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!