Tag: Oregon

I know I talked about Sewlarium the other day, but Josephine’s Dry Goods (JDG) was actually the first shop we visited. In comparison to the other places I know in Portland, I am not sure where it was. I let Amanda drive and I just entertained her. 😉

JDG is described as a luxurious fabric boutique. This shop reminded me of the first shop, Satin Moon at 23 Clement Street, I visited in the City when I first started to sew. Both shops are not just quiltmaking stores. They are sewing stores with a tendency to specialize in garments and garment fabrics.

JDG had quiltmaking cottons, including some designs I hadn’t seen or colorways I hadn’t seen. One was Gardenia by Sally Kelly from Windham. Unlike many quilt shops, JDG did not have the whole line. I thought the border print was gorgeous. With a black bodice, this print would make a fantastic dress. The colors of the flowers were so vibrant and lovely.

Much of the fabric was on rolls, which I always find interesting. There were velvets, silks, a lot of Liberty lawn, linen – a lot of linen, suiting fabrics, some chiffons and all manner of other garment sewing fabrics.

A number of the garment sewing fabrics were set with a drape of fabric flowing off of them, the way House of Fabrics used to display fabric, but you don’t see in quilt stores at all. I think it shows the drape of the fabric. Not all the fabrics were displayed that way. I think they displayed the fabrics as required for the type of fabric. I think that shows a thoughtful owner or manager.

Just out of the photo, above, behind the fabric, was a couch where two men (husbands?) were parked.

This photo captures the front of the shop to the left of the front door. You can see some of the fabrics in the photo above from another angle.

You can also see some of the finer fabrics that were on rolls. The green in the top roll was amazing! It was a velvet, but not a thick one, so, perhaps, velvet-like. I would love a dress made out of it.

In the back of the photo, against the wall, you can see some silks and various Japanese fabrics. I think most were either silk or linen. Right in front of the leftmost wall display are the Liberty fabrics.

There really was fabric everywhere and there were also a lot of customers on a Thursday when we were in the shop. I was kind of amazed.

The photo, right, shows many more of the rolls of fabric. I thought that would be a good place to find some oilcloth that would go well in my dining room, but no luck on that front. I did see a linen stripe in teal that, in a different color, might be great for reupholstering my wingback chairs. Mom didn’t like the width of the stripe.

From where I was standing above, I could turn and see towards the front of the shop. This was an aisle of notions. The button case is on the right. It reminds me of the button wall at Britex before they moved. So many buttons! I was tempted to buy some crystal and rhinestone cluster buttons. I don’t have a project, so I passed.

In the back of the photo is a rack of garment patterns by independent designers. The way the patterns are displayed makes it hard to see the front of the pattern, which means it is hard to know what kind of pattern you are looking at.

The front of the shop has a nice big counter. I would LOVE a cutting table like the one they have.

They rip all of their fabric and that sounds always makes me cringe. I know why they do it.

Above the counter, probably for their website, they have a camera setup that looks pretty sophisticated.

I didn’t buy anything. I might have bought the Gardenia border print, but I didn’t have a project plan, so I restrained myself.

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Josephine’s Dry Goods
2609 SE Clinton Street
Portland, OR 97202
P: 503-224-4202
Info@JosephinesDryGoods.com

As is my habit, I went out with Amanda to fabric stores while I was in Portland last week. She found some shops which we had never visited.

Sewlarium is a new shop in Portland. I visited twice, once with Amanda, once with Julie.

It has been open since January and is owned by a young man named Zachariah. That’s right! A YOUNG MAN. He said that he is active in all the local guilds and his business has been slowly growing.

One part of his business is quilting. He has a longarm and is getting more longarm clients as people get to know him. He got his longarm about a year before he opened the shop and is still building his skills. The longarming he does is hand guided edge to edge using pantographs. He practices a lot on charity quilts from local guilds. Zachariah has a relationship with other longarmers if someone needs more sophisticated custom quilting. It seems to be normal to have a longarm in a shop now. It seems reasonable that small businesses need as many income streams as possible

When we walked in, we saw patterns and notions. He had a whole rack of Elizabeth Hartman patterns. I don’t want to make her patterns, but I always enjoy looking at them. The ideas are so funny.  There were some I have never seen, such as Cats in Pajamas.

