More Quilt Shops near Corvallis, Oregon

After we visited Greenbaum’s Quilted Forest in Salem, we headed south to Independence, where we’d visit a quilt shop and have lunch at the Pink House.  First up–the shop!

Ladies of Liberty is a quilt shop that features Civil War reproduction fabrics, and they announce their place in the quilt world with the old-fashioned dress in the storefront window.  They are located at 130 C Street, Independence OR 97351. Their phone number is 503-837-0676, and their email is ladiesofliberty@hotmail.com.

By now, the sun had come out, so the shop’s samples really shone. It’s a smaller shop, but has good ideas and friendly staff.   Again, I’ll let my photos do the talking.

Their classroom.  Apparently they just recently pushed out the walls to enlarge their shop and gain this space.

Beth and I were ready for lunch, so just two blocks away is the Pink House Cafe (242 D Street, in Independence), open Weds to Sunday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.  After our delicious lunch, a chance to sit down and catch up with each other again, we were off to Philomath, and JanniLou Creations.

I snapped this one as we hurried inside. JanniLou Creations is at 1243 Main in Philomath, OR 97370, and their phone is 541-929-3795.

This is what greets your eye, but the hellos and how are yous? were also nice to hear, too.  I browsed over in the section to the side, looking at all their black and white fabrics.  Beth had said this was a converted movie theater, but it wasn’t until she urged me to head around the counter and take a look that it dawned on me what she was talking about.  What you see above is where they used to take the tickets and sell popcorn and candy.  Walk around to the right or left and you see this:

The former movie theater turned into fabric store.  Oh, my.  It was huge and filled with quilts and colors and lots of movie memorabilia.

The batiks aisle.

Their classroom is at the back, and is large enough to display these full-sized quilts, plus have room for fat quarter bins around the edges.

View from the classroom.  Way up in the corner, near the ceiling was a quilt designed for the quilt shop–yep, the one in black and white on the upper left.

I liked that they not only had groupings of patterns, but also labeled their bins of fat quarters as to what was in them by theme.

After buying a few things, I was sure now that my suitcase wouldn’t shut on the way home, but we weren’t done yet!

We drove the beautiful Oregon countryside to Corvallis; it wasn’t too far away to Quiltwork Patches, right in downtown Corvallis Oregon.

We’d passed by this shop on our way to dinner the night before, and of course, I was intrigued.  Don’t worry, Beth told me as we drove past, we’ll be here tomorrow.  And for our final stop of the day, we went in after finding a parking place easily.

Quiltwork Patches is on 212 SW 3rd Street in Corvallis, OR 97333; phone number is 541-752-4820.  It’s a friendly place and we were greeted right as we walked in, not only by the owner, but also by well-arranged bolts of fabrics.  I was happy to see a lot of the modern fabrics represented, although she also stocked a full range of batiks, colors, and Kaffe Fasset fabrics.

A good quilt shop has lots of samples to entice quilters to get to work, and Quiltwork Patches had some lovely examples.  I sort of make it a policy not to photograph only quilts when I do a review of a shop, but rather focus on the shop.  So if you wonder why I don’t have straight-on shots, that’s why.  I’m there to explore the shop.  And explore I did.

Quiltwork Patches also had garment and bag samples, as well as good eye-level displays of books and small sewing projects.  The shop was neat and clean and I wanted to spend hours and hours and buckets of money in there.  I’m sure they wouldn’t have objected.

This is the sale room.  Instead of doing punch cards or customer reward points, Quiltwork Patches decided to offer good prices on current fabrics.  I had a fun time browsing through her stock.

Batik wall.

Like Greenbaum’s and JenniLou Creations, this shop had a full range of classes offered up, from beginning classes up to classes for the more experienced quilter.  I saw many things to buy, but had to start somewhere–like this bolt of Anna Maria Horner’s Field Study.  Weighted down by a full day of shopping, good conversation and fabric, Beth dropped me back at my hotel.  We hugged good-bye and promised each other we would do this again sometime.

