What do you call a quilter who visits eight quilt shops and one Mexican restaurant on one day?  Tired, but happy.

Our local shops (I live inland from Los Angeles) got together for a Spring Fling Shop Hop.  This one was unique as it was small consortium of shops, all within one day’s driving distance–a perfect shop hop.  The draw for my friend Leisa and I was that each visited shop would give away a fat quarter of Moda’s latest Rouennerie’s Deux line.  Last week we hopped in the car at 8:15 a.m. and headed out to Palm Desert.

Shop #1: The Quilter’s Faire.

It was locked.  We knocked.  The owner came to the door, peeked out, smiled and said, “Yes?”
“We’re here!” we said.  “The Spring Fling begins at 9 a.m.!”

She said, “Bonjour!” and ushered us in.  She had thought it began at 10, and was a good sport for letting us in early. Every shop had made a quilt, and here are shots of The Quilter’s Faire, plus a look at her beautiful store.

They had the most amazing array of bags and totes.

Check out their chandelier.

We completed our purchases, filled out our Viewer’s Choice ballot for their teacup and saucer quilt challenge, and headed off.

Shop #2: Monica’s Quilt & Bead Creations

Monica, herself, greeted us at the door, and gave us a little tour of her store–unique as in that she carries tons of beads and supplies, as well as a being a quilting store.  Her quilt was on the table, as well as above the fabric shelves.  In fact, this shop, as well as The Quilter’s Faire, had lots of great samples.

I’m a fan of well-done little displays that catch a quilter’s eye and give them ideas.

The bead side of the large store.  I could easily spend a day here, just shopping and then taking a bead class.

A bead/jewelry class going on in the back room.

Shop #3: Georgia’s Quilting Obsession

Given that I am a born Pollyana, I try to find the rainbows in the drops of rain.  Here is a typical display in this shop: spool dolls, crocheted and knitted items.  In other words, this is a grandma shop.  In a grandma town.  And I mean MY grandmother, not yours (she would be about 116 this year, if she were still alive).  Her name was Georgina, so you can see I’m really hunting those rainbows.

We tried to be polite, trading off buying things in the shops.  It was my turn and I bought a fat quarter from a dated Mary Englebreit line, and three skeins of embroidery floss.  Next.

Shop #4: The Quiet Mouse

The room where we checked in was their classroom, where brightly colored quilts hung on all the walls.

And a Farmer’s Wife quilt!  I thought of Cindy, of Live a Colorful Life, who is making one of these.

Besides seeing totes and bags in all the shops, I saw a lot of aprons.  This three-tiered number in black and white was perky and fun, and made me think about ric-rac.

Of which they had a full supply.

And these very cool garden flowers, made from thrift-store plates.  I wanted one of those, but held off.

Cute displays and lots of fabric to choose from.

Shop #6: Busy Bee Quilt Shop

She declined to have the inside of her shop photographed (citing copyright issues, which is really fine), but it also had a nice selection of fabrics, and good samples.  This is the front of it–by that fabulous steeple.

By this time, we were famished–La Mexicana in Yucaipa filled the bill.  We also sorted out all our problems with our respective in-laws and children (no problems with the grandchildren–they’re all perfect), and enjoyed delicious food.  This isn’t a chain–it’s a real live family-run restaurant with those giant plastic glasses of soda and cheese-adorned entrees.

But no cheese for me–I had a seafood entree.  Yum!  Okay, back to work.

Shop #6: The Calico Horse

The full line of fabrics, plus a few from the past.

Their fat quarters, and their sample quilt.

I head to this shop quite often after I finish teaching (I teach in Yucaipa) and have always enjoyed their displays of fabric.

Two cute little yo-yo quilts right by the door.  Keep this in mind for July.

Shop #7: Stars and Scraps

I frequent this shop a lot, so didn’t take a lot of photos, as I thought I had written it up on this site.  Oops.  I’ll have to do another visit!  This is their quilt, and they used the cheater fabric in the line to create a patchwork-looking border.  We are dragging by now, but have only one more shop to go.

Shop #8: Quilter’s Cocoon

They sewed up a mini-banner of fans.  This is another shop that’s close by to where I live, but they are moving next month, so I’ll wait and do a post on them when they get settled.  We turned in our “passports” with all the squares stamped, made our purchases and headed home.

