Quilt Shop: Calico Cow; Delta Junction, Alaska

Good afternoon, my friends. I'm writing to you from Fairbanks, Alaska, this afternoon. I'll tell you about today's drive in tomorrow's post. For now, I want to tell you about the quilt shop in Delta Junction. I was surprised to find a quilt shop in such a small town. Apparently the long dark and cold winters encourage quilting. 

Here's how the shop looked from the outside. There was one other customer there when I arrived.

Stepping inside the front door, this is what I saw:

It was a long, narrow store, and small in size square-footage wise. Still, she made good use of her space, and there was a lot to see here.

Walking the length of the aisle above and turning the corner, there was more fabric, shown in the image below.

I'm really fond of these fabrics that feature metallics.

They had a good supply of notions.

Here was a pretty vintage sewing machine.

They also had a couple of racks of books.

These were mostly batiks. They had some pretty batiks with orcas. I might have purchased them if we'd seen any orcas. Maybe down the road.

These were mostly regional and landscape prints.

They had lots of pretty panels. I especially liked the one in the upper left.

You can see it a little better in the image below.

I really liked this sewing box. If I didn't already have one, I might have bought this.

Up front near the register there were plenty of solids.

So it was a fun store, and I always enjoy the stores I find in out-of-the-way places. I ended up purchasing that panel. They were $15, which was reasonable enough.

And, as I've said, I never know what to do with panels. I decided to pick up this pattern as a way to get me started. It's a different panel, but I'm can make it work.

The designer, Lisa Moore, is an Alaska quilter who resides in Sitka. You can see more of her patterns and read more about her right here.

And since this was my first quilt shop in Alaska, I decided on this fabric for my Shop Hop quilt.

If you're keeping track of the Shop Hop quilt fabrics, that's three fabrics down, three to go. 

As I mentioned, there are at least two quilt shops in Fairbanks. I opted not to visit today because of the protests going on in downtown Fairbanks. The protests look small and peaceful, but I'd still just as soon not get in the middle of that in an unknown city. Instead, I'll visit one in Talkeetna, which will be our destination in about six days. And I'm confident there are plenty of quilt shops down the road. As you might have noticed, I've had no problem finding quilt shops on this trip.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. Just now I have some desserts baking in the oven. Better go check on those. More about that tomorrow.

Delta Junction, Alaska

Good morning, my friends. We hit the end of the road today...not the end of the trip. We reached the end of the Alcan Highway. Like I said, there was a place for an obligatory selfie. Happily, the marker is located at the Visitor Center in Delta Junction. A very nice man greeted us there and offered to take our picture.

But let's just back up to the beginning of our day. Of course, we enjoyed more stunning views of the mountains. The scenery never gets old.

The first thing on our list of notable things was this:

There was nothing visible from the road other than the sign, but this is what our Milepost told us was just down the road apiece.

Next up, we crossed the Robertson River.

Something to notice about the rivers in today's drive is the color. They are mostly dry, and that white color is from volcanic ash.

Next up was the tiny town of Dot Lake. There was a lake here as well, but I missed the shot.

There are only a few structures in Dot Lake.

Here's what our Milepost tells us about this

Traveling on...we came to this area of the landscape. There's nothing particularly notable about it except that it is in a depressed region of the terrain. The road was about ten feet above the surface you see in the image.

Here's what our Milepost said about this.

Okay, and then the biggest bridge we crossed yesterday was this one.

There was a parking area off the road and below the bridge where we could get a good look at it. Ya gotta think a bridge this large spans a larger river than what's running here now. Also, notice the white color again.

Here's what we learned about the bridge.

As I walked out to take that shot, I spotted this little pretty. I believe I'm seeing this growing along the roadsides. We're also seeing plenty of dandelions.

My phone tells me this is Shrubby Cinquefoil.

After taking that earlier shot, we drove across the bridge.

From there, we were just a little way from our final destination of Delta Junction.

It's the end of the road.

We stopped off at the visitor center where we had our picture taken, and then we strolled around a little reading informational signs about the Alaska pipeline. We will see that as we make our way to Fairbanks today. Sorry for the damage to this sign. 

Here's what that looks like. It's about five feet tall.

Beside it was this exhibit showing the differing diameters of the pipe.

And here's Mike with some of his besties. I'm telling you, the mosquitos and Mike...they're tight. Mosquitos love him. (Can't say I blame them.) Also, you should know that this photo is to scale.

So there was a quilt shop in town. Hard to believe, but there you go. Of course, I visited. I'll tell you about it in a separate post.

Also, I was trying to use some sandwich rolls on this week's menu, but discovered they'd gone to the dark side as we were leaving yesterday. So I headed to the grocery store while I was out. As I was leaving the parking lot of the grocery store, I caught this incredible mountain view. Honestly...I can't get over the mountains, and I know we're just getting started. 

Driving back to the RV, I could see more mountains off in the distance.

So we'll leave Delta Junction this morning. We're on our way to Fairbanks. We'll spend three days there, and we have some activities planned for ourselves. There is a quilt shop in Fairbanks, but I've decided not to go to this one. The quilt shop will be closed Sunday and Monday, so I would have to go today. Looking at the news, we've learned there will be No Kings protests going on in Fairbanks today. As a newcomer to the city, I'd rather not get in the middle of that. Besides, having visited a quilt shop yesterday, it seems less appealing than it might have otherwise.

So I can't let No Kings Day get away from me without saying something about it. The recent news out of Los Angeles has been very disheartening. I was born in California, and lived a good part of my childhood there. Also, my dad was a 32-year veteran of the Marine Corps. Those two factors make what's happening there feel especially personal. If we were home in Oregon, we'd be attending a protest today. Since we aren't, and since we'll be driving a good part of the day, we'll miss this important event. And all of this to say that if you are protesting, please be safe. I found this image online, and there is some good advice here:

So that's all I have for you for now. Be safe my friends. If I can't be with you marching and carrying a sign, know that I'll be with you in spirit.