Greenbaum’s Quilted Forest–Salem, Oregon

My friend in Oregon, Beth, picked me up at my hotel bright and early and we headed up to Salem, to the first shop of our day-long shop hop.  Beth really knows how to make a quilter happy, because she is one!  That’s her out front in the yellow raincoat.  We started with Greenbaum’s Quilted Forest, and the address is 140 CommercialStreet NE, Salem, Oregon 97301.  Phone number is 877-700-2233.  Their email is sylvia@quiltedforest.com, and the reason why I mention that is because they are near Sisters, Oregon they do a huge mail-order business and charge no shipping for domestic (US) orders.  Pretty amazing.  We struck up a nice conversation with Lisa, who is the office and events manager, and she filled us in on all the happenings.  More in a minute.

This is the sight that greeted us.  I felt like I was in a forest of quilts–they were everywhere!  They were hanging from the ceiling, displayed over the stair rails, on the walls, draped on tables, everywhere.  So many ideas, so little time!

That’s Lisa, smiling there beside the rows of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  Greenbaum’s is one of the best 20 quilt shops of all times in the Better Homes and Gardens Quilt Sampler, so they do a lot of things to serve quilters and stock a wide range of fabrics, notions, and books.  One fun thing she dangled in front of us was a bus trip to see the Quilt Show.  The plan is to meet at Greenbaum’s early Friday morning, drive towards Sister, visiting four quilt shops, then overnight in Bend.  The next morning, we’d be all day at the Sisters Quilt Show, then head home that night.  Friday night accommodations are included.  Head to their website for more info: www.quiltedforest.com.

They have a wide range of fabrics, from prints to batiks, to moderns to florals.  I had a hard time making choices (remember I had a carry-on suitcase).

Some quilt shops you go into and it’s a quick glance, a fat quarter and you’re out.  I wanted to keep looking not only because of their friendliness, but also because of the many ideas they had everywhere.  I think that’s where they really excel, if I have to single out one reason.  I feel like I sound sort of glib here–but I thought this was an outstanding quilt shop.  It’s hard to give a sense of it without you being there touching all the fabrics, seeing the sights, quilts and colors, so I’ll just let my photos (lame as they are) do the talking.

I loved the pine tree up on top of their center shelves.

One thing I enjoyed were their little vignettes–a theme, with some books, patterns and fabrics to entice you to try something new.

Their classroom.

The old brick walls are proof they’ve been here a long time–111 years, although in the beginning it was a “dry goods” shop, then in 1948, it was converted to a fabric shop.

I really enjoyed my time here–if you are ever in Portland, Salem is south, over an hour away, but then you can hit shops in Corvallis and Philomath too, which are covered in the next post.

Bolt–Portland, Oregon

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.

Cool Cottons–Portland, Oregon

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.

Gardiner’s Quilt Shop

Several states away from Ginger’s Quilt Shoppe is Gardiner’s Quilt Shop.  My mom and I went out one morning for some girls shopping, and after we did the errands she said she knew of a place I might like to visit.  My mom really loves me!

Gardiner’s Sew and Quilt  •  3789 Wall Ave, Ogden, UT 84405, near the Newgate Mall

Before I turn you loose on the slideshow, it should be said that this unassuming facade houses a fabulous selection of fabric.  I know I sometimes sound like a shill for these quilt shops, but the local quilt shops are very important to me–even if they are in my mother’s hometown.  By frequenting these, we help keep the industry alive and kicking, plus we get to see and handle all those luscious fabrics.

I was quite impressed with the range of lines they carried, from Riley Blake to Amy Butler and many inbetween.  Gardiner’s has a great display of quilts showing ideas for how to use their fabrics, and they are fresh and new and make you want to get a few fat quarters. . . or yards.  Here’s the two ladies who helped me. . . and told me about Ginger’s Quilt Shoppe, too.  By the way, I apologize for the quality of the photos, as I only had my cellphone.

One shot in the slideshow is from above.  They have an upstairs with all their sale fabric, but I must admit I had more fun downstairs with the regular goods.  In one picture you’ll see sewing machines, and next to them is a wall of cubbies holding quilts for sale.  So smart to sell all the displays afterwards–good for those who don’t want to make a quilt, but want to have one on their bed.

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Ginger’s Quilt Shoppe

Ginger’s Quilt Shoppe is about 30 minutes from my house, and that’s the place I went to when I was agonizing over what to put in Scrappy Stars to finish it off.  While I love online shopping, there’s nothing like a brick-and-mortar shop.  The address is 1120 Dewey Way, Suite B in Upland California.

