2012 Western Washington Shop Hop Days Two and Three

Friday, June 22, 2012:

               Sarah had to meet her boyfriend Andy at SeaTac airport at 1:30. From there, they were going to his house in Snohomish. So I decided I’d try to fit in a few shops that were fairly close by in the morning before I dropped her off.

My first stop was Parkland Parish Quilts, near Pacific Lutheran University. This quilt shop was formerly a church. The man stamping passports and giving out their block was sitting inside a confession booth. When I handed him my passport he asked if I had any sins I’d like to confess. I told him that I was guilty of neglecting my quilting. My other sin was getting off to a late start, so I didn’t spend much time there.

Parkland Parish Quilts, Parkland, WA

Yesterday the sun was shining on me the entire drive up north to Lynden and back home. It wasn’t shining today. The rain was back and apparently people had forgotten how to drive in it. I had planned on taking Hwy. 512 to I-5 south to get to Shibori Dragon in Lakewood, but the line to get onto I-5 was backed up so far I abandoned that plan and decided to take the surface streets.

I made it there despite road construction and getting confused because Lakewood streets form curvy triangles instead of blocks which would make an interesting quilt, but are hard to figure out in a car. Shibori Dragon specializes in Asian fabrics and wearable art with an Asian flair. I wished I had more time to look around, but I didn’t, so I got stamped, got the block, and got back on the road as fast as I could so that I could make the airport run with Sarah.

Carriage Country Quilts, Des Moines, WA.

I picked her up at home and got back on the highway. Traffic was heavy, but we made it to SeaTac airport on time. After I dropped Sarah off, it was on to Carriage Country Quilts in Des Moines. The shop is in an old house a few blocks away from the Puget Sound.  It was bustling, so I didn’t spend much time upstairs. The sale fabrics were down in the basement. Now, some of them are in my basement.

At the east end of Hwy. 516 in Kent, is a new quilt shop, Running Stitch Fabric. I liked that it’s located in the historic downtown section. They said that they had been open for 14 months, but this was their first shop hop. This inviting shop had lots of batiks, and I’m glad that they’re fairly close because we’ve lost shops in Auburn and Renton. I’ll remember to visit them when I’m up in that area.

Running Stitch Fabric, Kent, WA.

When I left Running Stitch Fabric at 3:30, I had thoughts of going to three more shops in Maple Valley, North Bend, and Buckley, but traffic was so heavy, I almost gave up and went home instead. It should’ve taken me 15 minutes to cover the 8 miles to Hwy. 18. Instead, it took me 45 minutes. At the last minute, I convinced myself to go to Taylor Creek Quilt Studio in Maple Valley thinking that while I was there, traffic on Hwy. 167 would ease up.  

I got to Taylor Creek Studio in a downpour. Parking is very limited so I had to park near another business. This used to be the tiniest quilt shop on the shop hop, not much bigger than my bedroom, but they expanded a little upwards, to a second floor. They were friendly, but I was feeling a bit like a drowned rat and I was trying to get home by 5:00, so all I did was get the block and get stamped.

Gridlock on southbound Hwy. 167.

Traffic was still horrible on what should’ve been a short ride home, but I made it home by my 5:00 deadline. That way I’d have time to make the apron for the bridal shower tomorrow. It was a shorter day than yesterday, but I collected five more blocks, and I got to visit a new shop.

Saturday, June 23, 2012:

One of Johnny’s college roommates, Marissa, is getting married and another former roommate, Renee, drove over from Tri-Cities and stayed overnight with us so that she could go to the bridal shower too. I whipped up the apron last night and just had to tack the finishing touch of a flower on it in the morning. When I ran out to buy a cookbook to go with the apron, the thought of squeezing one quilt shop in before the shower crossed my mind. Then sanity returned and I vetoed that idea.  

Cupcake apron for Marissa.

