Fabric Shopping Successes and Failures

DD#2 had Monday off. (She works as an assistant manager at a Nordstrom north of Seattle.) She picked me up and we went out to get breakfast, then took the light rail to the Nordstrom store downtown, which DD#2 refers to as Store 1 (it’s the flagship store). Our goal was to find me a mother of the bride dress. I had ordered one from Nordstrom the week before, but neither of us was crazy about it.

Amazingly, the store downtown had a minimal selection of special occasion dresses. DD#2 noted that it was the end of the fiscal year and lots of departments were thin on inventory. We decided to go back and get the car and drive over to the store in Bellevue, Washington, just across the lake from Seattle. DD#1’s office is over there, as is the BMW dealer where I got my station wagon.

The Bellevue store had quite a selection, so DD#2 pulled half a dozen dresses for me and put them in a dressing room. I have to say that shopping with her is like being on your own personal episode of “What Not to Wear.” She’s very good at what she does. She pointed out that I have such broad shoulders that I really look better with a V-neck top. I’ve always avoided V-necks because I have two prominent scars on my chest from where my Hickman catheters were placed when I had chemo. She was right, though, and in the end, I bought a dress that was very similar to the one I had ordered—from the same brand—but with a V-neck and short sleeves.

I’ve been campaigning (thus far, unsuccessfully) for a tour of the alterations department at Nordstrom. I would love to see the machines they have. While I was waiting to pick up my dress when we had finished shopping, I got to see this one, which was out on the floor:

I didn’t find a model number on the machine, but I think it’s a Juki DDL-9000B. Be still my heart.

I wanted to stop at Pacific Fabrics in Bellevue before we went back to Seattle. Pacific Fabrics had a store just a few miles from DD#1’s apartment, at Northgate Mall, but they closed it about a year ago. I’ve been to the SODO store (SOuth of DOwntown) several times. Unfortunately, when we got to the Pacific Fabrics store in Bellevue, we found they had closed that one, too, as of January 19th. I hadn’t heard they were planning to close the Bellevue store, so that was a surprise and disappointment. Now their only stores are in SODO and Bremerton.

I went back to the Airbnb to relax and DD#2 went grocery shopping. We were planning to meet DD#1 for dinner. Her office hours run late because she sees kids after school, and she wasn’t going to get home until about 7:00 p.m. DD#2 picked up a pizza and we took it over to DD#1’s apartment and put it in the oven to cook. DD#2 has a key because she babysits the cat occasionally. By the time DD#1 rolled in, dinner was ready and the cat had worked off some excess energy.

It was good to see the girls if even for just a short time. I was pleased to find such a convenient Airbnb and I’ll likely stay there again. I’ve had good Airbnb experiences in Seattle. I’m also getting better at finding my way around.

I had gotten a recall notice for the BMW back in the fall, but when I had my car at the dealer for a front end alignment in October, they said the parts were on backorder until January. The service department called a few weeks ago to tell me the parts were in. We made arrangements for them to do the work on my way back from Seattle. They needed the car for about eight hours, though. If I got the car to them by 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, they would give me a loaner and keep my car overnight. As I was planning to stay in Spokane Tuesday night anyway, that worked out well.

I was a bit concerned about getting over Snoqualmie Pass given that it’s been closed several times this season already and snow was in the forecast again. I left early enough on Tuesday that I was over the pass while it was just flurrying. When I got to Spokane, though, I found out that WDOT had closed the pass again in both directions due to spinouts. Some idiot drivers never learn.

The dealer gave me a 2020 BMW X2 M35i to drive around while they had my car. (The guy in the service department who was helping me said, “I’ll get you the sporty loaner car.”) It had all the bells and whistles and handled nicely, but I still prefer my station wagon. I must have raced the storm from Seattle, because by the time I left the dealer, it was snowing pretty heavily. That squashed all my plans to hit the usual fabric and thrift stores in town. I went to Regal Fabrics and Gifts, which is up on South Hill not far from the hotel. Regal Fabrics is not a big store—that would be the Quilting Bee, in Spokane Valley—but the owner is wonderful and she carries a unique selection of items. I bought the pattern for this:

It’s a collage quilt, approximately 26” x 32”, designed by Laura Heine, who lives in Billings. Regal Fabrics has been having classes on this pattern recently and pics of this project have been popping up in my Facebook feed. Fabrics are layered onto a piece of background using fusible web, and then the whole thing is layered with batting and backing and quilted. This is about as close to appliqué as I probably will get as it isn’t my favorite technique.

Irene, the store owner, gave me a wealth of tips for working on this pattern. I’d like to get to it this year, but it’s currently behind some other projects in the queue.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way back and picked up some food to microwave at the hotel—their pub was closed for dinner—then tucked myself in for a nice, quiet evening. As long as I have my iPad and some handwork, I’m perfectly happy by myself.

The snow had let up some by Monday morning, so I waited until rush hour was over and then headed out to The Quilting Bee where I picked up some Tim Holtz fabric from the Memoranda line to add to the collection. A text from the BMW dealer at 10:30 let me know the car was done, so I headed back to Spokane and an hour later, I was on the road back to Montana. The roads weren’t great, but I drove appropriately for the conditions and was home mid-afternoon.

I missed our sewing meeting at church yesterday because I was trying to crawl out from under the pile on my desk. It’s amazing how much stuff needs attention when one has only been gone for a week. Now I need to prioritize my sewing to-do list. And the second half of my Accuquilt order came while I was away:

I’m going to cut some fabric this weekend.