Best Invention of All Time

When it comes to the best invention of all time, it would be hard to pick the top one. Even if you take medical advances out of the running, there’s still electricity, the light bulb, the telephone, cars, airplanes, television,sewing machines, computers, the internet, and the list goes on and on. Despite all the choices, I know what would be at the top of my list.

It was invented before I was born. I grew up with one in my childhood home. There was a dry spell when I left home for college and began my young adult life. I didn’t own this invention, although I had access to many. That continued until well after I was married, and finally ended when I was on the threshold of motherhood.

I don’t think I went so far as crying tears of joy, but it did feel as if the clouds parted and a heavenly beam of sunlight shone down upon my driveway when the delivery truck door rumbled open, and a shiny, new washing machine and dryer were dollied down the ramp.

At last, my days of hoarding quarters, and jockeying for the best washing machines and dryers at the Laundromat were over. No more cautiously inspecting industrial washing machines for traces of animal fur and miscellaneous leftover socks before adding my own laundry. No more cleaning other people’s lint from dryers that had three settings in theory, but only one in reality: fry your clothes to a crisp. No more standing guard over my clothes as they spun and tumbled.

My first washer and dryer were Kenmore’s from Sears. They came in the nick of time to wash and dry loads of baby clothes and diapers. They also cleaned the red dirt of Kapaa, Kauai from John’s clothes when he worked on fruit fly projects in the field. We shipped them with us to Puyallup when we moved.

Later, when we moved again, this time to a bigger house, the buyers of our smaller house bargained for my Kenmore’s. I balked, but John convinced me to let them have my precious washer and dryer. By then they were eleven years old. They would be two less heavy items to move.  

We replaced them with a GE Profile washer and dryer. This set of work horses kept us in clean baseball, Boy Scout, Girl Scout, band and orchestra uniforms. They handled all the extra sheets and towels from years of sleepovers and out-of-town visitors.

Eventually the years wore them out. We had to replace a control panel the day before overnight guests arrived. About once a year, a puddle would appear on the floor. We’d repair a leaky drain hose under the tub.

Then the 12-year-old dryer started making a scraping squeal as the drum turned. The clothes still dried, so I ignored the noise. It took a few months, but then the screeching got so bad I couldn’t stay in the laundry room when it was on.

One night, with two loads of very wet laundry, I finally faced the fact that my dryer was done. There I was, at 9:00 p.m., sitting in a Laundromat once again, searching my wallet for quarters. I was trapped with a harried mother who was scolding her four-year-old nonstop for being a four-year-old with nothing to do.

I limped through the next week stringing clotheslines in the laundry room and garage, and relying on the kindness of a friend who let me use her dryer for jeans and towels. When the kids and their bags and hampers full of laundry came home from college on Spring Break, I would’ve thrown in the towel, but there was no room left on the clotheslines.   

We went big appliance shopping. My “research” consisted of vaguely remembering that Maytag’s weren’t that great anymore, and Sarah reminding me from dorm experience that once you start a load in a front loading machine, you can’t add more clothes to it. I’d also heard somewhere that front loaders always have a little bit of water left in them that starts to smell moldy. Three stores and a few hours later, we had our winners: an LG top loading washer (WT5001C) and its matching dryer.

I was working when they were delivered, so I missed the beam of light moment as well as the sad farewell to my old machines. The kids waited for me to run the inaugural load.

On the way home I stopped to buy special HE detergent. Then, I had to study the manuals because these machines are computerized. No more clicking push/pull dials, instead these light up quietly as they’re turned. Once the laundry is loaded, this machine starts weighing and shimmying to balance the load! Then it fills the tub with exactly how much water is needed.

Because there is no agitator in the center, this washer has a huge capacity. Washing comforters and sleeping bags will be a breeze. My family’s favorite feature is that the washer’s lid is a window. They’d be embarrassed to admit it, but at various times, they’ve joined me mesmerized, watching the laundry sloshing around through the window. You’d think we were country bumpkins who’d never seen “such a fancy dad-burned thang!”

