Happiness is when the son of a quilter visits another city, checks out the local quilt shop and takes a picture of his favorite quilt for his mom. The quilt is Spirit Fish and the shop is Bayside Quilting in Olympia, WA. Great quilt!
I recently spent some time in Arizona visiting family. I had the use of a rental car so I visited some quilt shops in the area. Although there are 14 shops that are members of the Maricopa County Independent Quilt Shop Association, I did not get to them all. After all, I need to save something for the next trip, right?
The first shop that I visited was, A Quilters’ Oasis (www.aquiltersoasis.com) I have been to this shop a couple of times before on previous trips. This shop has doubled in size since my last visit. I have been watching the improvements on their blog and it was very exciting to see the changes in person. My purchase here was a Bunny Hill Designs redwork pattern called, Raining Cats & Dogs.
When I asked the local quilters what quilt shop was their favorite, I got back the response, “3 Dudes” from more than one of them so I had to make it out to Phoenix to visit that shop. (www.3dudesquilting.com) Thanks to my son’s navigation, we made it across Maricopa County from Mesa, through Tempe, and into Phoenix.
The displays of quilts inside 3 Dudes was incredible! If there was wall space, it was covered with a quilt. This is a photo taken from inside the shop. I just loved the quilt on the right.
My purchases from 3 Dudes Quilting included 1.5 yards of this fabric from In The Beginning Fabrics by Jason Yenter called, Southwest Beauties and this pattern called, Spicy Spiral Table Runner by School House Quilts.
Once we were back in Mesa, I dropped my son off at my parents’ and ventured out on my own to two local shops: Mulqueen’s (www.sewshop.com) and ETC (scrapbooks-etc.com).
Mulqueen’s was a bit hard to find but definitely worth it. All fabrics at Mulqueen’s are $6.95 per yard and they stock all of the Kona solids.
I found the gold fabric below (Who comes to Zinnia’s Garden by Jacqueline Paton for Red Rooster Fabrics) at Mulqueen’s and the green fabric below (Dimples by Gail Kessler) at ETC. I will be combining these two purchases with fabrics that I already have at home to make the placemat and tablerunner set from the pattern, Trading Post by Elizabeth Anne Quilt Designs. I purchased the pattern on line from Southwest Decoratives in Albequerque, NM.
I found this southwest inspired batik at Mulqueen’s and yes, batiks are also $6.95 per yard! I have plans to turn this piece of yardage into some sort of bag/tote.
ETC is actually a giant fabric and scrapbooking store. Along with the fabric above, I purchased a purple coloured scrapbook album for scrapbooking our daughter’s wedding pictures.
And finally, no trip to Mesa would be complete without a stop at the Marketplace. (mesamarket.com) At the market, I purchased the following fabrics from a quilt fabric vendor.
I bought several yards of La Celebracion designed by Greta Lynn for Kanvas Studio to use as backing for my Mexican Tiles quilt top.
I also purchased these southwest themed fat quarters. Fabric designs in the southwest theme/style are getting harder to find so when I saw these, I thought I should be picking them up to add to my collection back home.
On Saturday, January 18, my Mom and I joined up with the quilting group from my Mom’s park to attend, Quilt Fiesta!–the Tucson Quilters Guild 36th Annual Quilt Show. Of course I did not leave the vendor’s area empty handed.
I purchased these fabrics from Desert Stitchin (www.desertstitchin.com). I plan to use these fabrics to make the GE Designs’ pattern, Strip Stacks.
I have a love for the Giant Saguaro Cactus and I was on the hunt for a pattern to make my own Saguaro quilt. Although I saw several Saguaro inspired quilt patterns, only one had the simple clean lines I was looking for. This pattern is part of a row quilt called, Coyote Country by Hummingbird Quilt Studio.
I am now home from vacation and anxious to get started on making quilts from these patterns and fabrics!
My first stop was Tangled Threads in Lynden.
Each shop was giving away the pattern for a block. All of the shops made all 13 blocks and put them together in unique quilt settings. Seeing all of the quilts was like a mini quilt show. This was Tangled Threads’ quilt:
These are the fabrics that were in the “kit” that Cher sent last year after she attended the annual quilt show in Sisters, Oregon. This panel was the official fabric for the 2011 Sisters Quilt Show, and is called “Nature’s Symphony”, by Kathy Deggendorfer. Cher challenged each of the FABs to make a quilt using this panel and the other kit fabrics that she sent us.
I may have found a new addiction–cat fabrics. While at Tangled Threads I found these three cat themed fat quarters. They seemed to call out to me so I brought them home. I also found some teeny tiny black buttons that my Mom and I might be able to use in our snowman blue work blocks. (We seem to be French Knot phobic! LOL)
My second stop was also in Lynden at Calico Country.
This is Calico Country’s quilt using the shop hop blocks.
I found the perfect cat fabric at Calico Country. This fabric is from Loralie Designs and is called, “Spice Cats.”
The third shop I visited was, Folktales, also located in Lynden. http://folktalesfabricshop.blogspot.ca/
This was Folktales’ version of the shop hop quilt.
I came across this cute panel at Folktales. It was on sale for less than half price, so I brought home two. If one is good, then two must be better, right?
