If you are just joining us, you can check out these two previous posts:

• California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part II February 21, 2020
• California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part I February 17, 2020

This is the third post closing out the series on stories and photos about a visit with my Northern California based “Quilting Sisters”, Kathy and Lisa in April 2019.

This post is all about our Northern California QUILT SHOP HOPPING 🙂

The quilt/fabric shops we visited included one in Auburn, California:

• Leal’s Coop: Farmhouse Decor and Fabric

And three in the San Francisco “Bay Area”:

• New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery (Berkeley)
• Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics (Berkeley)
• Bay Quilts (Richmond)

As you can see by the map image above there were move quilt shops in the Bay Area but we could only fit in so much in one day (smile) and still have a proper Quilting Sister visit (to include lunch, ice cream and wandering about window shopping at non-quilting shops!).

Leal’s Coop

The first quilt shop in our Northern California quilt shop hop adventure was Leal’s Coop in Auburn, CA which was both quilting fabric shop and home decor shop. Lisa had another commitment so Kathy and I began the shop hop adventure on our own.

The shop owner was delightful and she was working on gift boxes for customers with her monthly gift box subscription:

After a wonderful wander about this shop and delightful chat with the shop owner, we wandered around the other surrounding shops:

We stopped for a delicious lunch at a vegan restaurant:

And I snuck in some Black & White photography time.

New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery

The next day, Lisa joined us and we drove to Berkeley to continue the quilt shop hop adventure beginning with New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery.

This shop had an amazing and eclectic collection of fabrics and a wonderful and friendly staff. We spent a very long time in this shop!

They also had an amazing collection of Japanese fabrics.

And here are some unusual patterned fat quarters I bought at the shop (who knows what I will make with them but I just loved them and I do not know why!)

After an extensive amount of time we were ready for lunch and had a delicious lunch as well as dessert at The Public Market.

Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics

Another amazing fabric shop we visited in Berkeley was Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics.

This shop immediately made me smile with this Rumi quote on the glass window in front as you enter the shop:

This shop was not a quilt shop but a fabric and sewing notions shop. It was crammed full of fabrics for all types of sewing – home decor, apparel, quilting, etc.

I ended up buying these amazing pieces of canvas fabric (yes, impulse buy!):

Bay Quilts

The third fabric/quilt shop we visited in the Bay Area was Bay Quilts. This quilt shop also had an art galley inside with rotating exhibits by local fiber artists.

Are you exhausted from all the virtual quilt/fabric shop hopping in this post (smile).

I had a wonderful day of quilt/fabric shop hopping with my California Quilting Sisters!

By the way my Quilting Sister Lisa was able to take her fabric purchases from the day back home to be sewn on with her newly custom painted Singer Featherweight:

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Postscript

While staying at Kathy’s house during my Northern CA trip, it was fun to revisit several of my fiber art pieces she owns which includes as batik rope basket I made her as a gift; and a table runner she bought from my tierneycreates Etsy shop* years ago.

(*believe or not this blog began in 2013 as vehicle for my Etsy shop – the blog kept going but the Etsy shop did not!)

Oh and let’s close out this series of posts about my trip in April 2019 to Northern California, with one more image of the sweet (and insane) Chocolate Labrador puppy Riley that was one of the special treats during my visit.

Here she is taking a break from her very active puppy-ness!