Six Pairs of Pants and an Auction

The husband is very hard on his work clothes. I mend what I can—if I catch it before it reaches the catastrophic failure phase—but concrete is caustic and eats holes in fabric. He doesn’t wear jeans because they just don’t last. I buy him Wrangler work pants at the farm store every couple of months. However, they have been all sold out of the size he wears, which is a 35 x 34. (Would that we all still wore the same size we did in college . . . ) I told him that when I went to Spokane, I would see if the North 40 stores there had any in stock.

I left for Spokane Thursday morning and drove through Libby. The mileage to Spokane is the same, but that route takes a bit longer because it’s not highway. I prefer it when I am not in a hurry. I stopped at the North 40 store in Sandpoint, Idaho, only to find that they also had plenty of stock in all the sizes except the one the husband wears. Very weird.

I hit the first of five Joann Fabrics stores on this trip, in Coeur d’Alene, and gleaned the remnant rack. I also stopped at a new quilt store called Becky’s Sewing Center. Tera had been there a few months ago. The owner has another store in Lewiston, Idaho. The selection is not huge, but I picked up some Moda Grunge and a spool of Isacord embroidery thread (for rolled edges on my serger) in Christmas red and green.

Once the fabric shopping was out of the way, I headed to the CdA North 40 store a few blocks away. It’s huge. Their clothing department is the size of our entire farm store. I thought the chance of finding pants in the size the husband needed was pretty high and I was right. I bought six pairs of work pants for him, which should be enough to get him to next spring. I hope.

I popped in to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in CdA—one of my faves—but didn’t see anything I had to have.

I spent the rest of the afternoon toodling around Spokane Valley, hitting the Joanns there as well as Hobby Lobby and the Quilting Bee. When I was in Spokane last month, the remnant racks were mostly devoid of treasures. This time, I scored on every single one.

I had taken a cooler with me that had eggs, butter, and cheese in it for my breakfast omelette, but I stopped at the grocery store on my way to the Airbnb to pick up some items to make myself dinner. I’ve stayed at a lot of Airbnbs in the past five or six years. All but one or two have been positive experiences, and even the ones that weren’t high on my list weren’t awful. This one was really nice, and I’d like to stay there again. Spokane sits on a bluff that falls off to the west. This house was situated at the end of a quiet street overlooking that bluff. The upstairs had been converted to apartments. Mine was huge, with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. It was quiet, private, and extremely comfortable.

[My sister, the girls, my mother, and I stayed in an Airbnb in Edinboro that was less than forthcoming in its description. We did not know until we arrived that it was three floors up a narrow, winding stone staircase. My mother is physically fit for her age, but we probably would not have rented that particular space had we known about the climb.]

Friday morning dawned cool and very foggy. I couldn’t see much of the landscape on my way out to Menno Mennonite. The sale wasn’t until Saturday, but I had to drop off the quilts so they could be sorted and tagged. I also had six boxes of fabric from a friend here that were to be donated to the sale. Debbie, the woman in charge of the quilt auction, asked me if it was okay for her to decide which quilts would go in the auction and which would go in the general sale. I said that was fine as I just wanted them to go where they would do the most good.

And because I was only 25 miles from Moses Lake—and another Joann Fabrics store—I made the trek out there to shop that remnant rack. It was not lost on me that I was more than halfway to Seattle at that point, but the husband noted that mothers shouldn’t just drop in on their children unexpectedly, and that would have been a lot of driving in a very short time. The day was clear enough, after the fog burned off, that I could see Mount Rainier, even though I was three hours east.

I was back in Spokane by noon and hit the rest of the Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby stores. This was my haul:

All of this will be used in making stuff for next year’s co-op sale.

I drove back out to Menno Mennonite yesterday morning to help TS and Holly sell ham, bacon, and sausage. I’ve done this for the past several years and it’s always a lot of fun. This is TS (on the left) and our other friend, Cecil Miller, who used to be our district pastor.

Cecil comes to help out with the sale, too. It was good to see him and chat for a bit.

The sale was cancelled in 2020, and the crowd at this year’s sale was a bit thin.

Usually we have people lined up to buy starting around 8 am. ( The sale opens at 10 am.) Holly did bring a third cash register to help speed things up, but we were done selling by 11:30 and still had some product left. That was unusual.

I walked through the quilt display and was pleased to discover that Debbie had put four of my quilts in the auction—three Candy Coated scrap quilts and one flying geese quilt. I had to get back on the road to be home last night so I could play piano at church this morning, but Holly will let me know how my quilts did. She had one in the sale, too. Hers is hand quilted:

I hope it sold well.

I zipped home in record time—the tourists are gone—and had dinner with the husband. I have nothing pressing on the schedule for this week, which is lovely. We’ll see what trouble I can find to get into.