Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
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Last week was a hard week, which culminated with me having to drive 3 hours north on Friday to go on a short vacation with my family. part of me wanted to go and part of me wanted to lay face down in my own bed all weekend. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive and was tight as a spring up until I got out of the City. I finally got to the lake and the first thing I did was look up quilt shops. The weather was not laying by the pool weather and I was determined to have some fun.There are two shops in the area I was willing to drive in: Shelley’s Quilted Treasures and Kerri’s Quilting.
The first shop I found and visited was in Kelseyville. Kelseyville is a small town with a main street that is pretty lively. There was an antique store, a bead store, a computer store, and a couple of restaurants in addition to Shelley’s Quilted Treasures. We also passed the public library on our way there.
The shop has been there for 12 years, but Shelley has only owned it for about 2.5 years. Brenda manages the shop and is knowledgeable ( I heard her helping someone select the right amount of fabric for a class project) and VERY friendly.
The store is large, bright and very cheerful. There were at least three other rooms behind the sales floor, one of which housed a longarm machine. The fabrics were fun, on the new side and who couldn’t love four shelves of dots? I found one of the Basix dots and bought the rest of the bolt. They had a lot of very appealing kits, including one with the above referenced Basix dot print and turquoise in a rail fence pattern. Normally, I am a bit dismissive of kits (the snob in me, I guess), because they appear to require so little thought. However, a combination of the Gabrielle Swain class and going to Shelley’s as well as the experience I had in a quilt shop with the woman who had finished all of the quilts in Quilts Quilts Quilts made me realize that not everyone knows how to design a quilt; not even putting blocks together with confidence. I don’t think it is most people, but I do think that a lot of people don’t have the confidence to try and fail. I think also there is an issue with “wasting” fabric.
The shop also had a great collection of pear pincushions. They had ready made pincushions for about $20 and patterns so you could make your own. I thought about buying one, but didn’t see one with a fabric combination I adored.
I found out later that Lake County used to be renowned for its pear crop, but that all of the pear trees are being replaced with vineyards.
The shop was light and airy with dark-ish brown shelves. they had a lot of new fabrics, but some golden oldies as well ( like the Basix). Shelley’s stocked other materials as well such as Tsukineko Fabric pens, a holder for my colored pencils, which I bought since I had been fighting with the organization of my colored pencils the day before.
Next, we drove to Lakeport. I had my MIL and SIL along who were very patient and didn’t hurry me along. We missed the Lakeport Memorial Day Parade, but stopped at Kerri’s Quilting, which is a nice little shop in a sad location. We were the only people visiting at the time. It is a small shop, but has a really nice fabric. I found a couple of dots and some 40s (??) pinwheel fabric in a different colorway than I had before. I saw an Artbin that held 12″ projects, but forgot to buy one. The owner was friendly and showed me the little sundresses she was making for her granddaughter. She had also juste received a small business award from the city.
The mall where Kerri’s resides has a lot of vacancies, including a restaurant space and the anchor space, which used to be a market, and is located behind an old, decrepit and defunct gas station. Lakeport looks like a nice town (larger than Kelseyville).
I hope that the day we were there was a slow day and that normally the shop is bustling.
These are my weekend purchases.
These are the purchases I made after the Gabrielle Swain class at New Pieces in Berkeley. The books were very spur of the moment.
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I hope the above describes some of my work lately!
I spent the better part of 4 days in Monterey at a conference (for my other life). I have gone to this particular event for a number of years, particularly when it is in Monterey (some years they have had it in Palm Spring, San Diego, etc.). One of the nice things is that I stay with friends rather than staying in a hotel (no late night Law & Order sessions for me!). This year their house was under construction and my friends were sleeping in *my* bedroom! The nerve. They shuffled me off to his sister’s house a bit down the road where I was treated fabulously and helped out as well. Sis’ hubby went in for hip surgery after my first overnight, so I kept her company. I had my own ensuite bedroom and bath. The bath had a heated floor!
Back Porch Fabrics
Back Porch Fabrics is a wonderful quilt store in Pacific Grove, which I have visited and written about before. It is light and airy and the people are friendly. The absolute first thing I did when I got to the Monterey Peninsula was head to Pacific Grove. I didn’t think there could possibly be any dot fabrics I didn’t own, but I was mistaken.
Not only was I able to find more dots (and a few other fabrics), but the lovely Quilts Japan mag as well. There was another issue that I liked, but I really only liked the cover, so I didn’t buy it. The quilt store staff didn’t leave me alone long enough to take a picture of the cover, so I will have to try and find it online.
The quilts they had hanging up were not in my colors, but they went together really well, were graphic and well made and that made me like them. Unfortunately, the staff would not let me take ANY photos in the store. I knew they wouldn’t let me take photos of their class sample quilts, but I wanted to show you some overall pictures of the store so you could get a sense of it. No dice. Sorry, maybe next time.
Sherri e-mailed me and was kind enough to offer the two lovely dots above, which arrived while I was away I’ll need to cut some strips and add them to the piles. I probably won’t be able to use the grey in the Pineapple quilt, but, as I have a few more dot quilts in me, I will find a place for it. Thanks, Sherri!
Finally, I have been neglecting the Flowering Snowballs (Cross Blocks), but sat down in front of bad TV last night and finished this one. I only had the two middle seams to finish, so I can add this to the stack.
I also attended the CQFA meeting today. We spent, probably, 1.5-2 hours on show and tell. It was a lot of tell and that was great. I showed the Nosegay and the sleeve on Sharon’s quilt, which is now finished. Hooray!
I was looking for the Quilts Japan issue when I came across Little Shika blog. It has a Yarnstorm kind of feel with my dogged resolve to show all the steps in a project. (Suppose I should rethink that, e.g. how much information is too much information???) Great photos, too.