The dryer also has a window (kind of like those Laundromat dryers). Both the washer and dryer countdown the time left to complete the load so, I don’t have to guesstimate when to switch loads, or listen through the laundry chute to see if either machine’s still running.

If something goes wrong with either machine, they’re both equipped with “Smartdiagnosis.” That means I’d call LG, hold the phone up to the power button on the machine, and it would “talk” to LG in FAX language for 15 seconds, “telling” them what was wrong. I won’t miss making sound effects to try to imitate what the broken machine sounds like.

               Quiet and efficient, this washer is so high-tech that every time I load it, I half expect a robot voice to tell me something like, “Caution: there is a red sock in with your whites.”

Washer and dryer, or beating your clothes on river rocks then throwing them on bushes to dry? Washer and dryer---best inventions hands down! By the way, LG is the brand name of the washer and dryer that we bought. LG stands for “Life’s good!”

Laura Keolanui Stark is starring in her own soap opera, “As the Laundry Churns.” She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Recipe for Quitting

Quitters never win and winners never quit! So the saying goes. But despite the social stigma attached to quitters, I think there are times, when it’s just plain stupid not to quit.

I was in the store one day picking up groceries for the week. We had a pan of leftover lasagna at home in the refrigerator. A loaf of French bread would be perfect with it.

On the way to the bakery section, I changed my mind. When was the last time I used my bread machine? Freshly baked, homemade bread would definitely be better than store bought.

For me, the hardest part of making bread at home, has always been remembering to start it by 3:30 so that it will be ready at 6:30. Apparently I haven’t made much progress on this problem. At home I got caught up cleaning, and was startled when I noticed that the clock said 4:00. I consoled myself, that there was still time to get the bread going. We could eat a little late, at 7:00.

I wrestled the bread machine out of the cabinet, then grabbed my favorite bread cookbook. Maybe I’d try a different recipe. I leafed past the French Sandwich bread recipe that I usually make. Faux French White Bread. That sounded good. I had even written, “Excellent!” in the margin.

I pulled the metal “basket” out of the bread machine and started rounding up the ingredients. One cup of sour cream. I tugged the lid off a pint container. Hmmm! There was only ¾ of a cup left. That was alright. I had some butter milk, so I’d just top off the sour cream. I spooned the glop into the basket. Then I added the water and olive oil.

The next ingredient was barley malt syrup. Who has that on hand? Maybe a beer brewer. It was at this point that I wish a big STOP sign would’ve popped out of the pantry. Time was against me, and this was the second ingredient I didn’t have, but I’m not a quitter.

The last time I made this recipe, I’d penned “substitute molasses” beside the barley malt syrup. The clock was ticking. I opened the pantry door and reached over various cans and bottles back toward where I thought the molasses should be. As my hand groped for the lid of the molasses jar, a bottle of ginger syrup on the front of the shelf crashed to the floor.

I watched the syrup start oozing out of the shattered bottle for a half a second, and then ran for the paper towels. The dogs started running too, right toward the sticky, broken bottle. I shooed them away, then started unfurling paper towels. Rushing to contain the slowly spreading mess, I scooped up as much as I could, making trip after trip to the garbage can.

Then I noticed my finger bleeding. I smeared some syrup on the cut. Wouldn’t it act kind of like super glue? Didn’t ginger have healing properties? I switched from paper towels to newspapers to avoid cutting myself again.

I didn’t have time for this nonsense. I had to get this bread going. It was 4:15! I put the dogs outside, so I could focus. As I walked back to the kitchen counter, I noticed my shoes sticking to the floor with every step. I looked down to discover ginger syrup coating the hem of my jeans as well as my shoes.

But, I am not a quitter! There was no turning back. 1-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour. I had 1 cup. Alright, I’d just substitute some whole wheat flour for the difference. 1 cup of cake flour—yippee! I had it. ¼ cup of whole wheat flour. I had that too along with the salt and yeast. I wasn’t sure if the yeast was still good, but at this point I didn’t care.