 

 

 

Around the patterns were a basket of toweling fabrics in various holiday motifs. There was also a display of Guterman thread. He also had some Aurifil in neutral colors near the cash register. Just out of the picture was a new display of new Ruby Star Society fabrics and some Alison Glass-looking fabrics from Moda right near the front door. Zachariah also had some notions near the front door.

I noticed that he had some of the Dropcloth Sampler kits on the wall with the notions.

There was fabric tucked everywhere, including under the cutting table. The fabric in the shop was very well curated.

Speaking of that, I saw a lot of the ‘Start to Sew’ and ‘Start to Quilt’ box kits around the shop. I think those kits might be related to EverSew machines which he also had in the shop. Full service!

I also saw quite a few panels. The second time I went in Zachariah was working on a panel kit making a monkey backpack. It was very cute.

I only saw one quilt kit (Tula Pink, of course).

Zachariah had good fabric. He had the new Ruby Star line, as mentioned, and most, if not all, of the Tula True Colors. He was also knowledgeable out fabric, which made me think he he has been quiltmaking for awhile, though I forgot to ask.

All over the shops we visited were Bigfoot. As you can see there is a panel hanging over the True Colors. This is just one of the various Bigfoot fabrics we saw.

Julie showed me some pre-made binding that actually looked cool. Aside from it not being washed, I think the pre-made binding would be a good option for some quilts. It would certainly save time.

I really liked this shop. It was open, clean and fresh looking. Zachariah was really friendly and chatted with us, but not too much.

The best thing about the shop was the wall of zippers! He had about 30 coils of #5 zippers on the wall. You could choose the one you wanted as well as the amount. It was fantastic. No online shopping required, though he does have an online shop if you are not in Portland.

He had a few zipper pulls, but I think he needs to stock up on a greater variety. I am sure that is in the cards.

The thing about these zippers is he said he was a bag guy, as in he enjoyed making bags. He lamented the fact that he has only a few bag patterns and no samples. I told him I knew he will get to adding more bags and more samples. I suggested having a Friday night bag club like the guild has after meetings. Poor guy has a lot on his plate so we’ll see.

I bought a few fabrics to make bags I have in mind plus some of his fabulous zippers!

Sewlarium
3236 N Lombard St.
Portland, OR 97217
Daily: 11am - 7pm
CLOSED TUESDAY
(971)400-0446

 

The trip home from Portland started off slow. It took us forever to get out of the city, which I expected. it was Friday afternoon, after all, and people wanted to get away. I was a little surprised, though, since we left around 1pm. I thought that was a little early for people to be leaving the office.

What I did not expect was slow traffic all the way down I5. It wasn’t stopped, but we only went about 40-50 mph (~70 kph). Finally, I was falling asleep at the wheel and needed a break. We stopped in Albany, because it was close and looked large-ish. Mom was able to find a quilt shop there, which was a bonus. We thought we could, also, certainly find a coffee shop, but no such luck. Note to Starbuck’s: please put your *amn outlets next to the freeway not in some secluded Safeway.

Anyway, it was worth a stop. I had never been to Albany, Oregon and the shop was worth stopping to visit. It is a mile or two off the highway, but the Google directions were good and the downtown street, where the shop is located, had a lot of charm.

The Quilt Loft is a large shop, though the interior also came across as long and thin. It covers two storefronts and held a lot of fabrics.

I was VERY impressed to see four longarms, controlled by computers working away when we were there. I was told later that one of the staff was an excellent custom longarm quilter and was working back there as well. I was happy to see a shop helping people get their quilts finished. I am sure it is good for their cash flow as well.

The longarm area was in the back of the second storefront (to the left of the main door you see in the photo above). In front of the longarm workroom was the notions, books and batting area. I had never seen rolls of batting in a quilt shop like they had in the Quilt Loft!

I didn’t check to see what kind of batting they had. You can see that the do offer a few choices.

Next to the batting area were notions and some books. The shop had a few books, but not a large book area that I saw. The books were mostly scattered around the shop. One I saw looked interesting, Scrappiness is Happiness** by Lori Holt. I thought there were at least 5 quilts I would make out of that book. However, I wasn’t in the mood to buy books, so I put it on my Christmas list. I don’t see this book on their website, but I am sure you can call them and they will ship it to you.

