Visiting the In-Laws

Susan and I arrived in Seattle on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday morning, DD#2 made me breakfast, we swapped cars, and I drove her diesel Jetta onto the ferry for a trip across Puget Sound to the peninsula.

Our DSIL’s parents helpfully arranged an appointment with their mechanic so we could get the Jetta’s oil and filters changed and the summer tires put on. (Snow tires have to be off by March 31 in WA state.) That also gave me an excellent reason to visit them. While the car was in the shop, DSIL’s mom and I went to a small quilt shop in their town. The store has temporarily located to a building next door while their original shop undergoes some renovations, but they have a lovely selection and I did some damage there:

I bought a length of Grunge in navy blue with teal accents, some Kona in a color called Blueprint (for binding), an older Bonnie and Camille print I had been searching for, and some wool felt. This store had several out-of-print fabric lines in the back room, including some of the Corey Yoder Pepper and Flax line. Large quilt stores tend to churn through inventory quickly. The big quilt store in Spokane rarely has fabric from lines older than a year or so. Smaller quilt stores might keep stock for several years. They often don’t have online ordering, though, so the only way to find some of these older fabrics is to visit in person.

I spent the night at the in-laws’ house rather than driving back to Seattle in the dark. I timed my departure the next morning so I could stop at another quilt store before getting on the ferry. The Quilted Strait, in Port Gamble, WA, has always been closed when I’ve driven over to the in-laws’. I arrived a few minutes before they opened Thursday morning. This store is well stocked and beautifully laid out and worth a visit if you are in the Seattle area.

I bought a fat quarter bundle of Tim Holtz fabric, some Diagonal Seam Tape—which had been a specific item on my shopping list—a holder for my spray bottle that clamps onto my ironing board, and some Valdani thread. This store had a fantastic selection of wool embroidery supplies, including the entire line of Valdani threads. These are the same ones that Primitive Gatherings uses in their patterns. I had never seen them in person. I bought several balls of the #12 perle cotton, which is impossible to find except online (more on that in a moment).

[Diagonal Seam Tape is the brainchild of Allison, at Cluck Cluck Sew, and adheres to the bed of your sewing machine much like painter’s tape. It provides clear center and 1/4” sewing lines for making HSTs and other units where you sew on the diagonal. Everyone who has used it says it’s a game changer, so I thought I’d try it.]

After I got back to DD#2’s and retrieved the BMW, I headed up toward the mall where she used to work. I had a few items to look for at Kohls and Target and also stopped at Barnes and Noble, Trader Joe’s, Joanns, Hobby Lobby, and Half-Price books. I found a book on blacksmithing for the husband.

Friday’s shopping excursion included a trip to Ikea, which is south of Seattle by the airport. I go there because it’s fun to walk around, but on this trip, the only thing I bought was a dozen lint roller refills and some small items for DD#2. (I have found lint rollers to be very useful in the sewing room.) Just a little bit further south, off of I-5, is a small town on the edge of Puget Sound called Des Moines (like Iowa), and there I visited Carriage Country Quilts. I could have spent hours in that store. They carry a lot of reproduction Civil War and 1930s fabrics, as well as tons of wool embroidery supplies, including both Valdani and Aurifil threads. Aurifil makes embroidery threads in addition to quilting threads.

[Visiting stores like this reminds me that despite the internet and the availability of online ordering, Montana is at least a year behind the rest of the country in terms of trends. It always has been. Our quilt stores carry small amounts of wool embroidery supplies—and have more stock than they did a year ago—but clearly, the wool embroidery craze has yet to reach us in full force. It is frustrating to watch YouTube videos touting all these cool projects and know that you have nowhere to take a class or even see them in person to to determine if it’s something you would like to try.]

In any case, it’s probably a good thing that my shopping time in that store was limited:

I came out with a pattern for a quilt done in wool embroidery on a linen background. The owner of the store is doing it as a block of the month kit and I briefly considered signing up for that, but settled on just the pattern. I also bought a spool of Aurifil 12wt thread to try and a small bundle of wool felt fat quarters. The wool felt in this store is hand-dyed by a local artist. Because I bought wool felt, the owner threw in a bag of wool scraps—always useful—and because it was my first time in the store, I got a free fat quarter of fabric (the flannel pig print). I certainly will be making another trip to this store the next time I visit DD#2.

My vacation is over and now the fun starts here on the homestead. The husband picked up eight bags of potting soil for me so I could get seeds started this week. Susan and I also worked out a plan for getting chicks: if I go to the farm store and they have chicks, I am buying hers as well as mine and vice versa. They have been selling out as soon as they get a shipment, but I don’t have time to camp out at the store all week. Plan B is to hatch out my own again.

The Big Top quilt is finished and bound (pics soon). I have 24 of the 42 Flower Garden blocks appliquéd:

I’ll finish the rest as soon as I cut more background squares. I am pleased with how quickly this came together. I plan to put a label on the back with Bertha’s information on it. She pieced these flowers in February 1950, and 71 years later, they finally made it into a quilt.