Best Sewing Vacation Ever, Part 5

On Wednesday of last week, Deana and I headed north from our hotel in Marysville, WA. We stopped at a shopping center just off I-5 which had both a Hobby Lobby and a Michaels. I was curious to see if and how the Michaels stores would expand their sewing departments now that Joanns is gone. This particular store had a fair offering of fabric—about an aisle’s worth—and Deana was able to find out from the store staff that more stock is on the way.

Hobby Lobby continues to disappoint, at least in terms of apparel fabric. They had no new apparel fabric for the spring and it doesn’t look like any is coming for fall. I did buy two McCall’s patterns for $2.99 each.

A bit further north was the charming town of Mount Vernon and another quilt store:

This was not a large store, but it was packed with fabric. I bought the lone fat quarter bundle of the Tim Holtz Blue Palette fabric; I have been buying two bundles of each color, but I took what they had. I also got a length of Kaffe Fasset cotton sateen wideback in a black-and-white print and the last 1-1/2 yards of an Anna Maria Parry cotton lawn. That is enough for a Déclic top.

From Mount Vernon, we headed south to Snohomish, another very cute town and the home of Quilting Mayhem:

I had heard of this store—it is a Bernina dealer—but this was my first visit. I’ll be going back, I’m sure. The store is huge and the front spans one entire city block. Half is classroom space and half is the retail area. Machines and accessories are on the second floor. I bought a few mini charm packs of Ruby Star fabric and some yardage from the Tim Holtz Blue line. (If I had my druthers, I’d buy a bolt of each fabric, but I am trying to be reasonable.)

By then, it was time for lunch. I think both of us were shopped out at that point.

Later that evening, we headed to Everett Memorial Stadium for the Northwest Youth Music Games. This was a gathering of seven drum corps from around the country—mostly west coast—for performances ahead of the Drum Corp International competition in Indianapolis in August. Robert has been working with the Sacramento Mandarins:

I so enjoyed this. I was in marching band in high school and loved every minute of that experience. The evening was chilly, so I wore my quilted jacket. It was very cozy. I think that jacket is going to get a lot of use this fall.

On Thursday morning, we dropped off my rental car and continued east on I-90 back to Montana. No trip to/through Spokane would be complete without a visit to the Quilting Bee. I was able to pick up a second fat quarter bundle of the Tim Holtz Blue Palette fabric. We hit some traffic on the way home but were here in time for a simple dinner.

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Yesterday was an errand day because of the holiday weekend. Amazingly, though, the entire day was almost frictionless. Everything I needed to do went off without a hitch. How unusual. 🧐

I’ve got a pile of projects on the sewing table and I need (and want) to work on them this week. The garden needs some attention, although it is mostly coasting along without much input from me. We’re supposed to have a cool, rainy day on Thursday. I said to the husband that this weather pattern is almost perfect—a few days of sun and warmth followed by a cooler day of rain. I’d be happy to have this continue all summer.