I didn’t think they had a ton of notions either. I was surprised to see Quilter’s Rule rulers. I am not sure I have ever seen these for sale in a shop. If I have it was either a long time ago or I just don’t remember.

As mentioned, the shop had a lot of fabric. Much of it was new to me, though I did recognize the manufacturers. I didn’t see any Tula or Kaffe. I always find it nice to see new and different fabric.

On the left of the photo (right) was a new line of butterfly type fabric. The main, or focus fabric had words on it. I thought the French theme would make a good future bag for my sister, but there was no more yardage. I was only able to find a couple of fat quarters. I can make some small pouches or, perhaps, a small Kit Supply Tote with the amount I bought.

I wasn’t able to visit a lot of shops on this trip, but the ones I did visit were decorated for Hallowe’en. They had projects on the walls and appropriate fabrics front and center. The Quilt Loft was no exception.

I haven’t seen that applique’ pattern with the purple back and black silhouettes before. I thought it was interesting. It looked like all needle turn applique’, which will never happen in my house. 😉

Some of the more modern fabrics were near the notions and batting. I found quite a few Allison Glass fabrics in that area. The staff who helped me said they were flying off the shelves. I also saw some of the Judy Niemeyer samples that are so popular at the San Mateo County Fair. I was pleased to see a wide variety of solids and not all of them (if any?) were Kona. They carry a wide selection of American Made Brands solids, which made me happy.

The shop also had different substrates. I didn’t see a class schedule, but they must have garment classes as well.

The classroom was in the first/main building behind all the initial fabric you see when you first walk in. It was large. It has a mishmash of chairs, but there were some comfy looking office chairs. The room also had three large tables, so I think people could spread out.

There were some interesting projects hanging there. As I said, I didn’t see the class schedule, so I don’t know which were samples and which were decoration. Regardless, this shop had a lot of quilts hanging up which provided a lot of inspiration.

As is common in many quilt shops, there was a nice looking seating area in the front. I liked the design of the chairs. Partners could be comfy while their other half shopped. If it hadn’t been raining the light would have been good, so someone could sit there and do handwork as well. I don’t know if the shop allows it.

I bought a few fat quarters and one half yard of a new Alison Glass fabric. They had the full line of her new fabrics and I couldn’t resist just a bit of it.

I also bought that red and white flower print on the left. It is an older fabric. I had some and used it up. I decided to grab one last FQ.

Not that this is a different shop than the Quilting Loft in Seattle, which I reviewed in 2013. I haven’t been to Seattle in awhile, but the website for the Quilting Loft is no longer, so I imagine the shop is closed as well.

The Quilt Loft
405 First Ave NW, Albany, OR 97321, United States
tel: +1 541 928 7242
Website: https://www.evilmadquilter.com/

Hours: Sun Closed
Mon 10 AM–5 PM
Tue 10 AM–5 PM
Wed 10 AM–5 PM
Thu 10 AM–5 PM
Fri 10 AM–5 PM
Sat 10 AM–5 PM

Email: Info@QuiltLoft.com or Info@EvilMadQuilter.com

This is a shop we visited when we went to Portland in March. For some reason, I never got around to writing about it.

When we had to leave the AirBnB, but before we could check into the hotel, we had some time to wander around the Portland Metro area. We happened to wander into Washington and visited Just for Fun in Vancouver.

In case you don’t know, Vancouver is not too far from Portland. I liked this shop. The people were super friendly – verging on too friendly, but just shying away from it.

They had an excellent selection of fabric, samples and a great notions area.

The shop wasn’t large and the first thing I did was look at the Kimberbell items. Do I have an embroidery machine? No. I don’t know why I look at the patterns and supplies all the time, but I do. The lady in that area was super friendly and very chatty. I had to work hard to get away from her.

The shop isn’t large, but they had an appealing selection. They did have the fabrics on those slanted shelves, which I don’t usually like. I did feel like I could see the fabrics pretty well, angled as they were.

I think they all the Kona solids, though i didn’t count.

This is where I saw the Birthday fabric from Sarah Watts of Ruby Star Society used in the Cha Cha Cha table runner. I didn’t do anything special except buy the charm pack and the pattern. Mine came out a little differently, but I still like it.