The line-up of fat quarters.

The total haul amount of purchases for the day. I collapsed into a chair and worked on my rose window quilt blocks for the rest of the night.  No, that’s not right.  I threw the fabrics into the wash, then lightly dried and pressed them, stacking them all up beautifully in my closet.

THEN I collapsed into a chair and stitched the rose window while I watched Pelican Brief, a favorite movie with a younger Julia Roberts and two of the best cinematic scenes in the movies (#1–where the bad guy in the red baseball hat gets shot by the bandstand, and #2–where Julia can’t breathe after visiting the law offices where more bad guys work).  Oh, and maybe the chase in the garage.  Oh well–don’t we all have our favorite Mexican restaurants?  And fabric lines?  And quilt shops, too?

In New York City, everything is at they say it is.  If they say it’s grand and wonderful and amazing, it is. (It is.)  If they say to pronounce Houston, as in Houston Street, as “How-ston,” then you do.  And anything south of Houston is known as SoHo, using the first two letters of south and Houston.  I learned that one right away, as someone was giving me directions to see Purl Soho.

I’d come to New York City with my daughter Barbara, in order to create some memories and have some fun.  We’d been doing lots of stuff together the past couple of days, but decided to split up this morning so she could accomplish one of her goals of buying a purse, and I could get to a fabric shop or two.

This section of town is right above Little Italy, which is above Chinatown, which is where I had started that morning with my daughter, who was determined to “buy a purse.”  (She bought four.)  The picture above is the corner of Broome and Mercer, and just down on the left is. . .

. . . PurlSoho.  Whoopee!

The sun is finally shining after two days of rain, as you can see in this shot just inside the front door.

A wall of fabric in hoops.  Sometimes we forget that fabric shops like their stash, too.

While this shop is not a “supermarket” type of store in terms of size, its ideas and creative fabrics are supersized.   I wanted to buy a quarter-yard or more of everything in there, but how would I get it home in my suitcase?  They have mail order, so I was comforted that I could get what I wanted once I arrived home — and their warehouse is in the neighboring county from me.  Close, actually, when compared to NYC.

Blurry shot of the back of the shop.

And blurry shot of their yarn wall.  Such color!

About this time, my daughter found me (love having cell phones!), exhausted from two and half days of non-stop go go go, so we went to some place close and delish for lunch: Le Pain Quotidien, where I had this artsy cobb-type salad.

She had the Belgian waffle.

Then we both headed home on the subway, and crashed for a couple of hours.

Some of you know I’ve been in Montreal with my husband, while he attended a scientific meeting.  While there, I (of course) had to do some fabric hunting.  I Googled “quilt shop.”  Nothing, or nothing that I could get to.  I read several Canadian quilters’ blogs and it got me wondering: how do they do it?

Then, after my button popped off my raincoat, I typed in “sewing supplies” and came up with Fabricville.  Bingo.

However, it’s NOT the entire building.  It’s the basement.  Here’s a shot through the window on the way down the stairs.  I wander around, find the button thread, some needles, then keep wandering as I think I see quilting cottons.

Yep.

They have their own line, but even on sale for 25% off, it’s still really pricey. Original price per meter is 14.99 Canadian dollars.  I admire those Canadian quilters even more!

The American Le Poulet line is $16.99 per meter. This is what I used to find when we went to Europe.  I’d hunt up a quilting shop (always supporting the independents, even when I travel), but because of import duties, shipping, and the terrible American dollar exchange rate, I’d choke when it came time to purchase fabric at the equivalent of 20 dollars per meter.  So I’d usually buy a pattern, or a stitchery/embroidery kit.

The exception was when we went to Japan, where I went to a shop with multiple floors, and there were lots and lots of things to choose from.  So, even though we’ve all paused a little at the price of cottons now, we are so fortunate to have access to an amazing variety here in the United States. I marvel at what else I can buy at the click of a mouse button–those hard-to-obtain Japanese fabrics are in multiple places, European fabrics can be bought here in the US.

What I want to know is where is that shop that will sell me more hours in my day?