It was 4:30. If the bread, with three out of nine ingredients substituted, even turned out, it would be ready at 7:30. I pushed the rapid-bake cycle without much hope.

As the bread machine churned, I took my shoes off and rolled my jeans up to Capri length so I wouldn’t track ginger syrup anywhere else. I bandaged my finger, cleaned up the rest of the glass shards, and then started pushing the mop. In the ranks of least favorite messes to clean up, this was right up there with broken eggs.

The bread machine was rocking, kneading the dough as my jeans swished in the washing machine, and my shoes soaked in the bathtub.

Later, that wonderful smell of baking bread filled the house. Against all odds, the loaf turned out. It even tasted pretty good. But even as I smeared butter on a steaming slice, I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t worth it.  

Tonight in the grocery store, another customer in the deli had some green bread in her cart for St. Patrick’s Day. Did I have any green food coloring at home? A STOP sign popped up in my head. I turned my cart around and headed for the bakery. The store-bought, pre-sliced, green tinted bread will be on our St. Patrick’s Day table tomorrow. How lucky is that?

Laura Keolanui Stark is giving the bread machine a rest for awhile. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

2011 Sewing & Stitchery Expo

Comfortable shoes—check. Shopping bag that can expand as needed—check. Sack lunch—check. Water bottle—check. Seminar tickets—check. Cash and charge cards—check. I was ready to tackle the 2011 Sewing & Stitchery Expo.

            My friend Carol had clicked online as soon as the registration website opened, and registered us for our seminars. None of the seven classes I took disappointed. Eleanor Burns won my award for Best Showmanship. She had the audience singing Old Macdonald Had a Farm to introduce her seminar “Quilt Blocks on American Barns.” 

Laura Stark and Carol Kain meet Eleanor Burns, quilting great.

            In other seminars I learned about quilting with big, bold prints; creating landscape quilts; and making jewelry from fabric scraps. On the free stage we watched Linda McPhee’s slinky fashion show, and laughed our way through Glorianne Cubbage’s talk: A Girlfriend’s Guide to Thread. We’ve made it a point to see her since the first time we saw her three years ago in a classroom in the Milking Parlor.

            In between seminars, Carol, Margie, and I became ruthless shoppers, stalking fabric, patterns, books, and quilting tools with speed and agility. Then we’d meet back up to oooh and ahhh over each others’ quarry.

            For me, the highlight of this year’s expo was managing to get a ticket for an hour and a half seminar by Ricky Tims. In 2002, he was named one of The Thirty Most Distinguished Quilters in the World. It was a stroke of luck that when I checked on Thursday, his seminar wasn’t sold out.

So early this morning, the last day of the Sewing Expo, I ran through the Blue Gate of the fairgrounds and up to the second floor of the Pavilion to listen to this extraordinary quilt designer, and renowned pianist, conductor, composer, arranger, and music producer tell us how to make his award-winning quilts.

His Convergence quilts are based on a simple concept, take little time, yet result in quilts with a strong, modern impact. To think that he started a whole new type of quilt as a result of cleaning his sewing room is an inspiration to me, a quilter whose sewing room has stacks of fabric piled so high we may have to raise the ceiling.

Bohemian Rhapsody by Ricky Tims.

Tims’ Rhapsody quilts have a symmetrical medallion in the center. Intricate designs in brilliant colors continue in curving symmetry out to the borders.  In a sea of quilts, they will grab your attention and not let go.

Laura Stark and Ricky Tims at Sew Expo, Puyallup, WA.

            Afterwards, I raced over to the Showplex to Ricky Tims’ booth, snatched up one of his books and some hand-dyed fabric. I was so fast, I was third in line! As the line snaked around the back of the booth, I asked the Texan who wears a cowboy hat for his autograph and a photo.

            Strolling out of the fairgrounds with my tote bag refilled once again, I couldn’t resist grabbing a scone. I raised it up toward Washington’s gray skies as a toast to another Sewing Expo well done before I took a big bite.

