How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Buying Fabric on the West Coast

The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop in Ferndale, CA

This summer we spent 3 weeks in July on the West Coast. Our main reason for going was to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sister, Oregon, which I had a quilt in. (Many of these links go to my travel blog, Pack Up the Car.)

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The Stitchin' Post is a quilt shop in Sisters, and one of the main sponsors of the Outdoor Quilt Show. It is also the shop that Valori Wells and her mother Jean own. There was a long line to buy fabric during the show, but I toughed it out and bought 1 half-yard cut and 1 quarter-yard cut of batik fabric (above).

The Stitchin' Post is located at 311 W Cascade Ave. in Sisters, OR and is open Mon.-Sat. from 9 am-5 pm.

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While we were in Ferndale, CA, we went into a jewelry store. While browsing, the clerk asked where we were from. I told her we were from Ohio. So she asked what brought us out here and I replied that we came to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. The clerk, Holly, mentioned that she was also an art quilter and asked what sewing machine I have. I have a Juki, which is not that well known of a machine, and not only had she heard of it, she has not 1 but 2 Juki machines.

Holly’s parents operate a small quilt shop in downtown Ferndale, the Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop. So of course we went across the street to see her art quilts and I bought 2 half-yard cuts of batik fabric (above).

The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop is located at 580 Main St. in Ferndale, CA, (in the same building as the Kinetic Sculpture Museum) and is open Mon.-Sat. from 10 am- 5 pm and Sun. from noon-4 pm.

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The Fabric Depot, located in Portland, OR, is the largest fabric store in the nation, with over 1.5 acres of fabric and over 800 batiks. I bought 14 quarter-yard cuts (12 novelty and 2 batiks) and a one-yard cut that was also a batik (batiks above). And I managed to get out of the store after just an hour and 15 minutes.

The Fabric Depot is located at 700 SE 122nd Ave. in Portland, OR and open Mon.-Sat. 9 am-9 pm. and Sun. 10 am-7 pm.

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The Latimer Quilt and Textile Center is located in Tillamook, OR, which is on the Oregon coast. They have a research library, exhibition space, a gift shop that sells items made by the members. There is also a room with several looms set up for the members to use. I bought a few small items in the gift shop, including a fat quarter of the hard-to-find North by Northwest Postcard fabric by Timbleberries (above).

The women there also asked why I was in the area, and when I told them that I had a quilt in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. They asked if I had photos of the quilt and since this was after the show I had something better, I had the actual quilt. I got my quilt "Twilight Descends" out of the car and they all oohed and aahed appropriately which I appreciated.

Tillamook County also has a “Quilt Trail” which is a driving tour of quilt blocks that have been painted on barns and other interesting buildings. The women at the center were very proud of this trail, which is the first Quilt Block Trail on the west coast. I had to mention that I’d met Donna Sue Groves, the woman who originally came up with the idea for the Quilt Block Trails and lives in Adams County, Ohio.

The Latimer Quilt and Textile Center is located at 2105 Wilson River Loop Rd. in Tillamook, OR and is open Mon.-Sat. 10 am-5 pm and Sun. noon-4 pm from April to October, and Mon.-Sat. 10 am-4 pm and is closed on Sundays from November through March. The Quilt Trail is always open but best viewed during daylight hours.

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And finally, this is a photo of the very colorful bedspread in the Motel 6 that we stayed at in Redmond, OR (half an hour drive from Sisters).

Apparently Motel 6 had some fabric made that has their logo in it (I added the yellow box to the photo), and they had bedspreads made using this fabric. We stayed at another Motel 6 in Seaside, OR and it had the same bedspreads.

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The new wine glass coaster sets I made from the 12 quarter yard cuts of novelty fabric from the Fabric Depot.

Final fabric count: 16 quarter-yard cuts, 3 half-yard cuts and 1 one-yard cut for a total of 6.5 yards. And none of it had the Motel 6 logo on it.

If you're interested in reading more about my trip to the Pacific coast, visit my travel blog here.