Stash Dash Day Two

We started day two at a much more reasonable hour.  After missing our turn to Poulsbo, and finding a beautiful back road that ran through a valley with big fields, great trees, and lovely old buildings and barns, we finally arrived at our first destination, Heirloom Quilts and Fabrics in Poulsbo, WA.  This is a very nice shop in the old part of town near the waterfront.  I always see fabrics there I love, but it is one of the higher priced shops in the area, so I am careful what I buy,  I did find a pattern there for a wall hanging that I couldn't resist.  It will be a gift, so can't show it here.  You will see it eventually.

Our last stop was Material Girls Quilt Shop in Silverdale.  I have been in this shop a few times before, and I am always so impressed with all the great quilts on the walls.

You can't really tell in this photo, but all the walls have quilts in every size.  They are all so beautiful and well made.  They also have good prices on fat quarters.  Since I needed some for this quilt project for this dash, I took advantage of the buy ten get one free special.

I accidentally put the light one in another photo.

Look at this adorable quilt that was on the wall in the classroom!  If I lived closer, you can bet I would be taking this class.  They didn't have the patterns for sale, unfortunately.

This is one of the fabrics I bought along the way.  It is Misaki by Melissa White for Rowen.  I couldn't resist the colors.  I don't know what I will do with it yet, but I have a half yard piece.

I have a half yard of each of these Marcia Derse pieces to add to my collection now.  So beautiful!

These are the fat quarters that I selected along the way.  Each shop gave one for free to each participant.  Each shop had a different group of fabrics to choose from.  My sister got more blue fabrics than I did, and we are each very happy with these new additions to our stash.

I had a great time going to these shops.  After a great lunch with Kim and her husband today, I gave Kim a short lesson on foundation paper piecing to create the eagles in the quilt.  Her eagle came out really cool.  After an even shorter demonstration on half square triangles, I packed my car and headed for the ferry for my journey back home.  It has been a wonderful couple of days, but it is nice to be back home to Tom, the vegetable garden and the chickens.

Tomorrow, I will work on the new Grandmother's Choice blocks and maybe piece an eagle or two of my own.  Until tomorrow, joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-Week catch up

Newest kaleidoscope block

All of them so far - unsewn.

Kansas Sunflower in batiks.

All the batik blocks so far.

Newest AAQI block in progress.  I couched some yarn and shiny ribbon for more movement.

Detail.

Tomorrow and Saturday, I am going on a Kitsap Peninsula Quilt Shop Hop with my sister.  Hopefully, I will be able to post some photos, if I remember to take some this time.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

Kaleidoscope

There are days when synchronicity amazes me.  I went to my ballet class this morning, in spite of not wanting to go.  It was as hard as I imagined it would be.  There are days I question the wisdom of starting ballet at 65, but then I come home and am treated to this ballet outside my window.  Madame Spider has been working hard to create a new home, in spite of the fact that it will probably have to be rebuilt over and over again because it is using a slender fuchsia flower as one of the anchor points.  As I watched, I was reminded of my newest quilting project - you knew I was going to get there eventually, didn't you?

So, I went into the studio and pulled some strips out of the scrap bin and created another piece to the kaleidoscope.  It is great fun to see how these look once the wedges are cut.

This is how they look together so far.  As I was pulling strips today, I found a Jacob's piece with mostly purple.  I am going to have to move to another bin to make a block with it.  My goal is to have this be very colorful.  That will be a stretch since I seem to stick with favorites all the time.  I am intentionally putting something lighter in each block, so at least I am working on that.  I still haven't figured out what to do with the filler squares, but I may do some 15 Minute Play blocks and see what happens.

I also took some time to cut the batik pieces for the Kansas Sunflower.  I think I am going to like this one much better because of the contrast.  I may have to go back and redo the paisley one.  Oh, joy!  By the time I am done, I will get good at this block.  If that happens, look out world.  Then I will be able to do anything!

The next three days are Bella days.  I may try and squeeze in a kaleidoscope block or two.  Until next time, joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

Three more blocks

I made two more of the Grandmother's Choice blocks for the batik set.  The first one is Grandmother's Choice.

The second one is Union Square.  I am not sure how long it will take me to make the next two.  I may get started tomorrow on them.  Given that it took me a week to make the sunflower one last time, who knows what will happen this time.

I also made another set of wedges for my octagon quilt.  I realized that when I looked at the other quilts made in a similar style that the strings were all more or less the same width.  My  scraps don't come that nicely.  I am lucky to find pieces long enough to eke out eight wedges, so I have decided to go with the kaleidoscope look in each block, with each one being very different from the others.  The one thing I will try and do is have one solid, or reads as solid, string in each block.  In the first two, that happens to be the widest piece.  I don't know if that will always be the case.  I am not sure how I am going to put this all together yet, so I am just making wedges at this point.  I would enjoy avoiding y seams if possible, but I will cross that road when I come to it.

For now, joyful quilting everyone.