Laura Keolanui Stark is storing her Expo goodies and planning future projects. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Tables Turned

          When it comes to computers, my immediate family is not impressed with my abilities. There’s a lot of eye-rolling which usually escalates to exasperated sighs when I ask a technical question. My son got so frustrated when I repeatedly asked what my “desktop” was, he loaded a picture of Indiana Jones’ real walnut desktop onto my computer. It has souvenir black and white pictures of Indy and his dad framing the edges of the desk, and an authentic-looking coffee stain too. So, they would’ve been stunned if they’d heard me giving a detailed lesson in how to use Facebook.

My desktop.

When I was visiting my parents two months ago, I showed them some family pictures on my Facebook profile. After I returned home, one of my cousins in Tennessee started a family group on Facebook. One day another “cousin” posted a picture of herself at my Great Grandfather’s grave.

I’d never met this cousin. Her name was Melanie. The only Melanie I knew was one of my cousins who sadly died more than thirty years ago. This was not one of “my” Melanie’s nieces or grand nieces. I was puzzled.

               My father is the family genealogist, so I called and asked him who this Melanie was. He and my mom said that the only Melanie they knew of was the same one I knew. They speculated that maybe she was from another unrelated family with the same last name, Keolanui. They asked lots of questions about what she looked like, and her age.  Did she say who her parents were? Maybe this was identity theft. I didn’t say it, but I thought if I was going to choose a family to “steal,” I’d sure choose one with a more common, easier to spell last name.

               All these questions are what led me to give my parents, who are in their late seventies, a Facebook lesson. “My name is Laura. How may I help you?” I was ready to teach the parents who taught me everything from tying my shoe laces to how to drive when I was growing up.

I waited for them to log on to their computer. Remembering their desktop, I described the Mozilla Firefox icon, a little blue and orange globe looking thing. Yes, the orange part is a curled up fox. I told my dad to click on it. I walked him through Googling “Facebook.” He tried to go to Google Earth, but I got him back on the right path. He nervously told me he’d never Googled anything. My mother bailed out, telling me she had to go check on something.

               When the Facebook sign-in page came up, he asked if he should sign up. Definitely not. I told him how to sign me in on his computer, down to the details like it’s about two inches down from the top of your screen a little to the right of center. He liked my password.

Laura and her Dad when they're not on Facebook.

               I convinced him to bypass updating my security, and just click on Profile. “It’s on that blue line at the top, between ‘HOME’ and ‘ACCOUNT.’” He clicked HOME instead and was very excited to see everything pop up on my wall, “Oh, there’s a picture of you!”

               After much explaining from Puyallup, and much clicking in Hawaii, he finally got to see the mysterious Melanie. He called my mother back to the computer. Apparently, what she had to “check on” was the TV show she’d been watching when I called. I could hear him telling her she didn’t need a pencil or paper, the pictures were right there on the computer!

               They talked back and forth, cataloged different family members and their children, and after much debating, decided that my grandfather’s brother has a great granddaughter named Melanie. Mystery solved! She is a cousin, just don’t ask me how many times removed we are from each other.

               It was time to get Dad logged out. He had already accidentally logged out once while my mother was searching for the pencil. After I explained the “back” button--small round green button in the top left corner--he had gotten braver about clicking on things. As I talked him through his second log out, he had a good time clicking in the wrong places, and seeing pictures of our extended family. He playfully asked “who are all these good looking people?” I am proud that he successfully navigated Facebook, and relieved that I’m not still logged in over there in Hawaii.

               As if that session wasn’t reward enough, today, my technical skills were called on again. My daughter called from college. She is still a teenager (meaning she is computer savvy). She was trying to book a trip to Milwaukee for herself and two other music students to attend a music teachers’ conference. Granted, the initial, main reason she called the Mom technical support line was my credit card clout, but I did talk her through Expedia.com.

Who has redeemed herself? Who is building up her computer reputation now? I’m basking in the glow of my monitor while I can. I’m pretty sure this will be short-lived.

