Some Much-Needed Vitamin D

I went to Missoula yesterday. About halfway there, I drove out of the everlasting cloudbank into bright sunshine. I appreciate the sunroof in my car much more in the winter than the summer, and that flood of sunlight was most welcome. Traffic was light and the roads were good.

Joann Fabrics is on the south side of Missoula, so I went there first, intending to work my way back. The parking lot was empty. That was a bit odd. I am used to the store being crowded after Christmas when everyone is out looking for deals.

The purpose of this trip was to see if I could find enough of one specific fabric so I could finish a couple of Christmas stockings. You may remember that I accidentally cut two fronts instead of a front and a back, and not being able to complete that project is making my brain hurt. I checked Joann’s (basically useless) online inventory system before I left, which indicated that the Missoula store had 8 yards of that fabric in stock. Indeed, they did not. I looked all over the store for that bolt of fabric and never found it.

[Joann’s inventory system bears absolutely zero resemblance to reality. I wish they would scrap it and start over. The right technology exists, clearly, as the guy at Home Depot was able to scan the barcode on the empty shelf and locate a box of lights for me. How hard could it be to find a bolt of fabric?]

A bit dejected, I walked over to the remnant rack, which was actually two racks. Does no one in Missoula buy remnants? This was something of a bonanza. Remnants are normally priced at 50% off the current price of the yardage, whether that is full retail or a sale price. Occasionally—when the store wants to get rid of remnants—they will sell them at 75% off the current price of the fabric. Sure enough, there was a 75% off sign over the remnant rack. I loaded up on all the quilt cotton I could find, which included Kona (black!), some Christmas fabrics, and a chunk of Joann’s special “state pride” fabric. Joann’s released lines of fabrics for each state this year, and every time a bolt of the Montana fabric comes into the store in Kalispell, it disappears almost immediately.

Just about all of Joann’s cottons are currently on sale, so I got 75% off the sale price. The total for this haul? $13.78. After you purchase something, the cashier tells you how much you saved over what it would have cost at full retail. The young woman looked at my receipt and said, “You saved $77.70. Happy New Year!” I bought roughly six yards of fabric for the cost of one yard.

There is a quilt store in the little strip shopping center just behind Joanns, but when I walked over, I discovered that they are closed on Sunday and Monday. Oh, well.

[For those of you keeping score, I finally was able to find the fabric I need to finish those Christmas stockings. I came home and did a Google image search and found an Etsy seller with half a yard in stock, which is all I need.]

From Joann’s, I headed over to the quilt store on the east side of Missoula. This is only the second time I’ve been there as it’s not in a section of town with other stores. I bought a couple of packs of Schmetz chrome-coated quilting needles for the Q20.

My next stop was the used bookstore (Book Exchange) which always has a great selection of craft books. I picked up this gem:

I am still trying to limit the number of quilt books I buy, but block books, like knitting stitch dictionaries, are raw material for designers. This book has the blocks nicely laid out in grid systems, which will be helpful when I need to draw something in EQ8. Of course, I looked to see if Noon and Night was in there. The more common Noon and Light block is included, but not not Noon and Night.

No trip to Missoula would be complete without a stop at Vicki’s Quilts, in the basement of the office building next to Rosauer’s grocery store. I didn’t buy anything on this visit, but I love to stop in there because it’s like an archeological quilt dig. She has bolts of fabrics from lines that have long been out of print.

On the way home, I stopped at the Amish store in St. Ignatius. When I drive into town, I always think of that July day a few years ago when Margaret and I took a trip to the Amish store. We stopped at the Old Timer’s Cafe, too, where I had a grilled cheese sandwich and Margaret had a huckleberry milkshake. I was greeted cheerfully by the older woman at the register when I walked in, and as she finished ringing up my purchases—chocolate-covered espresso beans for the husband and a big bag of ClearJel to replace what I used up this fall—she smiled and said, “I wish you a most blessed new year!”

What a much-needed benediction to 2020, for all of us.

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I am going to run into Kalispell this morning for chicken feed and to pick up my ruler foot. In a bit of serendipity, Bernina is offering a Rulerwork for Beginners series on their website. It is intended to help quilters become comfortable using rulers on their machines (including the Q20). Each lesson is done on a nine-patch block with borders. I’ve already pulled half a dozen fabrics and will get my blocks made up this week. I love small, discrete projects designed to teach a specific technique, so this is right up my alley.