Southern California – OccasionalPiece

It was a lot of mind over matter, but I finished the borders, worked out the measurements and sewed everything together. There seemingly was a big canyon between where I was last post and where I am now: getting it ready to quilt, but really, it wasn’t that hard once I settled down, stopped freaking out and followed Melanie’s advice.

I finished the Gridster Bee blocks for Linda for August. I like her idea of lots of churn dashes all the same size, but in a variety of fabrics. If you head to our hashtag on IG, you can see that Linda has already received some of the blocks.

The same night I finished the Northern Star Medallion top, I stepped outside to see this.

We drove up to the top of our neighborhood to see where the smoke was coming from–way over yonder in Orange County on the left bumpy mountain. California is burning up, and it’s only the beginning of August. When I first moved here 27 years ago, we only had fires in September, just like clockwork. Every year there would be one big one, and then it would be done.

Tonight the fire map looks like this and it’s not even September. Oh yes, we also have an earthquake map, a smog map, but we don’t generally have snow or flood or tornado maps, like some of you do.

This morning I had to have a couple of stitches taken out from a recent procedure, and the doctor was about to throw these into the sharps container. When I asked, he gave them to me. I washed them up and put them in my sewing supplies–those tweezers are great for grabbing the end of the seam of an HST to keep it from going wonky, and I’ll find a use for those scissors. Yes, I’m still sewing on my hexies. I think I’m halfway there.

Look at that yucky sky in the background–seems like it will be a good idea to stay inside and start quilting!

To truly begin summer off correctly in Southern California, you need a fire, and we have a doozy of one going on right now, only a few miles from my house. The above map, from today, shows 21% containment, and I could see clouds of billowing smoke yesterday when I went to the grocery store. Usually we like to END our summers with a fire, but not this year, the fourth year of the drought.

So my friend and I decided to hit the road this morning, in order to recover from the ardor of Registering for QuiltCon 2016 (no, I didn’t get the Gwen Marston class), and visit the newest shop not too far from our town in the neighboring city of Temecula: Needle in a Fabric Stash.

Our only other dedicated-modern-shop is in Los Angeles, way too far away for a casual stop, so it was nice to find out about this place.

Sue Stone, the owner, has a well-curated selection of fabrics, from Alison Glass to Cotton and Steele to Dear Stella, and isn’t locked into one line too heavily, but instead displays them to encourage mixing between the designers.

Some fun displays and stacks of fabrics.

The displays and patterns are well organized and encourage browsing.

Here Sue is helping a young customer choose fabrics for a quilt.

A nice selection of solids, plus more lines.

Needle in a Fabric Stash is owned and managed by Sue (above).

She’s been in operation about 7 months, and has already set up some great classes.

We grabbed some lunch and kept going. . . over to Primitive Gatherings Quilt Shop, not located in Wisconsin (that would have been QUITE a road trip) but in the next town up, in Murrieta.

This friendly fellow, an import from Wisconsin, helped us get signed up in their store system, and showed us around. Since I used to live in Wisconsin, we traded that old joke about there being two seasons in Wisconsin: Construction and Winter. I knew the one about three seasons: June, July and Winter. He admitted that he would like to be back there during summer, but come winter. . . he was happy to be in California, where the car doors didn’t freeze shut.