Stay tuned for a report on my new iron!
OK, just a little more catching up, then you may not hear from me for weeks on end again. Hopefully not. 😉
Dots and Kaffe Fassett fabrics St. JCN and I bought together and shared.
Retail therapy from eQuilter.
Dierdre sent me some black and whites for the Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball).
Latest Cross Block.
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I am in Denver for a conference related to my work work. I took a day off to hang out and relax a little bit. St. JCN came to join me and brought me these nice fabrics. The cups are, dare I say, cheerful! And the bonus is there is NO brown. See, fabric manufacturers, brown is not mandatory in coffee fabric.
The other thing about these fabrics is that they are not very good for my quiltmaking, except for the dots, of course. I just don’t use conversationals, but they are fantastic for napkins. Periodically, in the past, I have made napkins out of two fat quarters of fabric sewn together with a decorative stitch. Often, the napkin project became a big drag, because of the corners, usually. You can read a little about my last napkin foray here. With my recent Teacher Pillow experience, I am beginning to think I am just a quiltmaker and not much of a crafter. That is, however, a whole different subject and I am not getting into it now.
What I am getting around to is yet another reason for St. JCN’s nickname. She said she would make me napkins out this fabric. HOORAY! New napkins. What a saint!
The first shop we visited was after our gallery tour was the Golden Quilt Company. The Golden Quilt Company is across the street from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum (very convenient, because I was ready to touch some fabric after seeing the exhibit). What a friendly crowd! Not only did I find great fabrics, but we were allowed to take photos of whatever we wanted in the shop. Nice!
GQC had lots of brights and clear colors. The space was open and airy and on a quaint main drag in a nice looking small town.
As you can see, I branched out and bought non-dot fabrics.
Another shop that we visited was called Harriet’s Treadle Arts.
This is the shop of Harriet Hargrave, the machine quilting queen. The shop has been open for nearly 26 years, which seems like a long time in quilt world to me. Kim and Kari helped us in the shop and were extremely friendly. We heard all about their projects and the samples they made and they heard about our projects. The shop is medium sized and in a stand-alone building on W. 44th Ave in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. I didn’t find it on Google or on Yahoo Local. It also was not mentioned on any of the web lists that I found before my trip. We were directed there by Jessica at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. The store is decorated with lots of medium – dark wood and carries lots and lots of reproductions. However, the store does not exclusively have reproductions. As you can see, there were plenty of dots and brights and batiks to satisfy me. They carried lots and lots of tools, had a medium sized classroom, lots of great samples and a huge selection of books. I was pleased to see that they carried solids and Perl cotton as well.
I pretty much cleaned out their dots selection. 😉
I have done a lot in the past few days and will continue the travelogue another day.
I spent a few days in Monterey at a conference and had it on my list to go to Back Porch Fabrics. I missed them by a few minutes on Sunday after my drive down, but went on a lunch break on Tuesday and, even though I only had a few minutes, it was great. What a wonderful store! It is light and airy with bright, bright colors. So different from the dreary browns I have been subjected to recently.
Additionally, Jean, a CQFA member was there working. We were able to have a nice little chat while she cut my fabrics. I got some great fabrics.
I also bought the relatively new Sandra Meech Book, Creative Quilts. It was an impulse buy, but the displays were so good at Back Porch that I couldn’t help myself. I almost bought another as well, but restrained myself.
Before I left on my trip, I ordered some more additional pieces of the Serendipity fabrics (these are the Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins fabrics from P&B not the new Robbi Joy colelction) from Joyce at Quilting Adventures. I am gearing up to make the quilt out of the whole line and want to use the turquoise as the sashing and some of the border. Most of these fabrics you have seen before. You can see them in one of my August posts. They were waiting for me when I returned.
She sent them along with a nice little note. What a pleasure to work with her. If you have not been to Joyce’s store, go there on your way into or out of Washington DC. If you can’t go to the shop, at least take a look at the shop blog. It will give you a sense of the shop. You can also take a look at the some June posts to get a sense of my experience there. I did take some photos of the shop, but can’t find them now. If I come across them, I will edit this post, so check back. QA will be moving in December, so any photos I post will be archival footage anyway.
After work yesterday, I stopped by Thimble Creek since I happened to be in the neighborhood. I always liked that store. I remember it being very different from New Pieces and Cotton Patch when it opened. I liked the high ceilings and the energy. They also often had really nice quilts hanging up.
The energy has changed there. The people seem much more businesslike and not as friendly- not unfriendly, just not as friendly. Perhaps they were just being businesslike. I certainly have no objection to running a business as a business. Perhaps I was giving off “don’t bother me” energy.
The store is smaller since the last time I was there (2 years ago!). They gave up the part that had housed the gallery and solids area as well as books. The cashier said that they still had the same amount of fabric, which I could believe. The store seemed a little more crowded and not as open and airy as in the past.
I had no trouble find some fabric to purchase, however. Dots, of course! I bought the following:
I had hoped that the icky green would match the fabric from the Sampler, but I don’t think it will. It is a bit too yellow. I think I will have to give up and use a substitute for the icky green in the Sampler.
I am thinking that the next Interlocking Triangles quilt will have the background shown in the previous post with the Jennifer Sampou spirals and dot fabric. Now just to complete the pattern and get started.
I was also inspired by some of the quilts they had hanging up. Some I liked the patterns and others I liked the color combinations. I didn’t take photos as they stopped allowing that the last time I asked. I didn’t,however, ask this time. It seemed like a lot of the patterns or color combinations I liked were by a pattern company called Uptown Girl. I couldn’t find anything about them on the web, so if you know their website, send it along.
I drew a picture of one in my journal and will see about posting it.
