Good morning, my friends! It's been warm where we are, although I can hardly complain. Yesterday was only the third day we've turned on our air-conditioner. I had big ideas about finishing the borders on the Ties & Tails quilt yesterday. I'd forgotten that I needed to make a trip into town to deliver some parcels to the post office. Mike had business in town too. We ended up getting lunch at a sit-down restaurant, which took forEVER!
When I got home, the kitties were purrturbed. They were ready for sewing. Smitty was tapping his little kitty paw with impatience.
Sadie was vexed that I was sewing flat cats again.
All I have to show for my afternoon of sewing is the addition of the second border...the black and white polka dot on the right side of the image below.
It was after 4:00 p.m. by then, and it seemed too late in the day to commit to another round of borders. I cut the strips from this fabric:
and I hope to finish this off today. The quilt is going to be HUGE! It's one of the larger quilts I've made. The top will finish at 75 x 95 inches. And that's all I have to show for yesterday's sewing.
Let's just talk about the quilt shop I visited while we were in Sequim, shall we? As I was unpacking my purchases, I found this bookmark in with the rest. It has all the particulars about this shop.
It was in the downtown part of Sequim, which is a cute little town. We appreciated that the quilt shop had a nice big parking lot...always appreciated when we're driving our pig of a truck. The whole side of the building was painted in a mural.
I couldn't capture the whole thing, and so looking to the right, you can see the rest of it.
I believe I may have entered from a side door. The front door was on the street side. Stepping inside, it looks like this:
Looking to my left, I noticed these two quilts. This first one has portions of the cat panel I used in a finished quilt recently.
I liked this one beside it too. I didn't notice if this was a pattern or a kit. If you like this quilt, you could probably call the store to inquire about it.
Right away, these fabrics caught my eye. My brain was telling me I needed some sort of lavender print to represent this shop in my Shop Hop quilt.
I could have grabbed a couple of bolts right here, but I continued on, looking at the rest of the fabrics in the store. To my right was a collection of Kaffe Fassett. I love his fabrics, but I have a hard time using them in the quilts I make.
Walking past those and turning left, I realized this is a huge store.
Walking straight ahead, the door on the left led into a large classroom. There was another on the other side of the store.
These fabrics lined that whole wall.
Toward the back of the store, this whole wall was marked down 40%. I saw a bird fabric here I liked, but I kept walking.
I liked this display with the old stove.
It was a roomy store. I'm often in quilt shops where everything is packed so close together, it's hard to stand back and see what's available. It wasn't a problem here. There was plenty of room to roam.
These shelves extended out into the main part of the store and the walls were all lined with more shelves.
Oh my gosh...look at these stripes. I love stripes for a binding. I ended up grabbing one of these. The colors were very tempting, but I have tons of stripes at home, and so I held back.
There were plenty of yummy polka dots too. They tempted me mightily.
Turning around the other direction, there were plenty of pretty batiks.
Everywhere I looked there were interesting displays. This next one was on the bottom portion of one of those huge wooden spools used for telephone cable.
After seeing the lavender prints at the beginning, I'd already turned off my eyes for anything else. I went back and grabbed the two fabrics on the left below for my regional print. I couldn't decide between the straight lavender and the wildflowers and lavender. It left me no choice but to buy a yard of each. The one on the right was the stripe I picked up. Black and white stripes are always easy to use in borders and bindings.
When we arrived back home, I cut a section of the straight lavender fabric for my Shop Hop quilt. It has lots of quilt shop blocks ahead of it, but you can look for that one to appear in my Shop Hop quilt eventually.
So, I really loved this shop. I doubt we'll make it back to that area any time soon, but if you find yourself in the Sequim/Port Angeles area, it's definitely worth a stop. The women working there were very friendly too, and we ended up chatting for a bit before I left the store.
Okay, so today is a grocery shopping day. It's a long list, I'm afraid, but I'm still hoping to finish off those borders today. We're expecting more warm weather. Hanging out in the cool sewing room sounds like a good idea.