There were a number of good sample projects around.

I also found the Easter fabric at Just for Fun. As mentioned, I thought I would make masks for Easter, but then decided to make napkins.

I noticed the shop had a kind of pastel-ly vibe. That is probably not true, but that was the impression I got. Perhaps there was a larger selection of light fabrics? Or there were just Easter fabrics in profusion, which are typically pastels.

Above where the people are standing (photo left) you can see some panels. They had a nice selection of panels. Mom bought one or two for  future baby quilts.

Remember when I talked about Golden State’s new space and the longarm machines? I have no problem with any shop dedicating space to longarming, but the noise breaks my concentration. Just for Fun had two or three machines as well. Those machines were in a corner of the space and blocked with doors from the retail space. Customers could look into the space and see the longarms running, but not hear them. It was GREAT (no photo, sorry).

Just for Fun
Address: 1503 NE 78th St, Unit 12, Vancouver, WA 98665, United States
Phone: +1 360 882 9101
Website: https://www.justforfunquilting.com/

 

I was fortunate that Amanda had some free time and we were able to hang out a little. Of course, we went to quilt shops. I didn’t have a whole day to spend as I was working while I traveled.

We definitely made time to visit Pioneer Quilts again. I wrote about it a little while ago. The shop had refreshed fabrics and had moved some things around in the lobby area, but was otherwise the same great shop. I looked for ideas for the wool felt I bought last time. I refrained from buying more wool felt, though I was tempted.

I saw some pincushions I could make and also some table runners, though they used black as a background (patterns from Primitive Gatherings).  I don’t want something that dark or folk-arty, which is why I was thinking of buying some wool felt yardage. I didn’t as I got the idea to cut overlapping ovals (or another another shape) from what I have and putting them together to make a table runner for the buffet. I’ll check the wool felt I have at home and see if I can make something large enough with the wool felt I have.

I never noticed the door handles before, but they were beautiful. I took a picture thinking that I might be able to use some or all of the design for something.

I also bought a few things, including a new Yoko Saito bag book. The shapes of her bags are amazing! Look at that one on the cover! The ribbon is another Renaissance Ribbon that I hope to use the ribbon on another bag soon. Pioneer Quilts was the first place I saw that type of ribbon in person.

The pinks on the bottom right might be great for the Friesian Pouch with those great pink zippers, especially the circles. I have some of that fabric in a different colorway. I haven’t seen that colorway before.

 

 

 

Pioneer Quilt Shop
3101 SE Courtney
Portland, OR 97222
503.654.1555
info@pioneerquiltshop.com

We stayed with Mary in Ashland overnight on our way to Portland. This area is a quilt shop mecca, but I want to use fabric not buy much more, so I had to balance my love of quilt shops and quilt shopping with my bursting fabric closet.

Mary directed us to Green’s Sew & Vac, which is a sewing machine and vacuum sales & repair shop with a HUGE selection of bag supplies and 2000 bolts of fabric. They had one of the best selections of bag making supplies I have seen. They also had bags made up – A LOT OF BAGS – and hanging near the patterns, so shoppers could see what the bag looked like and how big it would be. I liked this store even before I talked to Vickie, the owner/operator of the part of the store where the bag making supplies lived.

I didn’t pay much attention to the machines, but I saw Janome, Babylock, and Bernina for sale. I think that one in the front is a M7 Continental. I am still enamored of that machine, but can’t buy it now. There was also a whole room of vacuums, which I didn’t explore.

The shop has so many different aspects. The first thing I saw was a 70% off sale of Accuquilt. You bet I looked at what they had. One thing they that I would have bought in a second was a die for a bowl cozies. I still want to make bowl cozies as gifts for DH’s cousins. Sadly, it was only for the Accuquilt Big not the Accuquilt Go!**, which I have. I might have been tempted to buy an Accuquilt Big, but they didn’t have one. Probably a good thing. I don’t have anywhere to store it at the moment.

In terms of fabric, they had a good selection of quilt fabrics, but also more canvas and heavier weight fabrics like canvas than I have seen at other stores. I didn’t see any of the Echino canvas like I bought in Ashland at Sew Creative last year.

