Quilt Shop: The Quilting Bee

While we were in Spokane, I had an opportunity to visit The Quilting Bee, which turned out to be a great quilt shop!

I found it using my Quilt Shop app from Quilter's Club of America.  I absolutely love this app, and I wrote a little tutorial about how it works when we traveled last fall.  You can find my tutorial right here.  As you can see, there are quite a few quilt shops in the Spokane area.

As I was looking, we were traveling east on I 90 toward Spokane Valley, and so I chose the eastern most shop.  And, lucky us, it was easy to find right off the interstate.

As I said in my tutorial, the app isn't absolutely up-to-date.  Actually, I have no idea how they stay current at all, and so I always call ahead to be sure a shop is still in business, and also to be sure they are open on the day I want to visit.

As it turned out this shop was stuffed to the gills with great fabrics.  The walls were lined floor to ceiling, and there was definitely something for everyone here.  They had every category of fabric imaginable, along with a great supply of solids, flannels, and wools.

There was a large and bright classroom off to the left when I entered.  

Next to the classroom was a small play area for children.  I don't know why all quilt shops don't do this, but in my travels, I haven't seen it often.

Even the area around the cash registers had rows of fabric lined up under the counter.  Here are some sweet little calicoes.

They had a lot of beautiful quilts hanging on the walls and from the ceiling, including this Tin Lizzie embroidered quilt which is currently on my to-do list.  I have the pattern.  I will start it one of these days.

Apparently, I love quilts in the Amish style because I fell in love with this one and bought the pattern.  It was originally done as a block of the month, but the patterns are available as a set now.

They had the sweetest little doll quilts hanging above the cash register area

along with lots of little doll clothes...because everyone knows that your dolly can't run around naked.

And they had an amazing selection of fabrics on sale.  These wagons and carts of fabric "priced as marked" were sitting at the front door before one even enters the store.

In one corner of the store were shelves of fabric marked $6 per yard and less.

Among them were these beauties.

Then in the opposite corner of the store was the "Corner Market" where everything was 25% off.

The Corner Market consisted mainly of seasonal fabrics.

They had a great supply of patterns, but be sure to notice the framed quilt blocks on the top shelf.  This is such a great idea as a housewarming gift.

This one caught my eye.  I like hand stitching.

This being a Bernina store, I was finally able to find more bobbins for my new machine.  My dealer hasn't been able to supply them for some strange reason.  I had to purchase some online from a store in Idaho Falls, but then I decided I wanted ten more.  This store had them.  Why my dealer can't keep up is a mystery.  Also, I found the shamrock fabric and that pretty green batik to use for the back and borders of the Doors of Ireland quilt I've been working on.  I have some shamrock fabric, but mine is a little too whimsical for the quilt I'm making.  This has a metallic gold in it, and so it is a little more elegant.  

Also, I'm still working on building up my stash of grays a little bit, and so I picked out the gray on the right.  Those are my bobbins in the cases.

So I really, really liked this store, and I'm giving it my highest rating of five rotary cutters out of five.

Definitely stop in if you find yourself in Spokane.  Also, I want to say that a couple of readers told me about other quilt shops in the area.  From Barb:

If you're in Spokane, you NEED to drive 30 miles over to Coeur d'Alene, ID. There is a fabulous quilt shop there, and it's just off the freeway, heading north to Sandpoint. It's called Bear Paw Quilting. Fun shop!

Thanks for that, Barb, and lucky me!  I've been to Bear Paw Quilting, and Barb is so right about it.  You can read my review of that shop right here.

Also, Patti said:

Do you know about the Buggy Barn? It is about 30 minutes west of Spokane. I've been there only once, but absolutely fell in love with that shop.

Sadly, I missed the Buggy Barn.  It was in the opposite direction from where we were headed, but I will definitely get there next time around.  Here it is located on the map for you:

Recently, I got into a row with a quilt shop owner over something I said about his shop.  I read over my review and felt I'd been fair in my assessment.  I'm not sure what he was so mad about since I gave his shop a high rating.  Nevertheless, he seemed to think his shop was above reproach and, in the end, we had to agree to disagree about that.  All of that to say that now feel I need to add a disclaimer to these reviews.  They are never intended to be the *final word* on any shop.  Hopefully, anyone who reads my blog knows that much of what I say is tongue-in-cheek.  Still, I try to give an informed and honest review and I try to be kind, respecting that every quilt shop is owned, managed, and attended to by living, breathing human beings.  So with that note of explanation, you can expect to see this disclaimer at the bottom of every quilt shop review from here on.

Disclaimer:  Cat Patches accepts no advertising, nor any sponsorships.  The opinions expressed on this blog are based on the personal impressions and perceptions of the author.  They are formed  on the basis of one short visit, on one day, and may or may not reflect the experience of others visiting on a different day.  They are no more descriptive than a single snapshot image can be, and nothing written in a review of a quilt shop should be construed as objective fact.  The reviews are strictly the author's subjective opinion and should not be interpreted as anything more.