Quilts

Bolt–Portland, Oregon

January 10, 2013January 9, 2013 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

After we finished lunch at Grand Central Baking Company, and had visited Cool Cottons, we headed up into the Irvington district of Portland to a well-known quilt shop called Bolt. I have read their blog for a while, so knew about the amount of creativity that just oozed out of this place, plus it was on Alberta Street–my sweet MIL’s name. So that’s two votes for heading up here, don’t you think?

My husband has Parking Karma, so we found a place to park right across the street, then headed over. It located at 2136 NE Alberta Street in Portland (97211) and the phone is 503-287-2658, with email at info@boltfabricboutique.com. They are open every day, generally from 10-6, but different on Sat and Sunday, so check out their website for their hours.

Can I just say I’m crazy for dot-words? In the front window of their store they had letters on large dots, spelling out the goodies inside, and I loved that interesting touch.

This store is just full of great ideas, great fabrics of all kinds and lots of ways to get you thinking about quilts and projects to make. They carry a full range of Oliver and S Patterns, different kinds (substrates) of fabrics, from laminates to lightweight cottons, notions, threads and everything a sewist/sewer could want.

But like most quilters, I’m there for the fabric and ideas. And they have lots of fabric to choose from.

This store is tiny but packs a lot in, so I spent some time looking. I’m on a tight space allowance because of my suitcase, so that made it very hard to choose what I could take home.

And yes, that is the new Lizzie House Constellations line in the blues (on the left). I also saw other lines of fabric (Madrona Road, for one), plus they have a good mix of modern, novelty and good lines for blending in a quilt layout. You could spend all day here, I think.

Their tins of patterns–many to choose from.

And here’s a PS to our time in fabric shops: We also walked around some of Portland’s Art Galleries, where we saw a piece by Robert Rauschenberg, that only cost $70,000 (below). Makes the price of our quilt fabric look like a steal, doesn’t it?

I was amazed that a simple quilt-like construction could cost that much to own, but hey, it is a Rauschenberg. The intriguing thing was the voile overlay in the dotty and flowery sections in the picture above. I studied it a long time, and if you are in Portland and want to go and see it, head over to the Elizabeth Leach gallery on 9th street, where they treat you with great respect even if you are carrying a drippy umbrella and are wearing walking shoes. Which I was.

We quilters need our inspiration from many different kinds of places, and I’m grateful to both Bolt and Cool Cottons which allowed me to take snapshots of their shops. Now go and visit, if you are in Portland.

Quilt Shops

Cool Cottons–Portland, Oregon

January 9, 2013January 9, 2013 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

My husband asked me to accompany him on a business trip and the first thing I did was scout around for quilt shops, naturally, and I was advised to come to this shop in a turn of the century old house in Portland, named Cool Cottons.

The address is: 2417 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland OR 97214. Phone: 503-232-0417 and their email is coolcottons@hotmail.com. Their opening hours vary, but generally they are always open from 12 noon to 6 p.m., although some days are earlier and some days are later.

This is the sight as you step up onto the front porch, peeking into the green/pink/purple room. I could hardly wait to open the door and come in.

Reds! greeted us as we walked into this beautiful old house, filled with glorious cottons. The trend is toward the modern side of things, with few calicoes or traditional prints, but that suited me just fine. I had a good time browsing and even my husband got into the act, finding an Alexander Henry that reminded him of the fabric he picked up for me in Zimbabwe many years ago.

The fabrics are arranged by color families, as well as by type in some cases (example, the Japanese linens are gathered together in one area).

Interfacing, batting, threads and notions have their own place.

Another look at that front room. I have to say that I took a second look at greens after seeing their display. And I wish I’d bought some of that fabric in the first bag, with carrots, potatoes and other vegetables on it. But I was trying to be considerate of my patient husband and aware of the space constraints of my carry-on suitcase. There’s always some fabric that gets away.

Black and white fabrics, next to solids. There was lots of ample light, even on a gray rainy day, so that all the fabrics were well lit.

The cutting table area. I could have spent hours and buckets of money in this shop, as everything was so well arranged and beautifully laid out. If you are ever in the area, put this one on your list for sure.

Next post: another shop in Portland. And if you are hungry for lunch while at Cool Cottons, we enjoyed our sandwiches at the Grand Central Baking Company which is just down the street, but we really enjoyed our cookies.

WIP for the New Year

January 8, 2013December 28, 2024 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

I can’t believe I’m still working on this. No, it’s not the Christmas quilt, although that is still very much in play. It’s the Autumn Quilt.

