Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop 2012

I’ve done so many shop hops, nine to be exact, that I have a casual attitude about them. My shop hopping technique matches my quilting technique: make this up as you go. Extreme flexibility is key. No time to plan because I just figured out that this is shop hop week! Yikes!

Poster of the quilt made from shop hop blocks.

Thursday, June 21: Last night I still wasn’t sure which shops I was going to. Sarah has to go to the airport on Friday, and I have a bridal shower to go to on Saturday, so I’d have to stay within a 20 mile radius on those two days. I wanted to go to a shop on Vashon Island, which involves a ferry ride that starts in Tacoma. I’d save that leg of shop hopping for Sunday and see if John wanted to join me.

Interstate 5, Western Washington.

So, my “big” solo trip day would be today. I could head north to the Canadian border or south to the Oregon border. I ate my breakfast and mulled it over as I drank a cup of tea. I love the shops up north in Lynden, and the shops up there are conveniently clustered together, more so than the southern shops. If I went up there, even though it was a long drive, I’d be able to hit a lot of shops, more bang for my tankful of gas.

I made a brown bag lunch, threw a banana, a bag of peanut M&M’s, and a bottle of Maroon 5 Snapple into a Kaffe Fassett shopping bag, along with maps and Googled driving instructions from two years ago. The weather was supposed to be sunny and warm, so shorts and a comfortable pair of shoes would do.

After filling up with $3.54/gallon gas, I jumped on Hwy. 512, up Hwy. 167, west on Hwy. 516, and then merged onto I-5 north.  There’s nothing like a road trip to clear the cobwebs out. My plan was to drive as far north as I could until 2:00 and then start hitting the quilt shops on the way back down toward home. Traffic was light since I’d left at 9:30 until it bottlenecked to a crawl in Seattle. Of course, this was when it became obvious that maybe the two or was it three (?) cups of tea I’d sipped wasn’t such a great idea.

               So when I saw Northgate Mall, I took the exit. When I came out of the restroom in Penney’s, I noticed some icy silver Nike running shoes for a good price. I could use some new Zumba shoes, the support in my current pair was shot.

               The clearance rack was next to the cash register. There was a pair of off-white, peep-toe pumps that might just work for Sarah. She’d been looking high and low for a pair of nude pumps to wear to a wedding this weekend. They were $15, and if she didn’t want them, she had very considerately grown to wear the same size shoes that I wear!

My new Nike's and Sarah's peep toe shoes.

I walked out of the store with two pairs of shoes, and an additional four pairs of flip flops (near the checkout) for a grand total of $72. I was set for summer! JC Penney was not listed as one of the 54 independent quilt shops on the 14^th Annual Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop, but it was my first stop and 20 minutes later I came out with my arms full and a smile on my face.

                Onward up Interstate 5 through Everett, and Marysville where the speed limit increases to 70 mph! I zoomed through Mt. Vernon and Bellingham, and in Lynden pulled into a shopping mall parking lot to eat my sack lunch at 1:30. I’d made it before my 2:00 deadline.

               My first official quilt shop stop was Calico Country, and I’d navigated the 150 miles without needing “no stinkin’ map!” This is one of my favorite shops. Whenever I walk in, it feels like I’m home. The gals working there are friendly, but they know when to leave you alone to shop. I headed toward the back room to get the official pamphlet listing all the participating shops with their ads which usually include driving instructions. I also needed to pick up my passport and get it stamped, and of course I needed to get their free quilt block.

Calico Country quilt shop, Lynden, WA.

               On my way to the back of the shop, my eyes had picked out a bolt of fabric with chocolates on it. Once I’d taken care of the passport issues, I went back to look at that fabric. There were two coordinating fabrics with cupcakes on them that were cute too. I lugged the bolts over to the cutting table.

               The lady there was wearing an adorable apron with ruffles. I complimented her on it and she did a little twirl. It was suddenly obvious that the fabrics I had up on the cutting table would be perfect to sew into that apron. I needed a gift for Saturday’s bridal shower. An apron would be perfect! I added two more coordinating fabrics with polka dots on them and she started cutting. She knew the yardage amounts by heart.

In the meantime, a line had formed behind me. I let two people with just a few items go ahead of me. The quilt shop lady and I were both getting a little flustered with all these people waiting. She’d called for backup. I practiced my three times tables while planning to make three aprons (for the bride, Sarah, and me) out of these fabrics.

While cutting fabric, the lady told me they’d really been slammed yesterday—the first day of the shop hop. Dang! I thought today was the first day! She also said they had already sold out of several of the official shop hop fabrics on the bolt. I bought a pre-cut bundle of them.

Lynden, Washington

I left the store and drove through a tree-lined tunnel to get to the next store, stopping to take a picture of a big windmill at the entrance to downtown Lynden. They are so nice up there. A truck actually stopped and blocked traffic for me because the driver saw that I was taking a picture of one of the town’s windmills.

