Itinerant Stitcher on the Road Again

I went on a road trip. I usually take one toward the end of January or beginning of February. In years past, several of us have gone to Portland for a denominational get-together—and I’ll often act as chauffeur—but that meeting has been Zoom-only since the pandemic and will be again this year. Next Saturday, a group of us is getting together at the church and attending the Zoom meeting together. I am making a batch of BBQ pork and either cole slaw or potato salad. My schedule starts to fill up soon and I probably won’t be free to go anywhere until after the Auction, so I took advantage of this opportunity to travel. I might have gone to Seattle, but DD#2 also needed to get away and is in San Diego visiting her best friend from high school.

My friend Susan was going to go with me on this trip. Her daughter lives about an hour south of Spokane and had planned to come up and meet us and take Susan home with her for a few days to visit the grandkids. Susan texted me Monday night, though, to tell me that she had gone to town with another friend of ours, and by the time they got back, our other friend was experiencing fever and chills. She later tested positive for covid, so Susan decided to play it safe and stay home. We were both disappointed, but she didn’t want to risk exposing anyone else.

This was my haul from the trip, and I’ll explain what I got as I go along:

I left Tuesday morning at first light. About halfway to Spokane, I noticed that I no longer had heat coming out of the vents. “Hmmm,” I thought. “That’s new.”

[Honestly, nothing about this car surprises me anymore. The husband thinks it is possessed. I said that wasn’t rational, because it’s a machine, but he stands by his assertion.]

I was plenty warm with just the seat heater on, so it wasn’t a huge issue. I fiddled with the controls so that I could explain to the husband exactly what was happening. Basically, the fan works sometimes, but sometimes it doesn’t, and even when it’s working, the air that is coming out of the vents can best be described as “lukewarm.” He said that didn’t really help him to diagnose the problem, but he’s going to put the car in the shop and look at it. I might be driving the Acura for a few days. The replacement starter solenoid also arrived and he needs to put that in. I don’t want to buy another car, but I told him that he needs to tell me when working on this car has gotten to be too much of a hassle. He says he hasn’t reached that point yet. If I didn’t have my own personal BMW mechanic, I would have traded this car in for a reliable Honda a long time ago.

I got to Spokane around noon on Tuesday and headed for the two quilt stores in Spokane Valley. One—Heartbeat Quilting—is a dedicated longarm store. They rent time on their machines and have all sorts of supplies for longarm quilters (except rulers—more on that in a moment). They also carry the entire line of Signature thread. I stopped there, first, and picked up some thread colors I needed. (I went on this trip armed with a list, which is the only way I can shop at quilt stores without getting overwhelmed by all the pretties.)

My next stop was The Quilting Bee. This is a huge store. Huge. It’s what is referred to as a “destination quilt store,” because people (like me) make actual pilgrimages there. This store is also a Janome and Bernina dealer, and it’s where I take my Janome 6600P every June to have it serviced. They sell Bernina machines but don’t rent time on their longarm machines, preferring to send people to Heartbeat Quilting. The last time I was at The Quilting Bee, they had the whole line of Amanda Murphy longarm rulers, so I was excited about rounding out my collection with the ones I hadn’t been able to find locally. Unfortunately, when I went to look for them and couldn’t find them, the saleswoman that was helping me said that they had put all of them on clearance at their sidewalk sale.

That sound you hear is me wailing with disappointment. I was hoping not to have to order the rulers, because I wanted to come home and finish the tops I’ve got stacked up and waiting. I moved on to the next few items on my list, which were a ruler foot for Robin, an Oliso mini-project iron for me, a set of Bernina gripper rings for my Q20 (for free motion quilting), some Aurifil thread, and a backing for the red Candy Coated quilt. I managed to find a bolt in the sale section with five yards on it, so I got a screaming deal on that backing.

[I had a mini project iron—one I bought at Wal-Mart—but I cannot for the life of me find it in my quilting supplies. I’ve looked for it everywhere. I might have left it somewhere after a class. Oliso recently came out with those little project irons, so I bought one to replace the one I can’t find, which just about guarantees that the other one will resurface soon.]

After I finished shopping, I took the car through the carwash—it might be a diva, but it’s going to be a clean diva—and hit all the thrift stores on that side of town before heading to the Airbnb. I stayed at the same Airbnb where I stayed last October, because it was so convenient and comfortable. It was also $38 a night, so three nights cost me less than one night at a hotel and I was able to make breakfast and dinner there.

Tomorrow, you’ll get to hear about the class I took at The Quilting Bee, and my discovery that there are students everywhere who come to class not having read the supply list.