Vacation Quilt Shops

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit many quilt shops on our recent vacation. Not as many as I wanted, of course, but enough to keep me happy. I am very fortuante to have a patient husband.


The first one we hit was in Jacksonville, OR, called Country Quilts. It was mostly an acutal quilt shop, where they sold completed quilts, but they did have some fabric and patterns there as well. They had a back room that was amazing. There had to be over 100 quilts piled in there -- all wonderful. I wasn't in the market for a fully made quilt, but I still had fun poking around in there. I didn't even think about taking a picture of that room until after we were long gone, but I did get a shot of the outside (above). Oh and I was chatting with the people there about quilting and they gave me a free fat quarter just because I was a fellow quilter. Such nice people!

The next shop I visited was not until toward the end of our journey, in Ashland, OR. I believe it is fairly new, becuase I do not remember seeing it there when we visited two years ago. It is called Fabric of Vision and it is right on Main Street. It is a tiny little store chock full of lots of beautiful fabrics. I had a nice chat with the owner and bought a few items. A nice shop that I would definitely visit again!

The next day I went to Quiltz, which is also in Ashland. I visited this shop last time and boy is it great! It is very large and has really good lighting (very important when choosing fabric). They have a small room in the back with sale fabric -- I couldn't resist getting a couple of yards from in there. As it turned out, almost every fabric I chose had an animal in the print, and they happened to be having a sale on any kind of animal print. Extra bonus!

Finally on the drive home I stopped at Sew What! in Redding, CA on the recommendation of my friend Lori. (I'm pretty sure this is the right one???) I was finally able to find a good border fabric for a quilt I've been working on here, so it was definitely a good stop!

I did try to hit a couple of others... The Purple Pincushion in Grant's Pass, OR was just a few blocks from where we were staying, but they were closed on the only day I could get there. There was also a shop in Medford that I went to last time, but I couldn't remember the name and after driving all over the city (and briefly losing my wedding ring -- a story for another day), we decided to skip it.

That does it for my quilting travels. But not for long (I hope)!

Alden Lane Nursery Quilt Show 07

Quilting in the Garden is being held this weekend, September 22-23, 9 am - 4 pm. It is a quilt show that is held at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore, CA. This is their 10th anniversary, and I have never been there before! I am really excited about going to see what it is like. Because they hold it on the grounds of the nursery, all of the quilts are hung from the huge oak trees growing there. Admission to the show is free, and you can just stroll around the grounds and see the quilts. There are also a few classes for a fee. Valorie Wells is the featured artist. See you there!

Vacation Days 5 & 6

Last days of vacation. So sad. We ended up in Ashland, Oregon -- one of my favorite places in the world. Unfortunately, it was unusally HOT there -- well over 100 degrees! That's hotter than it got in Redwood City all summer. The heat was annoying, but Lance had read that it was going to rain. I really didn't think it would happen... We saw two plays: Tartuffe by Moliere and As You Like It by Shakespeare. We saw Tartuffe the evening we got there and it was wonderful. Very well done. The next day we saw a matinee of As You Like It. Just after the intermission as we were watching the play, I could hear a sound getting louder and louder. I finally figured out that it was raining, and we could hear it inside the theater. Then the power went out but only for a moment. I'm guessing they had a generator or something because the lights went back on, but only house lights -- the stage was still dark. The show must go on as they say, and that it did. They continued on through to the end that way and just as they were taking their final bow, the lights came back on. Oh well. They did an admirable job - true professionals. It was very well done as well. It was the original words, but set in Depression era '30s. However, I am finding many of his comedies to be very similar to each other. I felt as if I had seen much of this play before and better (Shakespeare's fault, not the production...) but that's just my opinion.

Here are a couple of pictures of downtown Ashland. Unfortunately, we did not take many.



Below are pictures of the duck pond at Lithia Park which is right next to the Shakespeare festival stages. I didn't realize until this trip just how big the park was. We attempted to find a geocache in this park but got caught in the rain. We made our wet way over to a restaurant before the rain started in too heavily and while we were inside it started to pour down with hail!
The day we left we tried to find the cache again and got very close, but it was right by this duck pond and there were just too many people around to make the grab. Oh well. At least we got to see these ducks. There were at least 100 ducks there.




And then finally another shot of Mt. Shasta on our way home. Another great road trip! Can't wait for the next one...

Vacation Days 3 & 4

I know this is being published a bit late, but we were without Internet access for a couple of days when we were at the Oregon Caves Chateau, and then by the time we got to Ashland, we were exhausted from heat and travel.

Day 3 we were leaving Grant’s Pass on our way to the Oregon Caves. Our big adventure for this day was to take a Hellgate Excursion on the Rouge River. I totally recommend this activity to everyone! It is a large jet boat that holds a couple dozen or so people and rides along the top of the water. Depending on the time of year, you go quite a distance down the river. The boat travels quite fast at top speed, but they idle through areas as necessary. There are lots of birds and animals along the ride that are pointed out by the boat’s pilot. Close to the turnaround point, there is a large restaurant built by the company who runs the boats. You disembark for a really wonderful lunch of salad, bbq chicken, potatoes and dessert, all while sitting on covered outdoor terraces with a view of the river. So wonderful!! Arguably the best part of the boat trip was their famous 360 spins where you get pretty darn wet. Just like a theme park ride. I had a really great time there and would do it again in a heartbeat. They have the lunch ride that we took and also dinner rides (which were sold out when we went) and also a Sunday brunch ride.




On our trip two years ago, we made our way across Southern Oregon, we took the tour of the caves, but didn’t realize that there was lodging there (the Oregon Caves Chateau). This time around, we thought it would be interesting to stay there for a couple of days. It is touted as being very quiet and tranquil, with no TV or phone in the room. Great! However, we found that being such an old building, the floors creaked and the walls were thin. Every footstep and voice could be heard. We could even hear the person upstairs snoring. That was fine until about 8 am when they started tearing the roof off of the building. We were not told that they were starting a very big renovation project on our very night there. Oh well, such is life. We took some trips out to the local wineries for more wine tasting. We also attempted to do some Geocaching, but did not fare well. We found our only cache of the trip along the winding road to the caves in a mile marker. Oh well, we got one at least!

That’s it for now. I’ll blog about Ashland next time!