I also found small black buttons – a little bigger than the buttons that I had bought at Tangled Threads. This cute Easter stitchery pattern also came home with me–Easter Stack by Kassie Moen.
This was the shop sample of Easter Stack. The woman who stitched this sample was in the shop when I was there and told me that she used Crayola Crayons to colour her fabric, not chalk as had been used in the pattern. I prefer the look of the crayons myself.
That was it for quilt shops in Lynden. I then headed down the highway to Bellingham where I stopped at Fabric Etc.
This was Fabric Etc’s version of the shop hop quilt. They added the name of each shop that participated in the shop hop above the door on the house that featured that shop’s block.
The next stop was Fourth Corner Quilts. This is the side of the shop that you see as you approach the shop from the road. You have to pull in off the busy street and park in the rear of the shop.
This is the view around the corner where you park and enter the shop.
This is Fourth Corner’s version of the shop hop quilt. Fourth Corner’s block is the Maple Leaf block. All of the blocks are arranged in the shape of a tree, symbolic of all the trees in the Pacific Northwest. You can’t see it in this picture but the background quilting contained many images of things you might see in the Pacific Northwest like birds.
The last shop that I visited on the shop hop was Two Thimbles, also in Bellingham.
This is Two Thimbles’ version of the quilt shop hop quilt.
I picked up two fabrics at Two Thimbles–a green and a brown. My daughter is getting married in September and her colours are green, brown, and champagne. I have a lot of greens in my stash, but as I said before, very little in the way of browns. This brown had so many shades of brown in it, I thought I couldn’t go wrong picking some of this one up. The woman in the shop told me that this particular brown is very popular with the local quilters as it covers a wide range of shades of brown.
The Pueblo is made entirely of adobe — earth mixed with water and straw, then either poured into forms or made into sun-dried bricks. The walls are frequently several feet thick. The roofs of each of the five stories are supported by large timbers hauled down from the mountain forests. Smaller pieces of wood are placed side-by-side on top of the large timbers; then the whole roof is covered with packed dirt. The outside surfaces of the Pueblo are continuously maintained by replastering with think layers of mud. Interior walls are carefully coated with thin washes of white earth to keep them clean and bright. The Pueblo is actually many individual homes, built side-by-side and in layers, with common walls but no connecting doorways. In earlier days there were no doors or windows and entry was gained only from the top.
The North-Side Pueblo is said to be one of the most photographed and painted buildings in the Western Hemisphere. It is the largest multi storied pueblo structure still existing.
This is a picture of me with our guide–a university student who supplements his income by narrating tours of the Pueblo. I asked him if he was often asked to pose for pictures with tourists. He told me that yes, he did get lots of requests, but he didn’t mind as he thought it was neat to be in photo albums all over the world.
After visiting the Pueblo, we headed into Taos to the Taos Plaza. Our bus parked in a parking lot within walking distance of a quilt shop–Taos Adobe Quilting.
http://www.taosadobequiltingandmore.com/
This is a picture of me outside the shop.
The shop was small but jam packed with colourful fabrics.
This was the quilt–Spirit of the Fiesta–that was being raffled off.
During our break between events at the Fiesta, we decided to walk from our hotel to a local quilt shop. Google indicated that it was 1.7 miles from our hotel to Southwest Decoratives and that the walk should take us about 35 minutes.
This is a picture of me taken in front of Southwest Decoratives. http://www.swdecoratives.com/
Even though I spent 45 minutes wandering around the shop, I still fell like I could have spent more time there–there was so much to see in this wonderful shop!
This is a picture of my patient husband waiting for me to finish shopping. He doesn’t look happy in the picture, but he wasn’t feeling 100%–he was fighting a cold. I think he deserves an award for walking with me to the quilt shop in the heat and then waiting patiently while I shopped. I think he is a keeper!
I purchased balloon fabrics to make myself a quilt to commemorate our balloon ride. The fabric on the left is from Timeless Treasures. The panel and fabric on the right (view of the tops of balloons) are from Andover Fabrics. I am planning to use the pattern, Sidelights to make my quilt.
This stripe print is called Monument Valley Stripe and is by Michael Miller. Although Monument Valley was not a place that we visited on this trip, the red rock and pictured in this fabric is very typical of the red rock formations that we saw in several places on this trip. My current plan for this print is a Seminole row type quilt.
This shop had the SW inspired quilt, Reflections, draped over a chair and they were selling it as a kit. As I had limited room in my suitcase and because fabric is heavy, I elected to buy the print yardage and pattern only. The fabrics that the shop put with this print in the quilt were solids or near solids and I felt I could purchase those at home. By leaving them behind, I was able to put other fabrics in their place in my suitcase–fabrics that I wouldn’t likely be able to get at home.
This print is A Robert Kaufman print called, American Heritage and reminds me of the jewellery made by the native craftsmen that this area is well known for.
The prints in the next picture are of cacti. I also fell in love with the Saguaro Cactus quilt hanger. I don’t have a pattern in mind right now for these prints, but I will be keeping my eyes open for something to showcase these interesting prints.
This is a panel of African animals that I will be adding to my African fabric stash for a “someday” quilt that I have planned. 🙂
This Easter Egg pattern is one that I had seen on line in the past but never was able to locate it in my quilt shop back home. I think this will make a cute table topper for spring.
