her during the CQFA retreat about the whole writing/publishing thing, very cool. We were full of suggestions for characters and ways to kill off people related to quilting, which she very gracefully and bemusedly listened to.


And another thing that caught my eye in the quilt store was this baby toy to sew. You know those plastic stacker toys, this one is made with high contrast fabric donuts, the pattern is by Heather Bailey. I might just have to make one for my new niece to be, brother and sister-in-law are expecting soon!