Ketchum, Idaho

We rolled into the Ketchum/Sun Valley/Hailey, Idaho area yesterday. These little communities are packed tight together, and so you might think of it as a three cities area. We're in a nice RV park in Ketchum proper...or maybe it's Hailey. It's a little hard to tell.

We headed into the quilt shop in Hailey right after eating some lunch and relaxing for a bit. It's an interesting little place. Here's the main street through town (right across from the quilt shop).

Here's what our AAA tour book tells us about Hailey:

You can read my separate post about the quilt shop, which I enjoyed very much. We went back to the RV after that. As the sun was setting, we took a little walk around the surrounding area. There's a really wonderful bike path. I'm not sure how far it goes, but we saw it on our way back from Hailey about five miles south of the RV park. Looking south, you see this:

Looking north, you see this. The surrounding hills are covered in sagebrush with a notable absence of trees. This is a high desert area.

Walking a little further, we came to the Wood River. Look north, and this is what you see.

Here is it to the south. Lovely, and serene.

The sagebrush is in bloom right now.

Here's what our AAA tour book tells us about Ketchum:

Today we're going to drive around these three little communities, although being Sunday, we expect to find a lot of businesses closed. Although we're not usually people who seek out graves, we'd kind of like to see if we can find Hemingway in the Ketchum Cemetery. Also, the Sawtooth Botanical Gardens are right next door to us, and so we'll check those out too. As one drives the main road south from Stanley, one passes through Ketchum and Hailey, but Sun Valley proper is to the east just a couple of miles. We'll drive up there and check that out too. Here's what our AAA tour book says about Sun Valley. (This one spanned two pages, and so it's in two pieces...sorry.)

So a full day ahead, although we probably won't spend the whole day at it. I'll have more to say about these places in a separate post. 

And now I'm caught up!

Quilt Shop: Sun Valley Fabric Granary, Hailey, Idaho

Well, I've been hitting the jackpot with some great quilt shops on this trip, and two in surprisingly small places. Obviously, Idaho caters to quilters. 

On this day, the object of my desire was the Sun Valley Fabric Granary in Hailey, Idaho, which is just south of Ketchum and Sun Valley. It was a little difficult to find from the road since the store is located in one of those kind of mini malls where you enter through a main door and then there are several businesses inside. Here's what you see street side. The glare makes it hard to see anything at all.

Hailey is a fun little town with wide streets and a historically significant past. I'll say more about that in a separate post.

Once you're inside the "mall", this is what greets you at the front door. As the quilt shop owner, wouldn't this be fun to make ?

Walking through the front door, look to your left, and this is what you see. It's a long narrow shop, packed to the gills with stuff to make any quilter sing out loud. I didn't, however...just to be clear.

Directly across from the front door is this beauty. It was huge...maybe even king size.

Just below were all these gorgeous fabrics. This is when I started resisting the urge to sing.

There were so many pretty fabrics, although this store seems to cater more to the calico and civil war print side of quilting.

In the rear of the store was a classroom/office/work area.

That's also where the quilt shop dog hangs out.

I was kind of working my way from back to front as I gazed at and fondled the fabrics.

Plenty of notions and quilting supplies.

And a nice supply of flannels,

pretty batiks, 

and warm wools.

They didn't have a huge supply of books, but what they had was interesting and unique from what I've seen in other quilt shops. I picked up a few of these and browsed.

Here's the Vintage Tin quilt. It's always kind of fun to see a quilt I've made and to see how differently the maker put it together and quilted it.

This was a cute technique. This was a baby quilt...or maybe a doll quilt...It had a solid background and then the patches had been cut and left raw. In a kind of quilt as you go technique, the quilting held the patches in place with the edges raw. Then it was washed so that the edges ragged. What a great way to use scraps, and it was very pretty. I'd like to try this. It might work better to leave an extra bit of seam allowance and then trim the edges after washing it.

I just love a shop that includes a skinny bolt sale. These are the ends of bolts. Usually, one has to buy whatever is left on the bolt to get the discount.

I was drawn to this one, which was two yards. She would have cut it for me, but I took the whole piece. I think it might make a nice backing for a winter table runner or wall hanging.

For my regional 365 circle quilt, I chose a fat quarter of this one, Sun Valley being a ski resort and all.

So what a fun and unique little shop! I loved it! It's been fun finding these shops thriving in small communities. I give it my highest rating of five rotary cutters. 

It would be worth a special trip to Hailey just to see the interesting community and the beauty of the surrounding area. With this quilt shop to boot, you can't lose.

*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.