They don’t consider themselves a quilt store, which Vickie made clear to me. They consider themselves to be a bag making store. I think that is a good business model as there aren’t a lot of stores that specialize in bags. They had a lot of quilt-adjacent supplies and the fabrics could, mostly, be used for quilts as well as bags and other projects.

One thing I saw was a lot of embroidery supplies: Kimberbell**, thread, interfacing and things on which to embroider such as tea towels. I didn’t recognize the interfacing brand and I wasn’t in the market so I didn’t investigate.

Some of the bag making brands available were Sallie Tomato, Emmaline and ByAnnie. I haven’t actually seen Emmaline in person before, so that was a mini-thrill. The shop carried a lot of hardware, much of it I had never seen in person. I was thrilled with what I saw and wanted to buy everything.As you know, I like online shopping, but there is something special about seeing bag hardware (and fabric) in person.

They have just started this part of the venture, Vickie said, so are adding supplies slowly.

One of the bonuses at this shop was their YouTube page where Vickie has a live session, called “How Vickie Does It”, every Thursday. She told me that she focuses on bag making in these sessions.

I bought a couple of things. I am not going to embroider on the tea towels. I am just going to use them in my kitchen. They are perfect for my decor.

I bought the small triangular pieces. Sadly they didn’t have the corresponding lobster clips.

Green’s Sewing & Vacuum Center
1017 Knutson Ave., Medford, OR
Tel: (541) 779-3411
https://greensdirect.com/
https://readysetsewclasses.com/
No masks required

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops. However, I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.

On our way home we stopped in Medford at Cottage Quilting. This shop is not too far from Ashland, so it was the last shop on our way home.

The weather was awful. It was over 100 degrees when we stopped. I tried to find some shade for the car, but just ended up making us walk across the hot parking lot in the blazing sun.

You know what the non-quilting interesting thing was near Cottage Quilting? A grocery store sized Harry & David’s store! I have seen the catalog, but not a shop.

Fortunately, most of the world has air conditioning and the shop was nice and cool. What a huge shop! They took up two storefronts in a modern, one story mall. We were also fortunate to arrive when we did as they were closing the shop for a week starting the next day.

The first thing that happened was that the owner scared the living daylights out of me. He just popped up and welcomed us, which was nice, but unexpected. It was completely my fault, because I wasn’t expecting it. I have to say I was hot and tired from driving, so I wasn’t at my best.

The shop has TONS of various types of machines. After thinking about it, I think most of the shop is machines, though they have a fair amount of fabric, including the best selection of toweling (tea towel fabric) I have seen. They have a number of different colors. I bought some white for my SIL so she can embroider on it. I seem to do that whenever I go somewhere and find tea towel fabric.

I also liked the selection of notions, thread and rulers. Another excellent selection of both. I truly saw items I had never seen before including a small pair of Duckbill scissors.

The shop had more thread brands and colors than I have seen. I could definitely spend some money there if the shop were closer to my house.

The owner came up to us again and wanted to chat a few minutes after we had started to look around. This did annoy me. My mom can always be counted on to chat up new people, so I left her to it and continued to look at fabric and notions.

I would visit this shop again, especially with a list of notions and rulers I needed.

Cottage Quilts * Sew Creative Studio
1310 Center Drive
Unit A
Medford, Oregon 97501
Tel: 541-500-8071
Email: info@cottage-quilts.com
Hours:

Tuesday – Saturday
10 am to 5 pm

My friend Amanda took me to several shops when we stopped in Portland on our way home. One was called Cotton Cure. It was a GREAT shop. It didn’t have the most fabric, but it has a really good variety and the presentation was excellent.

The quilt shop was in an urban shopping mall type building.  Shopping mall is not quite the right term. It was an older (looking?) building. You had to go into the main door and down a hallway to find the shop. The shop was three rooms, two of which were full of fabric and supplies. LOTS of bag making hardware and supplies.

The first thing I saw was the new Heather Bailey fabric, True Kisses by Figo. It made me think of my grandmother’s living room curtains. The shop had a variety of different cuts – full yards, half yards, and fat quarters. I think they had wide backs as well. I didn’t take very good notice, so I am not sure. I really wanted all of this line and thought of the variety of pre-cuts, but I restrained myself. I can’t stop thinking about the line, however, so I may have to buy the whole line. I am slightly horrified at how much pandemic fabric buying I have done, so we’ll see.