Since I started collecting fabrics for this oh, 8 or 9 years ago, and started cutting and sewing this quilt 2 years ago, it’s no wonder that I let it sit for a while after getting it back from the quilter as I couldn’t figure out what to bind it in. You know we all hunger and thirst over the cute bindings that Red Pepper puts on her quilts, but sometimes it’s best not to over think this quilting thing and just move forward. This is a plaid that was in the quilt, spliced up with a couple of other prints, as I didn’t have enough of the plaid.

I don’t know why, but I love the autumn colors. Living in LA, I get autumn about NOW, in January, when the liquid ambers turn maple-like colors. I went looking for quotes about autumn to find this quilt’s title, and all of them were about the fall that they have on the Eastern seaboard, or New England or mid-western areas of the country–so romantic about leaves and color and the “twilight of the year” and death and harvest and so on. I found a quote I like, but I’m still letting it mull over in my mind.

I mean, I can’t just call this “Autumn Quilt,” now can I?

And this is where I am on the pillow shams for my wonky star Christmas quilt. I decided to make a normal star, as they are 16″ finished, slap on some fabric on the top and bottom to get it to equal the size of a pillow sham: 20″ by 26.”

I want a flange around the outside edge, so I cut about another 100 2-1/2″ squares, and sewed them together in strips.

So now they look like this. I stopped because I’d taken the quilt over to the quilter, and gave her the red/green thread I’d purchased at Superior Threads when I’d gone through there at Christmastime.

I stopped because I had to get the syllabus and the course calendar and the expanded course calendar done and sent to the school copy center, and while I was at it, I sent over vats and barrels of more things to the copy center, trying to prep up for the first few weeks of school, which starts next week. But it was oh-so-nice to not have to create those things from scratch–to be able to find them on the computer and send them over with minor alterations.

I may actually get more quilting done this semester than last, given the fact that I’m teaching a course I’ve taught before. And that is a very good thing.

And lastly, I had a lovely surprise from a fellow quilter: she heart-attacked my door on my birthday, which was this past week. I’ve never been heart-attacked before, so I laughed and took a picture to remind me forever. Thank you Lisa! I had other lovely gifts to celebrate that day from other friends and family, phone calls from my children and some friends. A good birthday, for sure.

And then, just to remind me that I’m no spring chicken anymore, my back went into spasms the next day and I’ve been ~~wincing, whining and moaning~~ a good girl and not complained once about it. Like all things, this too will pass.

Hope you are all getting your new year off to a good start!

Something to Think About

Happy New Year 2013

January 1, 2013January 1, 2022 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Finally! I can show a these little wristlets — mini-zip purses with straps — that I made for Christmas, because I gave the last one away yesterday. Just a simple zip, to which I added a loop out of the side seam, and attached a strap. They all have clocks on them, with a crazy mix of patterns around the central clock. For who ever has enough time? So I gave some away.

The top photo is another clock in the series, and the bottom shows the stap flipped back over, or as I like to call it “Bashful Portrait of Zip Bags.”

I also made up some giant canvas bags for my grandsons (hope the last grandson isn’t reading this post–we haven’t given that family their gifts yet!), and attached a tag that read: “Some toys you put together, and some toys you take apart.” Along with the item in the bag (see following photos), we also gave them a tool box with some basic tools.

Yep. I went to a TV repair shop and picked up some old electronics (VCR, CD players) and slipped them into their bags. They went right to work, taking them apart. They told me later that they’d finished them the next day. All of this was inspired by my mother, who when visiting our family when my boys were little, got one of them a television to take apart.

Finishing up this quilt. I was arranging the scraps of the remaining fabrics, trying to come up with a pieced back that didn’t look all garbage-y like my usual pieced backs do. My husband walked in and after inquiring what I was doing, I confessed I really didn’t do pieced backs very well. Sometimes I like to show the backs of my quilts and I’ve just never gotten the hang of that artsy look that some quilters can do so well. We went to the guest bedroom closet (AKA, fabric storage warehouse) to see if any of the Marimekko fabrics would work, when lo! and behond! there was a hunk of the red “joy” fabric, a coordinate to the Countdown to Christmas line. I’d forgotten all about it, but this morning I pieced it together and now that quilt can be quilted. (What you see on top are the pillow shams. Still working on those.)

I gave away this book for Christmas, and bought one for myself, too.

Not only does it have a lot of prompts for good deeds to to daily, there’s also room to record a deed that you did–an interesting way to keep a journal for a year, I think.

How about instead of a handmade card, we all make a handmade quilt? I like that.

So Happy New Year, everyone. Let that old year go, just like it says above, and enjoy this first day of the year! Now head back over to Lee’s blog, Freshly Pieced, to see others with WIP Wednesday projects. Maybe it will inspire you to pull out some of your own to get those Works-In-Progress quilts move to Work-Completed quilts?