Quilting Mecca

Well probably not real quilting mecca, but coming from Birmingham AL, it seemed as if Bend and Sisters, OR is the place to be. I was so lucky to have a family of enablers. My Grandma secured designated quilt store time and my Aunt had the day off - so we hit the ground running. We went to four quilt stores - 1 in Sisters and 3 in Bend. And that wasn't even all of them!

Here are some pictures of the wonderful shop Stitchin' Post in Sisters that we went to first. It was about a 30 min drive from my aunt's in Bend. It was amazing. I walked in and it was fabric out the wazoo.

when you first walk in

I spy a single girl quilt

rows and rows!

be still my heart - yarn too!

auntie agrees - too much money will be spent here

I mean holy moley - it was awesome. And this was just the first store! Next we went back into Bend to a store called Quiltworks. This place was cool because they have an upstairs area which is actually an exhibit! They rotate through collections of quilts, some local quilters and some international quilters. Lots of fun fabric, a great area for classes, and we got to go in the back and watch one of the quilters at work on a behemoth long arm Gammill. Very cool place:

awesome paper pieced town above the door

a close up

fabric as far as the eye can see

asking my aunt to pinch me repeatedly

Then we went to Sew Many Quilts, where my grandma and aunt's friend Linda works. I have heard so many great things about Linda it was nice to finally meet her as an adult! Her store is also beautiful. These shops are like 3-5 times the size of stores here in Birmingham. And these are devoted to quilting. The one quilt store in close driving distance  - like designated quilt store - is about 25 minutes from me and about 1/3 of the size of quilt works.

auntie on the left, Linda on the right

they love themselves some Moda here

We went to another store as well, but by that time I was done with pictures and practicing lots of self restraint as I had purchased things at every other store... What was really nice was seeing fabric in person before buying. If I had a good local quilt store I would probably buy some staple items from there, and use it for knowledge and community, and maybe even have some quilts long armed there. But I would still do a lot of online fabric shopping - after I had seen it in person! One day I will live somewhere with lots of stores like Bend.

So what about you? Where do you get your fabric? Are you like me with not a lot of local quilty resources? My local resource is Katie from Katie's Korner and Marla at Sew Hungry. Or do you have a plethora of shops and get to make new quilty friends and have LQSs for hanging out and fun stuff like that?

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this post, I apologize for all the panoramic type pictures...

cheers!

-kim