That big green cabinet was full of bag hardware. I almost swooned! It is a really cool looking cabinet, though.

It wasn’t super convenient as the drawers were hard to pull out and push in, but each drawer had a different type or size of hardware. I would really love to have a shop with a such a wide variety that I could see. I feel the need to stockpile when I see hardware and I never seem to have what I need when I need it. Clearly stockpiling doesn’t work. Is there a shop owner out there who would listen to me and my crazy ideas?

That heart quilt is on their website as a PDF download called Tainted Hearts. It’s fairly appealing, though I am working hard not to buy more patterns until I make a few of those on my list.

While small, the shop had a great selection of floss. The rolls in the center are Eleganza – the brand that makes Sue Spargo’s floss/embroidery thread. As you can see the thread is not on spools. The shop also had a lot of the Dropcloth Samplers, which I had never seen before in person.

On the far right of the cabinets, the shop had other embroidery designs and another brand of embroidery thread. I neglected to see what the brand was. It is interesting that a number of quilting shops are branching out into embroidery.

They had a lot of thread as well, but some of it was across from the embroidery thread.

The other item was a large selection of wool felt. I bought a few scraps at Pioneer Quilts for my egg project. I talked about the eggs a little in my post called Handwork Week. Wool felt can get pricey, but Cotton Cure and Pioneer Quilts both have fantastic colors – not just the primitive folk design colors: brown, tan and taupe. Those are not my colors.

You can see the wool felt better in the picture, left. They really had a nice selection of colors. Not great for turquoise, but look at those pinks and purples! The yellows and oranges are pretty nice, too.

This photo shows more regular thread, too.

The waxed canvas is in rolls in the basket attached to the black & white plaid wall.

The second room had more bag making stuff and a ton of notions. The shop had a good selection of mesh as well as a variety of different substrates. I saw waxed canvas for the first time in person. I almost bought some, but it was on the pricey side. Since I didn’t have a project in mind, I passed (for once!).

They also had the Clammy rulers, which, again, I haven’t seen in person. I didn’t take a close look at the patterns, but the tool makes me think they had some of Latifah’s patterns as well.

Most of the shops I visited had Tula Pink’s Curiouser and Curiouser fabrics. I bought a little at Calico Creations, but didn’t keep collecting.

The two tier rack in the first picture above is their sale fabric. This may not have been all of it. I don’t know; this is what I saw. Regardless, it was good fabric. Not icky novelty fabrics or anything.

The shop also had a workroom. It was a well used room. I suppose it might be a classroom in non-pandemic times. At the moment they seem to be using it for prep and a place to just toss stuff. We all have those spaces, right? 🙂

They have a longarm, but I didn’t see any information about whether they longarm customer quilts or rent time on the machine. I noticed that their Juki sewing machine was set up so the operator could stand at it. I have always wanted to try that.

I definitely want to visit this shop again and I will add them to my list of online fabric shopping websites.

Cotton Cure
133 SE 2nd Avenue
Hillsboro, Oregon 97123
We use the same entrance as Balance Fitness, so look for their signage!

Hours:
Open M,W,Th,F,Sa 10am-4pm

Contact Us:
By Phone: 503-747-6115
By Email: thecottoncure@gmail.com

After 18 months, I am on the road again. I drove almost 1000 miles north to see my YM who has had two bouts of non-COVID illness in the last month. I needed to see him for myself – see that he was getting well, see that he was taking care of himself. Since he was the only one who was not fully vaccinated (though he is now), I felt confident in traveling.

I want everything to be like it was, though I realize it isn’t so I put on my mask and go forth in the new normal: looking at others wearing masks and seeing so many closed shops and restaurants.

On the way north, we stopped in Ashland, Oregon. It is a beautiful city and I took some time to venture to a quilt shop.

Sew Creative was crammed full of everything quilty: fabric, kits, patterns, notions, etc. I thought the shop was a tiny bit overcrowded and a little dark, but I liked the overcrowding because there was so much stuff! Also, it was a little dark because the walls had beautiful wood. Neither made me not want to go there again. I had to decide if I was going to visit again on the way back!