The phone number is on the door, and the place is well-marked.

The first order of business was to get a bunch of bolts of fabric to try out my stars.  The lady who helped me was VERY cheerful about this, and made the final suggestion:

I loved the linen look of this fabric and was really happy with it.  After we settled on that, I picked a couple of more fabrics “for the stash,” then got her permission to roam around the shop and take photos for this blog.  As you can see, they have a lot of batiks, a well-stocked notion and pattern section, cute decor and a big room with a long-arm.  I haven’t been there enough to know the ins and outs of the shop, but my friend Tracy is a fan, and if she’s a fan–it’s a good place.  And interestingly enough, when I went to Utah to see my mom and went to her local quilt shop, one of the women who worked there, knew of Ginger’s and went on and on about it.  I’ll need to return–and soon!  (We do have a Quilter’s Run/Shop Hop coming up this summer.)

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Spring Shop Hop

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?

City Quilter–New York City

I feel like I’ve been gone a long time, in a galaxy far, far away–and I have: I’ve been in the grading galaxy.  Two sets of papers, with one super-duper plagiarizing student which caused me to obsess about this to a lot of people in my life.  My apologies to those who listened to the never-ending conversations that gave me the courage to fail her for the paper.  Papers graded.  Grades done and will be posted after my final meeting with them today.  Then my Christmas Break will really start!

So let me go in WayBack Machine to a lovely morning in New York City when I visited City Quilter.

(Yes, I asked permission to take these photos.)  Entering the store, it extends out long and thin, but up there on near the hanging quilt, it doglegs off to the right with more.  And running parallel to this is the ArtQuilt Gallery.

Along the right hand wall are lots of patterns, samples and a whole section of fabric with a New York City theme, from which I culled my purchases.

They also had some New York-themed quilts on the walls; this is the Empire State Building quilt.

More beautiful fabrics in that right hand section.  Really the store was shaped in an H-sort of layout.

I knew about City Quilter when my sister moved to Manhattan for a year.  I wanted to make her a tote bag that would remind her of the city, so purchased via mail order some New York fabrics, including some of this subway fabric, and made her shopping totes.  She loves them.

Adjoining the City Quilt fabric shop is the ArtQuilt Gallery, where they were having a display by the Manhattan Quilt Guild.  The quilts were very interesting, with everyone interpreting a facet of New York City living, gathered under the title of Material Witnesses.

The quilt of the lower right, The Triangle, is made by Teresa Barkley and pays homage to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in Little Italy.  I had been walking around in that section of town the day before.  My daughter’s great-grandmother immigrated from Italy, and found work in a hat factory in Little Italy, so the idea of young women working in these tall buildings had some resonance.

Closer view.

This is pieced.  Lots of little tiny pieces, made by Erin Wilson and titled Shape Study: Dark and Light.  I thought they may have represented some buildings in New York, but her artist’s statement notes that this “continues my work of building an intricate language of pattern, abstract shapes and symbols.”

Detail.

This is a quilt sandwich: fabrics sandwiches in between two layers of sheer fabric.  Ruth Marchese’s No Escape is in homage to the earthquake in Japan in March of 2011.  In this quilt are references to the tsunami waves, the nuclear power plants, and the changes to the landscape.

Looking from the gallery into a section of the shop.

There were many beautiful and intriguing quilts, but this one really caught my eye.  Central Booking uses a QR code to “spell out the first sentence of The Trial, Kafka’s nightmarish tale of bureaucratic and legal injustice” (from her artist’s statement).  I asked the woman at the desk in this gallery if this was a functional QR code.  She didn’t know, so I held up my phone so it could read the square; it is.

When I came home, I looked up QR codes on the web, and found you could type in a short phrase and have it converted into QR-ese.

I remember Elizabeth Fransson making Japanese Subway Map quilts, interpreting the grid into fabric.  I think this idea could also be interesting: we could write secret messages (shades of Fourth Grade!) into our quilts and display them for only those who know how to interpret them.  What does the above say?  (Remember I was grading, so my creative faculties were in a low ebb.)

It’s the name of this blog: OccasionalPiece-Quilt!

Purl Soho

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.

Fabric Hunting in Montreal

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?