Lynden, Washington

At Tangled Threads, I moved my Calico Country bag from the back seat of the car into the trunk. That’s when it dawned on me that the quilt store lady and I had been so distracted by the crowd of shop hoppers, I didn’t buy the apron pattern. In fact, I hadn’t even seen the pattern, so it wasn’t like I could look for it in another store.

I got stamped at Tangled Threads, then doubled back to Calico Country. When I told my aproned friend that I was back for the forgotten pattern, she apologized and we both laughed. Then she gave me instructions to get to the third shop in Lynden, Folktales.

Cupcake fabrics and the illusive apron pattern.

Folktales specializes in quilts with hand embroidered blocks. While I got stamped there, I overheard one of the ladies working there ask if she could leave to make a phone call. The owner told her that it would have to be a quick phone call because she had to leave to milk the cows . . .only in a small town like Lynden would you hear that.

The lady at Folktales gave me a map of the Tri-County quilt shops to help me find my way to the Bellingham shops and all the other shops down to Everett. With three stamps on my passport, I went to Fabrics-Etc. in Bellingham for a fourth stamp.

Even with the map, I circled the block a few times to find Fourth Corner Quilts. While I was there, I got a text from my friend Carol. She had to work during the shop hop, so all she could squeeze in were a few shops in and around Puyallup. She said they’d run out of the focus fabric and the red fabric, and asked me to pick some up for her if I found them. No luck in Fourth Corner Quilts.

From there it was just a few blocks to Two Thimbles Quilt Shop. When I got there, there weren’t any cars in the parking lot! Maybe they’d have Carol’s fabrics. Nope, they didn’t, because they weren’t participating in the shop hop this year. I, Ms. Casual Flexibility, hadn’t bothered looking closely at my passport. Oh well!

Leaving Bellingham, I appreciated this perfect weather day, sunny and in the low 70s. I could see snow capped Mt. Baker peeking up above the Cascades in the east as I drove south. It was the kind of day that I wish I could bottle up and save to uncork on a dark, dreary winter day. Yesterday was the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. Around here, that means that the sun doesn’t set until after 9:00 pm. However, it was still getting late. I wanted to hit Seattle late enough to miss rush hour, but I also didn’t want to get home too late.

The two shops in Anacortes are good ones, but they are almost 20 miles from I-5. I wanted to stay close to that I-5 corridor, so I skipped them and made a beeline to Calico Creations in Mt. Vernon. I got stamped there, and they had the focus fabric for Carol. I was relieved. If I couldn’t find the red, that wouldn’t be too big of a deal, it would be easy to find a substitute, but the focus fabric, with its detailed birds was the whole point of the quilt. This shop was sold out of the light blue fabric with berries on it. I’d be on the lookout for some of that too.

               Cotton Pickins in Stanwood was my next stop. The owner of this shop always has a fun way to give you her block. She makes you build the ingredients in an assembly line. One year everything fit together in a cup with a little umbrella and straw so it looked like a tropical drink.

Next stop: The Quiltmakers’ Shoppe in Arlington. I made the mistake of thinking this shop was closer to I-5 than it was, but it was a beautiful drive, and the shop is worth it, especially since I found the red fabric there. It was almost 6:00 when I texted the good news to Carol.

This year's shop hop fabrics from In the Beginning fabrics.

The last stop of the day was Aunt Mary’s Quilt Shop in Smokey Point. This shop wins my award for best driving directions. I navigate mostly by landmarks. Whenever someone says north/south/east/west to me, I have to physically turn my body around to figure it out, which is hard to do in a car with your seatbelt on.

Aunt Mary’s instructions say: “Take exit 206 from I-5. Go east (toward the mountains) take a right . . .” While she cut some brightly colored Kaffe Fasset fabric for me, I thanked her and explained that I’m from Hawaii where two of the directions are makai (toward the ocean), and mauka (toward the mountains). She told me that she grew up in a port town, and they always aligned themselves using the water too.

I accelerated back onto I-5 southbound toward Puyallup. The only “excitement” on the return trip happened between Everett and Seattle. I was in the left lane, doing the speed limit, and snacking on a banana for dinner when a state trooper appeared in my side view mirror. I checked my speed and guiltily tossed the peel onto the passenger seat trying to look like I wasn’t up to any monkey business, not wanting to get a ticket for driving under the influence of a banana.

He pulled up alongside me and turned his lights on. What??! Seriously, is eating while driving against the law? I wasn’t swerving or speeding. Well, it turned out that the lights were because he was pulling over a car slightly ahead of me in the carpool lane. There was only a driver in the car, no passengers. Whew!

Mt. Rainier, back home in Puyallup, WA.

Nine quilt shops, 300 miles, two pairs of shoes, 4 pairs of flip flops, 3 potential aprons, and a whole lot of yards of fabric. It was a good first day of the 2012 shop hop!

Laura Keolanui Stark is shop hopping somewhere in western Washington. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.