Stash Dash Shop Hop Day 1

Today was the first day of the three day Stash Dash held by eight quilt shops on the Kitsap Peninsula in Western Washington.  Each shop is giving away a fat quarter and block instructions for one part of the quilt pictured above.  My sister, Kim, and I planned on doing this hop some time ago.  In addition to the generous fat quarter offerings, and the great quilt pattern, there are prizes if you go to all shops and your passport is selected.  One of the prizes is a Feather Weight - a dream of mine.  What follows is a photo essay of our first day.

I live a bit southeast of Seattle.  My sister lives on the Kitsap Peninsula.  That meant that I had to get up before the crack of dawn to catch the 6:00AM ferry.  This is what Seattle looks like from the back of a ferry moving away from the city at that time of morning.  At that hour of the day, my eyes were pretty blurry.

My ferry ride was about an hour, so I did get to see dawn breaking before the end of the ride.

After getting my stuff settled at Kim's, we headed west to Port Angeles to the first shop on our list for the day, Sleepy Valley Quilt Company.  This shop is housed in an old house.  The first room you enter is the old kitchen.  One of the first things I noticed was this great table runner.

I looked for a pattern, but couldn't find it.  They are giving a class on how to create this beauty.

We headed back toward the east to Sequim to the Karen's Sequim Sewing Center.  This is in a mall in one of the "rain shadow" towns on the peninsula.  Sequim is also near the Dungeness Spit, a great place to hike.  But, I digress.  I saw another really cute table runner here with wonderful scrappy birds.  My photo didn't turn out, but it was really cute.

Next stop was Port Townsend and Creative Union Fabrics.  This is in a place called Kala Square outside of town.  It is a very cool shop with beautiful fabric.  I bought a small piece there that I will share with you tomorrow.  Don't know what I will do with it, but it is beautiful.  With all these shops, I was really impressed with the variety of fabrics and the really nice staffs.

Our next stop was Quilted Strait in Port Gamble.  I have wanted to go here since I read about it in a quilt magazine a while ago.  It is housed in a refurbished barn and it is really nice.  There is a great variety of fabric, and the shop is bright and colorful.  When I have more time, I will definitely make another visit here.

After Quilted Strait, we decided to walk to the General Store Restaurant for lunch.  As you can see, the leaves are beginning to turn around here.  We are having a very unusually beautiful fall with blue skies and no rain.  Wonderful for us, but stressful for the trees.

After lunch, we headed for Kingston, another small town ferry port.  Here we found the Kingston Quilt Shop.  Isn't that neon sign beautiful?  Inside was the biggest selection of fat quarters to choose from, and a very nice selection of fabrics.  My sister spotted a great project that Bella and I can create for a Halloween decoration.

Bella loves to decorate for all holidays, and this will be something we can create together.  I can't wait until next Bella day.

Our last quilt shop for the day was Esther's Fabrics in Bainbridge Island, yet another ferry town.  At each of the shops we visited today, I hoped to find more Marcia Derse fabric.  I had just about given up, but when we walked into Esther's, I noticed that she carried a wider selection of the more unusual fabric lines than the others.  I began to hope again.  I looked all around, and almost missed it, but there it was!  They were on a shelf in small bolts.  I was delighted.  Once again, I had trouble making up my mind, but I did add three more to my collection.  I will share photos of all my fabric tomorrow.  Now, I know there are two shops in Western Washington that carry Marcia Derse fabrics: Fabric Diva in La Conner and Esther's Fabrics in Bainbridge Island.  I am a happy camper.

Tomorrow, we have two shops to go and we will hit them in the morning.  I am going to do a block piecing lesson with Kim before I head home.  Then, I have a couple of days to play in the studio.

Until tomorrow, I hope you enjoyed tagging along today.  Joyful quilting, everyone.