Quilt Store Crawl

My plan for Thursday was to visit the Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby stores on the north end of Spokane before heading even further north to check out some quilt stores in Deer Park and Chattaroy. I also threw in a stop at Trader Joe’s because it was on the way and they open early at 8 am. As I suspected, the Simplicity patterns were on sale at Joanns, so I picked up three that I had earmarked the day before, including a new vintage apron pattern and one for a knit fabric cardigan that might make a good serger class next fall.

Deer Park is about 20 miles northwest-ish of Spokane. Urban sprawl hasn’t gone that far, and once outside the city limits, the landscape quickly becomes rural farmland. I stopped at the first of two quilt stores in Deer Park—Sew-Into-Quilts—which is a small but nicely-stocked store whose owner is friendly and sports bright purple hair. I looked around for a bit but really couldn’t find anything to buy that I needed. Still, it’s nice to know that store is there. She is a Handi-Quilter dealer and had quite a few of the HQ longarm rulers.

Literally a stone’s throw away is Ed and Jean’s Quilt Shop. Ed was there and informed those of us in the store that Jean was currently enjoying the sunshine in Mexico. This is a tiny store, made even tinier by the fact that there were two longarm machines in the front room. I think longarming is their primary business. The rest of the store was crammed full of fabric and probably would have given the fire marshal heart palpitations, but Ed knew exactly where everything was and how to put his hands on it if someone asked. I was delighted to find a bolt of the exact fabric I was hoping to use for the sashing of the Sunbonnet Sue quilt and bought a couple of yards. Yay! Now I just need to finish the last four blocks and make the sashing and that one will be ready to quilt.

I had to travel about 10 miles east over to Chattaroy to find the last store, called As The Crow Flies:

This store popped up in my Facebook feed a few weeks ago because I follow the Washington State Quilters page and As the Crow Flies was one of their featured retailers. It is the most adorable store. The owner has a wonderful eye for interior design and the inside is as cute as the outside. She specializes in wool embroidery as well as quilting and I could have spent several happy hours (and lots of money) there. She also designs and has a line of her own patterns. I know I saw only a fraction of what she’s got.

I spotted a sign in the store that mentioned a quilting retreat. Thinking it was an annual retreat she hosted, I asked her about the dates. She informed me that the sign referred to the retreat center next door, The Crow’s Nest, which she rents out. The old farmhouse sleeps seven and comes with a large quilting studio with plenty of room to set up machines and work on projects. Kalispell peeps, what do you think? A group of us could rent a van—I’ll drive, as I know my way around—and go over for a couple of days. We could spend one day there working on projects and spend another day visiting all the quilt and thrift stores in and around Spokane. I suspect Robin and Sunnie and Tera would be up for the adventure, and we could probably persuade a few others to join us.

I would like to get back to doing wool embroidery in the evenings. I bought three pincushion patterns because pincushions are small, discrete projects that work up quickly and make good gifts for fellow sewists. I also have 25 pounds of crushed walnut shells to use up. This was one of the patterns I bought at As The Crow Flies:

It went together quickly and now I just need to work the embroidery on the sewing machine motif. I bought the kit for this pincushion because those are reproduction Civil War-era fabrics and they don’t feature prominently in my stash.

I left Spokane at first light Friday and arrived home around 1 pm. The husband had taken an early weekend and was waiting for me when I got here.

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This week, it’s back to business. I have to start working on Auction stuff. The pile of tops is still here waiting to be quilted. I ordered the rest of the rulers from Amanda Murphy’s website. They should arrive tomorrow.

I need to look into better ways to track my sewing projects. It’s not that I’m losing them in the chaos, but more that I have periods of time where it looks like I’m not getting anything done. I need a good way to reflect my progress. Checking things off a list is part of what motivates me.

[From the “slower by the minute but faster by the month” department—I have something like 43 hexie flowers made. I am rethinking what I want to do with them as they would be more than enough for an appliqué quilt design of some sort, like this one.]

I’m going to look like a finishing maniac when I get this pile of quilt tops done. I’ve got a bunch of table runners and other small items lined up behind them that also need to be quilted. And DD#2 asked me last night if I could make a batch of makeup pads for the friend she’s visiting in San Diego, so I’ll knock out another batch of those. They’re a good mindless serging project for late in the day.