The shower was fun, and the bride really liked the apron. It had special meaning because Marissa was commandeered into my daughter’s cupcake baking frenzy for her boyfriend’s piano recital at WSU. Sarah was grateful for the baking, and also for the cleanup that Marissa did. That apron would’ve come in handy.

After the shower, I got right back into shop hop mode, at the mini level. This time John joined me. We left at about 3:30 and focused on nearby shops.

I hadn’t bought enough of the fabric that I lined the cupcake apron with to make two more aprons. I showed John a scrap before we left and asked him to keep an eye out for it.

We drove south on Meridian to Creative Quilter in Graham. I’ve taken classes at this shop so it’s familiar. They didn’t have the cupcake fabric, but on the clearance table they had two stunning Asian fabrics, so I got enough to make an Asian style jacket (featured in a Sewing Expo seminar). The owner of the shop told us which road to take to cut down to the Orting Valley.

Wild Rose Quilt Shop makes my top five list of favorite shops. They have a great selection of fabrics ranging from Civil War era reproduction prints to batiks, and from Moda fabric lines to playful flannels. I enjoyed doing their mystery quilt challenge twice, wondering what the quilt top would end up looking like each time. 

One of these days I’d love to round up some of my quilt buddies for a quilt retreat upstairs in Wild Rose Quilt Shop. It would be a dream getaway. John likes this shop too because he gets a kick out of the owner’s husband (actually he probably owns it too). He’s friendly and always wears cowboy boots, sometimes a cowboy hat too.

Our last stop of this shortened shop hop day was our hometown quilt shop, The Quilt Barn in Puyallup. We looked all over the shop for the cupcake fabric. I found some of the coordinating fabrics, but not THE ONE, and I didn’t find anything good in clearance, so I left with only a stamp and a block.

Three stores total on Saturday, not a huge amount, but it was still a worthwhile day of shop hopping.

Laura Keolanui Stark is labeling the blocks that she’s gotten on her Shop Hop poster with post-it notes. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Welcome to Palouse, Washington

People say that everything happens for a reason. I’m not totally convinced. There’s a lady in Palouse, Washington who is probably still scratching her head about a random, unexpected visit from two strangers.

Sometime during fall semester, Johnny mentioned that he’d spotted a quilt shop in the small town of Palouse. One of the requirements for a class he was taking was community service. He chose to volunteer at an elementary school there. 

During our phone call, he told me about his adventures working with little ones on Math night. He described what a challenge it was explaining to a first grader how a Sudoku puzzle worked. He laughed about two brothers and their competitive sibling spirit. He said on the way to the school, he’d driven by a quilt shop, and promised to take me there the next time I visited him at WSU in Pullman.

The unique hills of the Palouse, eastern Washi

So, on my last visit, Johnny drove me over 15 miles of rolling wheat fields that still had patches of snow on them, to the tiny town of Palouse, population 966. 

We drove right down Main Street and parked across the street from the shop. But, when we got up to the front door of Small Towne Quilts, and peered inside, it was dark and empty. Taped to the door was a sign saying they’d moved to W. Illinois Street. No problem. It was a small town. How hard could it be to find?

Main Street, Palouse, Washington

Pretty hard. We made several passes through town, around a grid of blocks, up and down the hills, and past the elementary school where Johnny had volunteered. I waved to school kids and their bus driver (hey, they started it!), and wound up in a neighborhood before we decided to return to the shop and get the phone number.

Then we drove back to where we thought the quilt shop should be. We parked in front of a big, old house with the right address, but it had no quilt shop sign. It was in a residential neighborhood, and there were no cars in front of it. It didn’t even look like anyone was home.

Johnny dialed the number on his cell, and as soon as it started ringing, passed it to me like a hot potato. A lady answered as I fumbled with the phone. I told her we were looking for the Small Towne Quilts shop.

She asked, “Are you in front of a house with red gables? Am I looking at you?”

How do you answer that? I told her we’d walk up to the front door.