One of the things I saw (but didn’t buy) were a couple of interesting bag patterns. The shape of the bags were pretty normal, but they had some interesting detail. One had a diagonal pocket (like the shape I cut with the Simple Folded Corners ruler). It is in the middle of the counter in the photo. The other, which is hanging in the photo, right, has a scalloped top edge.

This section had some Figo Linen/Cotton blend fabrics that were a little like canvas. I bought two 2 yard pieces and plan to make some bags out of them. I have heard of Figo fabrics and seen them in quilt shop newsletters, but hadn’t seen them in person. Since this was the first quilt shop in which I had set foot in 18 months or so this should come as no surprise.

I also saw a large selection of books (photo left). They had about 3 full racks of books. I didn’t look closely at them, but I noticed several I have not seen at other quilt shops or had never seen. The shop had a GREAT selection of embroidery stitch books.

In the books photo you can also see a sample quilt. The shop had a number of sample quilts around the store. I am not sure if the samples were for classes. There was a straight list of classes, but there were no photos, so I’m not sure what types of classes they were and I didn’t ask.

This photo is looking from the back of the store towards the front window. You can see the beautiful wood on the ceiling.

There were several tables scattered throughout the store with various displays. Many of them held a project or kit. I didn’t look very carefully at the kits, but I did notice there was a huge selection, so anyone who didn’t want to make decisions was in the right shop.

I bought a couple of gifts and the shop staff was very helpful with them.

The back of the store was a little brighter. The ceiling was white and that helped. Don’t you love the black and white floor? I do!

There really was a lot of stuff in this store and looking at the photos, I realize how much I missed.  Most of the bolts of fabric by color were housed in the back of the store. I found some turquoise dot dash fabric. They had quite a bit of Philip Jacobs for KFC prints and I spent a long time looking at them and dreaming.  I also found a few red-violet prints to replace the ones I have used up.

In this photo, you can see how many patterns are available. There were a wide variety of non-quilt patterns. I saw placements, a number of different bags, some garments. I also noticed that many of the patterns were from designers I didn’t recognize.  I didn’t find it difficult to see the patterns, in terms of lighting. That is one of the things I enjoy about visiting quilt shops in different areas.

In the photo, left, you can also see the shelves of fabric at the back of the photo. That is where I found the dot dash fabric.

The other thing I noticed was the shop was very clean. I don’t know what they have been doing during COVID restrictions, but it looked like they turn over their stock quickly.

The grey stripes and the black stripes are the Figo fabrics. I am going to use the white, which I think is Grunge fabric, to redo my inspiration board. The Laurel Burch fabric will be a gift. The shop had a great selection of Kaffe fabrics. I bought that shell (?) sea urchin (?) print. I also replaced some of my red-violets.

I highly recommend this store. I will definitely stop again next time I drive through Ashland.

Sew Creative
Address: 115 E Main St, Ashland, OR 97520, United States
Phone: +1 541 482 1665

Sharon’s was a surprise. We happened across it as we were preparing to go back to downtown Portland after visiting a few fabric stores. I wasn’t quite ready to stop looking for fabric. I was pleased that so many shops were open on a Sunday.

The first thing we saw when we walked in was a display of Moda fabrics, precuts and gift items. Yes, I was tempted by the  V&Co ombre dots fat quarter pack and yard pack. I resisted, because I have some of the fabric at home already. The shop had quite a few fat quarter packs as well as jelly rolls. I walked around the display a couple of times even though I am not much of a fan of the Moda greige goods. I do like their designers.

The shop reminded me a bit of Always Quilting, except that it was tidier. Sharon’s was a really big store. There was a large classroom in the back and a space with two longarms, one of which was being used to quilt a quilt.

I saw a lot of possibilities for creativity, including a number of specialty rulers, embroidery supplies as well as a full selection of patterns, notions and, of course, fabric. There was also a well stocked book area. I was able to look at the new Kim Brackett book, Scrap Basket Bounty.

Sharon’s Attic Quilt Shop
2950 SW Cornelius
Pass Rd., Suite 100
Hillsboro, OR 97123
Ph: 503.259.3475
Email: ssrice991@integra.net
Web: http://www.sharonsatticquiltshop.com/