Laura Keolanui Stark is updating her status on Facebook. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Name That Tune

I’m not exactly sure what the connection is between US Presidents and mattresses, but to celebrate President’s Day, mattress retailers across the state had sales. John and I were patriotically imitating Goldilocks, lying on mattresses and declaring, “This one’s too hard. This one’s too soft. This one’s too expensive!”

We finally settled on one that “was just right,” and got the paperwork completed with our saleslady, Sylvia. John pulled the pickup around to the store’s loading dock. We waited around, hands in pockets. After a few minutes, I started singing (or whining), “Sylvia’s mother says Sylvia’s busy, too busy to come to the phone.”

John laughed and joined in, “Sylvia’s mother says Sylvia’s tryin’ to start a new life of her own.”  Neither of us had heard that cheesy song in decades.

Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show on the Cover of the Rolling Stone.

When we got stumped on Sylvia’s mother’s last name, “Please Mrs. La-La, I just gotta talk to her” he turned the song into Please Come to Boston by Dave Loggins.  Then we debated which other cities the “ramblin’ boy” who wouldn’t settle down tried to convince his girlfriend to join him in.

That lead me croon Glenn Campbell’s “By the time I get to Phoenix, she’ll be rising. She’ll find the note I left hangin’ on the door.”

For a couple of days now, we’ve randomly started singing other songs that told a story, or made one pop up on YouTube. There were other cheesy ones: Pina Colada, Tell Laura I Love Her, Polk Salad Annie, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, and Harper Valley PTA.There were rocker ones too: Roxanne, 867-5309 Jenny, Mary Jane’s Last Dance, and School’s Out for Summer. 

There were songs about life: the Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack, Elvis’ In the Ghetto, Bus Stop by the Hollies, Sheryl Crow’s Everyday is a Winding Road, and Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash. Harry Chapin told a story in a Taxi and warned parents in Cat’s in the Cradle. Bobbie Gentry painted pictures of the south with Ode to Billy Joe and Son of a Preacher Man. Maybe Elton John’s Levon and The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby should have been introduced to each other.

Then there were the real tear-jerkers: Honey I Miss You by O.C. Smith, Springsteen’s The River, Brook Benton singing Rainy Night in Georgia. But the one that still tugs at my heart is Kenny Rogers’ Don’t Take Your Love to Town. The drum beat chugs on after he’d begged, “Oh Ruby, for God’s sake turn around,” so you knew that rotten Ruby took her love to town anyway.

There aren’t many songs now that tell a story. Offhand the only current artist I can think of who sings a good story, is John Mayer. He writes lyrics that ring true, like No Such Thing. We need more musicians who can “Sing us a song, you’re the piano man! Sing us a song tonight! Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody and you’ve got us feelin’ alright.”(Billy Joel)

Laura Keolanui Stark could burst into singing a golden oldie at any time. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Hawaiian Quilt Quest

It’s not really an obsession because it’s not a separate thing. It’s woven right into the fabric of my life. Whenever, and wherever I travel, my quilt GPS is working. My eyes scan new horizons for any signs of quilt shops, quilt museums, or fabric stores. If you read my last blog, you know that I’ve also sucked my family members into my endless quest for all things quilty.

               There I was, in Hawaii, to help my mother recover from heart surgery. I’d brought a Hawaiian quilt wall hanging in my carry-on bag to work on. It’s a wedding present for my sister and her husband. They were married in December 2006. I’m just a little behind.

Breadfruit wall hanging in progress

               While I worked on their breadfruit quilt, and convinced Cynthia and Bruce that it really did exist, I started to crave seeing some actual, completed Hawaiian quilts. After all, I was in Hawaii!

I knew that the Wilcox Hawaiian Quilt Collection is the biggest collection of Hawaiian quilts in the world, but it's at the Kauai Museum,(kauaimuseum.org) on the island of Kauai. (I can’t believe I lived on Kauai for three years, but never saw those quilts because I wasn’t a quilter then). My husband, John, and my parents told me they’d seen some beautiful Hawaiian quilts at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel—on the Big Island of Hawaii. A neighbor island junket to see quilts was out of the question. I was there to help mom.