Apparently, she had been looking at us. She opened the door and it was like being at home. A dachshund ran right at us, and started barking furiously. The lady ignored her, and walked us inside. The dachshund quieted down when I told her to hush. She was a miniature; “our” doxie, Suzie is a regular one, but they sure had similar personalities—a little slow to warm up on first meetings. One big difference though, was that this one, named Alice, had blue eyes!

The shop owner, Bev, explained that she’d closed her shop so she could focus on the long arm quilting part of her business. She led us through her house into her studio where several sewing machines lined an outer wall full of windows that looked out onto the back yard. A long arm quilting machine was the centerpiece of the room. She told me that she hadn’t set up her fabrics yet, it was all upstairs. I think if I had asked, she would’ve taken us up there, but I felt like we’d already been intrusive enough.

We had a friendly chat about quilting, and inheriting dachshunds from college-bound kids. Her son asked her to take care of Alice while he went to WSU. He’d recently told her that he wanted “his” dog back. She told him that she didn’t think it was going to happen.

As we talked, Alice would run up, and gently place a hacky sack on top of Bev’s foot. Bev would flick it into the dining room or down the hall, and Alice would tear off as fast as her short, little legs could carry her to fetch it. Great idea! Although, I’m not sure it would work with our two dogs. T-Bone and Suzie already look like a double-decker bus when they start running together, and I’m always worried Suzie will get trampled.

Bev got a kick out of Johnny finding her shop for me. I told her he’d been trained to spot quilt shops on all those Shop Hops I’d dragged him on while he was growing up. She invited me back the next time I was in Pullman, gave me her business card, and told me to check out her website.

Welcome to small town America, where people are friendly even when total strangers barge in unannounced. Bev is probably still wondering what that was all about.

Laura Keolanui Stark will continue to make random surprise visits to anyone associated with quilting, so watch out! If you want to see Alice the blue-eyed dachshund, she’s on Bev’s website: www.smalltownequilts.com

Fair Results

Friday, September 10 was the opening day of the Puyallup Fair, the 8^th largest fair in the world.  Between 10 a.m. and noon, admittance is free if you bring a can of food for the food bank. They make sure to tell you this when you enter a quilt.

John had a meeting at work that morning scheduled to end at 11, so I figured I’d be able to work out, shower, meet him, and make it to the fair by noon. I gave him a can of beans as he left for work in case we had to go in separate cars.  At 11:35, he called to say he was running a little late, but was 5 minutes from home. He'd underestimated how heavy traffic could get on Meridian on opening day.

We took our secret route back downtown to the fair only to discover a few thousand other people had the same “secret” route.  Time was ticking closer and closer to noon as we crept along. Everyone else was aiming for an official parking lot. We parked in the backyard of the first house that had a homeowner flagging us in. 

Eight minutes and several blocks to go. I should have kept my workout shoes on. I was jogging in 3 inch heels, hanging onto John’s arm to avoid a twisted ankle. At 11:59, we stood across the street from the Gold Gate, canned goods in hand, willing the sign to blink, “Walk, walk, walk.” The crowd carried us along, through the turnstiles, and we were in! How close could we cut it?

Our first stop would be The Pavilion, to see my quilts. On our way, I told John, “Don’t expect to see a ribbon on either of them.” He gave me a questioning look. I explained, “The quilting on them isn’t the greatest.”

We got off the escalator, and walked through the doors, craning our necks, looking through the hundreds of quilts for mine.  It didn’t take long to spot the pink and brown “Walled Garden” just inside the doors; no ribbon. 

If you look closely, you can see my blue and yellow quilt on the next row, to the right.

Almost directly behind it on the next row, was the blue and yellow quilt, “Spring at Last!” Pinned to the lower right corner, was a shiny, white, 3^rd place ribbon! I was stunned!

I had been pleased to finally finish this quilt since I started it in 2004! Then I was happy to enter it in the fair, with hours to spare. To win a ribbon definitely added some very sweet frosting to the cake!

Laura Keolanui Stark is still grinning. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.