I’m back at my sewing machine after spending some time off to travel.  One of my trips this fall was to Seattle to visit my daughter and I had a wonderful time.

This was my first trip to Seattle and really, to the Pacific Northwest part of the US.  We lived in California for a while but I never got farther north than San Francisco.

Since my daughter is going to school in Seattle, I had plenty of time to sight-see while she was in classes during the day.  And you guessed it – part of my sight-seeing is visiting quilt shops!

I got to visit 3 quilt shops in the Seattle area!

Our Fabric Stash is a consignment fabric shop right in Pike Place Market.  I love the idea of selling your unwanted fabrics on consignment.  I bought a fat quarter of fabric and a bag of scrappy 2-inch squares that have inspired me to perhaps make a checkerboard quilt next year (I’ve dubbed 2019 “The year of the scrap quilt” to get rid of my scraps but I’ll tell you more about that later.)

Esther’s Fabrics is a lovely quilt shop out on Bainbridge Island.  I took the ferry there one day and spent several hours exploring the cute shops and a very nice art museum.  I bought several beautiful fat quarters at Esther’s.

Undercover Quilts is just up (a very steep hill) from Pike Place market and was the last shop I visited.  I hit the jackpot here and found a couple of wonderful quilt-y souvenirs.

I have to say, I fell in love with the totems and artwork of the Pacific Northwest Native Americans.  I love the bold colors and the nature inspired designs and at Undercover Quilts I found some laser cut fusible appliques of Totemic designs.

These quilt patterns are by Lisa Moore at Quilts With a Twist.  I was so thrilled that I could buy this and take it home to create my own beautiful quilt as a souvenir of my trip!  I also bought a pretty blue Batik fat quarter to go with my applique for the border.

When I got home and had a chance to read through the pattern and lay everything out, I decided some little crossed canoe blocks would make it look even better.  They had to be small (3″) so I drew a pattern.

When I paper-piece, I like to use a postcard to have a perfect fold.  Check out my new postcard from Seattle!

Anyway, the pattern called for adding the borders to the background fabric before ironing on the applique so I did that first.

Then I simply peeled off the paper and ironed on the applique – so easy.  It came with optional fish eggs to iron on (I thought they were bubbles!) but I decided not to use them.

I love my Salmon Boy already!  But wait… it gets better.  For the backing, I discovered that the Seattle map fabric I bought at Undercover Quilts (I couldn’t pass it up!) was the perfect size.

The size of this little quilt is only 17″ x 31″ so I found a scrap piece of batting and layered everything together.  The pattern suggested quilting wavy lines across the quilt with a walking foot so that’s what I did.

Then I got to the binding and of course, this is what I NEVER plan for!  I didn’t have any more blue fabric.  I dug around and found some red or black and had to think about it for a day because I really didn’t like either.

Finally, I went with the black.

And here’s the back:

With my daughter’s house marked with a red “X” sewn in, of course.

I love this quilt and all the memories of my trip!  I’m thinking about ordering another applique design from the Quilts with a Twist website to give as a gift since this little quilt was so easy and only took a couple days to make.

If you get to Seattle, you have to check out these wonderful quilt shops!