Leavenworth-Wenatchee-Ephrata Row by Row Experience

         My husband John had a meeting in Leavenworth, Washington.  It’s a great town about 150 miles (or three hours) away, so I packed my bag to tag along. We left at about 4:30 after he got home from work. To get there we took I-90, and despite all the trips we’ve made through Snoqualmie Pass the scenery up there still takes my breath away.

         When we got to Roslyn, we stopped to eat dinner. We haven’t been to the little town where the TV show Northern Exposure was filmed in years.

The camel mural is still there. We parked right in front of The Brick, went in and ordered a couple of burgers.

Holling wasn’t bartending and Shelley wasn’t our waitress, but the food was delicious and hit the spot.

          Then we wound through the Okanogan Wenatchee mountains on to Leavenworth, the town with a colorful history including overcoming economic hardship at least three times. Its latest comeback was to re-create itself with an alpine theme by turning itself into a Bavarian Village. Now days there are festivals and events year-round along with outdoor activities that attract over two million visitors a year. We’ve been there several times and usually just enjoy walking around the little “German” town, looking in the shops and eating German food.

       

Sauerbraten and Schweinshax'n at King Ludwig's Restaurant.

       

This time I had another plan.  While John was in his all-day meeting, I would go on my own quilt shop hop. On the western side of Washington, the Row by Row Experience is going on at certain quilt shops. Each participating shop designs a quilt row and offers the free pattern of it to shoppers; kits that include the fabrics can also be purchased.  I found out that Row by Row is also going on in eastern Washington. In fact, it’s going on in all 50 states! It started in June and will finish up in September.

Row by Row quilt at The Attic Window.

         I knew right where the quilt shop in Leavenworth was because I’d been there before. Fifteen minutes before it opened, I was parked in front of Dee’s Country Accents on Commercial Street.

       This shop is packed full of goodies and looks deceptively small when you walk in because you can’t see that there’s another floor downstairs where the fabric is. It feels almost like you’re in a library because the shelves of fabric reach the ceiling.

       It’s very organized and the lady there helped me find the patterns I wanted. I asked if they were participating in the Row by Row Experience, and she said no, but she told me how to get to a nearby quilt shop that was.

       The quilting community is great that way, always willing to help a quilter who’s on a mission without much of a plan. She directed me to Leavenworth Quilt Co. and said that it is right next to Prey’s fruit barn on the way out of town with a huge American flag. I remembered seeing that flag on our way in.

        When I got to Leavenworth Quilt Co. 5-10 minutes later, the door was locked. I was jiggling the handle when owner, Lynn came to my rescue explaining that she had it closed because she was moving things around. She apologized saying it was a mess in there. I told her that was fine, then I’d feel right at home.

        I loved her shop! She had a broad selection of fabric and a row that included her shop’s logo and also reflected the shop’s surroundings.

During the half hour that I was in the Leavenworth Quilt Co., UPS made a delivery and at least three customers came in who were Lynn’s friends as well as customers.

          One lady who used to live on the west side told me two more shops to go to. While Lynn got online to find the addresses and write them down for me, the other gal told me that it was a beautiful drive to the Wenatchee shop—that I would follow the river and along the way there would be orchards with signs telling me what kind of fruits they were growing. They agreed that I was lucky because the smoke from the wildfires had eased up from a few days ago and this would be the last day with temperatures in the 100s. I thanked them and headed back out onto Highway 2.

          She was right, it was a beautiful drive, and I decided that we will definitely have to get some fruit to take home with us after driving through all those abundant fruit orchards.

          When I got to Wenatchee, 20 minutes later I was on Wenatchee Ave, the same street that the The Attic Window was on. This would be easy. I guessed that the shop would be in the downtown area so I followed the signs to the city center. Their downtown is bigger than Puyallup’s. It was well marked and there was plenty of free street parking.

          The Attic Window is one shop over from the corner of Wenatchee Ave and Palouse.

When I walked in, I interrupted their lunch. They jumped up to help me, but I told them to finish eating while I shopped. Their row is called “Skipping Stones in Wenatchee.” It is a row of six hexagons in bottle green and blue batiks, my favorite color palette.

         I think I talked to the owner, Diane, and told her that Lynn in Leavenworth had sent me to her shop. I asked her how long it would take to get to the next shop, Fabric Patch in Ephrata. She said it would take about an hour, although she said other people estimated 45 minutes, which led to a conversation about how fast/slow people drive and getting speeding tickets, whether they were doing roadwork, etc.

This is another reason I love independent quilt shops. You really are visiting these shop owners’ “homes.” They aren’t reading from a script, “What are you making? Would you like to open a credit card with us? Are you on our mailing list?” There’s usually a sign up email address list near the register, but they aren’t pushing it. They are real people taking the time to talk to another real person.

After our conversation, I decided to skip the shop in Ephrata. I didn’t think I had enough time and I was worried about the wildfires. I hit the sidewalk in search of a place to eat lunch.

Across the street from the Wenatchee Convention Center I spotted The Lemolo Café and Deli. It was packed, so I knew it would be good.

I walked under “Big Foot(?)” hanging from the ceiling, to the back where the kitchen was bustling. The menu was written on a huge blackboard.

 I ordered the turkey, bacon, avocado sandwich and an iced tea. My tea theory, that only places with hot climates know how to make good iced tea, held true. They gave me a free refill in a go cup that kept me cool all the way through 102 degree heat back to Leavenworth. (P.S. 102 is scorching hot even when it's a dry heat.)

Our second morning in Leavenworth, I woke up and thought, “This would be a good day to drive to Ephrata.” John’s meeting was going until 2:00. The night before, we decided to stay an extra day so that he could get out of the conference room and actually enjoy Leavenworth. I could buzz over to Ephrata and then be back by the time he got out of his meeting.

I looked at a map on Google and wrote highway numbers down on the paper with the quilt shop list that Lynn had given me the day before. Follow the Wenatchee River down on US 2 East to Wenatchee, then cross the Columbia River and take WA 28 East to Ephrata. It was simple enough until the crossing the river part where there were exit and entrance ramps that required looping around and crossing over three lanes in a hurry.

With that out of the way, I could enjoy the scenery which was impressive. On the left were jagged, soaring cliffs. At the base, orchards were squeezed in between the bluffs and the road. On the right it was Roll Columbia, Roll and it was hard to keep my eyes on the road driving past the Rock Island dam.

Eventually the landscape softened into hills and flat farmland. I drove through Quincy and on to Ephrata.

                The Fabric Patch was easy to find and with over 6000 bolts of fabric all under $9.50/yard, and a hallway filled with sale fabric priced at it $5.99/yard, it was worth the drive.

Room-like sections categorize fabrics by holiday: Christmas, Halloween, 4^th of July. And just when I thought I’d found the end of the store, there was more. They offer long-arm quilting services and have a block of the month. They also sell fabric online and if you need more of a fabric that you bought there, the online store makes it easy to find it.

          I was so busy taking it all in and lugging sale bolts off fabric to the cutting table, I almost forgot to ask for their row of the Row by Row Experience. I’m glad I remembered because it’s a scene that captures their area—a fisherman standing in the river fishing with a big one on his line.

 As I was checking out, someone didn’t quite close the door. One of the ladies managed to grab it and secure it before the wind caught it.

When I pulled out of Ephrata the wind was gusting up to 35 mph carrying dust and tumbleweeds with it, but that was OK, I’d eaten enough bratwurst in Leavenworth and bought enough fabric in Ephrata to make sure I wouldn’t get blown away.

Laura Keolanui Stark is trying to decide which row to start making for her Row by Row quilt. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.