Sunday, June 26, 2011

Shop Hop...is it for the birds?

Three Days.  32 Shops.  One Great Adventure!

Before I headed out, I finished up another American Heroes quilt.  I really like this one for its simplicity.  It's quilted all-over with loops and stars, like a few others that I've done.  It goes quickly, represents the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air....  I have another one on the frame and two more waiting to be quilted up.  I want to have them all done to hand over to Susan by next month's meeting.

I started my Shop Hop adventure by heading up to Bellingham on Friday with my ever-faithful assistant, Cammie, for the beginning of Shop Hop 2011.  We stopped at two shops in Bellingham, then swung by Linda's to pick her up and continue on to Lynden to visit three more shops. Unfortunately, of all the Pirates, we were the only three aboard my tiny ship; the rest had other business to attend to; excuses ranged from "work" to "ballet recital".  From there, we headed south to a couple shops in Anacortes and one in Mt. Vernon, for a total of 8 shops in the first day.  Since we are at these shops with some regularity, we opted not to spend much money at any of them.  A finishing kit here or there, but that's about it.

Linda stayed the night at my house, having hitched a ride down with me, and on Saturday morning, we headed out bright and early to begin our long journey.  First up was a shop which appears to be near the home of Beyonce's mother...and by Beyonce, I mean a giant metal chicken featured in a story here.  This is a quaint little "village" of shops in Bothell, including the quilt shop, pottery places, jewelry and bead shop, and a Middle Eastern clothing place, a favorite among the tribal belly dancing crowd.  

Each shop handed out a pattern and some little bits of fabric, parts of the theme fabric and coordinating fabrics for the year.  This year, one of the theme fabrics has 1930s and 40s style cartoons with women saying snarky things (like "I'm creative; you can't expect me to be neat, too"), which it appears that no quilt shops actually used in their blocks.  Instead they chose this floral fabric in the umbrella and matched it with blue, red or green polka dot fabrics, a few striped fabrics, and a few others.   They made a shop sample of their block design and I took a photo of each block so I would have a reference of what the block should look like.

For the most part, getting to and from each shop was easy and painless.  Some careful planning, Mapquest, a navigator, and written directions to each shop made it a smooth sailing...unless you happen to get to a shop that is located in the middle of a parade route.  We had to park about six blocks away in a residential neighborhood and walk over to the shop while we saw the last six or eight trucks go by for the annual Buckley Log Show. Cammie caught a piece of candy, but opted to donate it to a small child who was watching.  We assumed, of course, that they had planned the parade in our honor, or at least in honor of the shop hop...that's our story and we're sticking to it.

There were a number of quilts in each shop out for display, samples for upcoming classes or to show how some fabrics that they carry can look in a finished project.  Some of which were beautiful, if not absolutely stunning, and some were amusing as hell. This quilt had blocks that had titles such as this one, Chicken Caesar.  Others included Chicken a la King, Chicken in a Basket, Stewed Chicken and Chicken Cacciatore.  It was very fun, but made it even more funny since it was hanging in the bathroom, and going in there, laughing out loud and taking pictures left amused looks on those waiting in line for the loo.

This quilt and pattern was being offered at a shop in Lakewood, which I picked up to make for big kid, Emma.  She loves all things Japanese, so I thought she'd love this quilt!  This paper-pieced block should be fairly easy to assemble, and I look forward to being creative with fabrics.  I have a few Japanese fabrics, but figured I could make more of them out of batiks or other prints.

I considered picking up some real kimono fabrics--the kind that is woven 13" wide.  This collection is part of a large stash found at Japanese fabric manufacturer warehouses and garment factories that dates to the 1950s.  Unfortunately, they were being sold for about $35 a yard.  At 13" wide, I'd have to get quite a lot of it to make a single kimono for Emma.  Not happening.  As much as I love you, I'm not doing it.

The store employees and their assistants were fun and gracious, generous, and wonderful hosts to their visitors.  They had juice, lemonade, pretzels, cookies, and other treats for the hoppers, and were a delight to share stories with about our adventures, and hear their stories about this year's hop.  

Look!  More birds!  This is a giant inflatable in front of the old store, Yard Birds, in Centralia/Chehalis.  It's just more evidence that the birds are taking over.  That, and we discovered that every city in Western Washington has a Pacific Street.  We weren't sure if we had just been doing circles and kept running into the same street, or if it was following us.  Not that we're paranoid, mind you.

At the end of our Saturday journey, Cammie was still in excellent spirits.  Note her cute new haircut!  We went to a shop called "The Quilter" in the southern Washington city of Vancouver (not to be confused with the one in Canada).  They asked where we were from and were delighted that we were from so far North.  While many of the shops were seeing 500 or more hoppers in a day, these guys had gotten less than 200 a day; at the end of Saturday, my packet was numbered 689. 

We tried to meet up with Heide for dinner, but unfortunately, she is not feeling well following what was supposed to be a minor medical procedure, and may require further treatment or surgery.  I'm really sorry to have missed seeing her since we were supposed to get together six months ago and illness foiled our plans then.  Again in Spring, and chaos prevailed.  We will have to insist on a visit this summer--mid-week if we have to.  So instead of a long-overdue visit, we caught a late dinner for three at the Australian restaurant and started the long drive home.  We got back before 12:30 a.m. and went immediately to bed.  

The next day, we woke up and started out at about 8:30, thinking we'd get to the first store by 9:00, which we did...only to discover that on Sunday, the shops didn't open until 10.  Crap.  So, we decided to head out into the county area and pick up a stamp at one of the further outposts and then we wouldn't lose a lot of time driving one way.  This was the only shop on the entire hop that refused to allow Cammie to collect a kit, and only gave her a charm square because she wasn't 10 yet.  Her birthday is just a couple months away, so most shops were totally cool about being flexible. Several shop employees were skeptical about her abilities, and I wish I had brought a couple of her block designs to show them what she can do!  She and I will be working on making the blocks this summer as well as making some doll clothes for her American girl dolls. We'll have to remember to bring a small photo album of her collected works next year to show that she's a serious artist, not just collecting these for some greedy adult who wants two blocks (this happens sometimes, which is why they instituted the charm squares for kids under 10--it also provides a way for the shops to clear out some novelty fabrics that are on their discount shelves).

Our last stop was a shop in Stanwood, which is always incredibly creative with their themed displays.  They save themselves a lot of time by providing all the pieces for the shop hoppers to assemble the kits themselves;  most shops have workshops and take on volunteers to assemble more than 1500 kits to prepare for the event.  This year, the theme was blueberries at the County Fair!  

You collected a basket, some blue raffia fluff, three squares of fabric, the directions and wrap in some brown twine.  It was VERY cute!  If you purchased $25 worth of goods in the store, you got the finishing kit for free, which was a few more fabrics and goodies stuffed in a mason jar.  The pattern is a blue dresden plate (which you can kind of see on the pattern there), so the extra schnibbles in the jar give you enough variety to make the block.  You could opt to purchase the finishing kit instead, but I found a few books in the discount rack that would be nice to add to the collection--one on Hawaiian quilts and another on Folk Art quilts, which is totally up Cammie's alley!  

In the end, I hadn't gotten much fabric, but had gotten five books, two patterns, about 10 yards of fabric (enough for one king quilt top, but not the back), a  commemorative pin, and 32 "free" block patterns.  Cammie got a few things for her stash, too; about five yards of fabric, a pin, and a pair of thread snips. She's already started working on a dress for her American girl doll.  

K.

1 comment:

  1. I wondered why I didn't hear from you about dinner last night... I see your schedule got complicated.

    Glad you had fun shopping all day.

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