I seemed to remember a quilt display at The Mission Houses next to Kawaihao Church when we lived on Oahu twenty-something years ago. I surfed online (missionhouses.org) to see if they had a Hawaiian quilt exhibition, and was disappointed that there was only a virtual tour of the quilts. It was an appetizer, but didn’t satisfy my craving. I needed to visit some "live" Hawaiian quilts in person.

I quizzed my parents to see if they knew of any Hawaiian quilt exhibits. They mentioned the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, and asked if I’d seen any at the Bishop Museum last spring. Then in a light bulb moment, my father said that he knew where there were two beautiful Hawaiian quilts on display.

          He had gone to visit an elderly relative at his condo, and remembered a Hawaiian quilt in the lobby. He promised to swing by there the next time we were in downtown Honolulu.

A few days later, we parked outside the Kukui Plaza Condominium Complex. Dad told me the name of the relative, so that in case the security guard asked what I was doing there, I’d have a more legitimate answer than “snooping around for a glimpse of a Hawaiian quilt.”

I opened the lobby doors, and it was like opening an unexpected gift! A forest green appliqué quilt took my breath away! The pattern design was intricate. The symmetry was exquisite, and the lei around the entire quilt added the perfect finishing touch.

It was one of the biggest quilts I’ve ever seen. Softly lit, it was framed in koa: a rich, deep brown, highly prized wood native to Hawaii. The genius in charge of displaying it had the brilliant idea of making the opposite wall a solid mirror, so it was as if there were twin quilts facing each other.

Hawaiian quilt in the Waikiki side lobby of Kukui Plaza, Honolulu, Hawaii.

I took my camera out and snapped some photos. I was so taken by the quilt, I hadn’t noticed the security guard sitting behind his desk. When I looked over sheepishly, he smiled. I could tell that he appreciated me appreciating the quilt.

I asked if he knew who quilted it and what the name of the quilt was. He told me that he didn’t know anything about it, and added that he’d talked to the condo management about that. We agreed that it needed a label. A quilt that spectacular, deserved to have its maker acknowledged, its story told.

Then he mentioned that there was another quilt at the other entrance to the condo. I asked if I could walk through to see it. He shook his head no, but in a kind of verbal wink, told me what street the other entrance was on. I thanked him, then floated out to my parents’ van, and thanked them too.

I told my father that we needed to drive around the block to the other entrance. I hoped the security guard on the other side would be as friendly, or at least look the other way. He did. I took pictures of the sister quilt. It seemed to me that both quilts were stitched by the same quilter. This one was also striking, and not labeled either.

Hawaiian quilt in the Ewa side lobby of Kukui Plaza, Honolulu, Hawaii.

A few days later, I asked my parents to take me back to Kukui Plaza. I was getting close to the border on my sister’s quilt, and I wanted to see how the mystery quilter handled the border on her quilts. Did she continue the echo stitching from the center appliqué, or stop and echo the border?

               This time I forced my mother out of the van to see Quilt #1 by telling her it was less than thirty steps away. I wanted to see if she agreed with my opinion that the flowers in the pattern were orchids. She was also impressed with the quilt’s beauty. She agreed that the flowers were orchids, and she should know because she has 30-50 orchid plants that she grows in her back yard.

Cattleya orchid

               Mom didn’t see the second quilt, but I know that the heart-shaped flowers are anthuriums. 

Red anthuriums.

              There’s also red ginger, possibly white ginger, and possibly crown flowers in this quilt. 

Red ginger

White ginger

Crown flower

             It would smell sweet and tropical if they were real flowers, instead of quilted ones. If only quilts could talk; I have so many questions. Despite their elegant silence, my Hawaiian quilt craving was satisfied with the pleasure of seeing these two quilt gems. And now you too can take in their beauty without having to fly to Hawaii, and talk your way past the security guards. Aloha!

Laura Keolanui Stark is always on the lookout for all things quilty. 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