Central Oregon Quilt Shops

Continuing my two-part series on participating in the Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop last weekend. If you are just joining us, check out Day One in this post: Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop Day 1.

Rather than worry about leaving Mike the Miniature Schnauzer at home all day while Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I drove around to the remaining four (4) Central Oregon Quilt Shops, we brought Mike with us:

Mike started in the back seat but convinced me he needed to ride around in my lap.

We did the bulk of our driving (at least 130 miles) on Day Two of the Shop Hop and luckily my lap converted to a dog bed (with the addition of a fleece blanket in the backseat) when Mike grew tired of looking out the window!

130 miles? Yes the remaining four (4) shops spanned from La Pine, Oregon (Homestead Quilts), lunch in Sunriver, Oregon (Sunriver Brewing) to Prineville, OR (The Quilt Shack), to Redmond, OR (Material Girl Fabrics), and finally to Sisters, OR (Stitchin’ Post) and then back home. Basically it was like a tour of Central Oregon!

Homestead Quilts (La Pine, Oregon)

Homestead Quilts is actually a lovely quilt shop with a wonderful collection of fabrics, however I only go there once a year (during shop hop) as it is about 35 – 40 miles from my house.

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They have some lines of fabrics that the other Central Oregon quilt shops do not have (or not as wide a selection of that line) such as Northcott’s Stonehenge fabric line:

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This is the same line I used for this quilt Cozy Cobblestones (which was quilted by one of my blogging buddies, Cindy @inastitchquilting.com):

I had a little bit of a beautiful Stonehenge blue that I wanted to use in the piece but not enough to repeat the fabric in more than one block so I did not use it. If only I had thought to check out Homestead Quilts to pick up some more!

Sunriver Brewing (Sunriver, Oregon)

We needed to “fuel up” our shopping engines to make it to three more quilt shops so we stopped at Sunriver Brewing in Sunriver, Oregon on our way to our next quilt shop.

I had a healthy delicious lunch of one of the best chef salads I’ve ever tasted:

While TTQH had a delicious but very naughty lunch!

Then it was onto The Quilt Shack in Prineville, Oregon.

The Quilt Shack (Prineville, OR)

The Quilt Shack is another Central Oregon quilt shop I rarely visit except during shop hop.

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As you can tell from several of the photos, it was a cloudy/overcast day for Day Two of Shop Hop. The end of April in Central Oregon can be hit or miss: we’ve done Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hops when it was 80 degrees and like a beautiful summer day; and we’ve done shop hop when it was cold and raining, etc.

The Quilt Shack specializes in novelty fabrics and if you are looking for special cowboy themed fabric, fishing themed fabric, or the perfect fabric with farm animals, etc. – they have it:

Next we took the 26+ mile drive from Prineville to Redmond, Oregon.

Material Girl Fabrics (Redmond, Oregon)

Material Girl Fabrics in Redmond is in an old house and the owner and her son who own the shop also live upstairs in the house. It is a very sweet shop and you feel like you are wandering around a house (because you ARE wandering downstairs in someone’s house!):

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TTQH searched for dog themed fabric at this quilt shop like he does at every quilt shop:

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Interestingly TTQH did not buy any fabric this year at shop hop, it was not like last year where he seemed to be “buying out” every shop we went to (see post Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop 2017).

Our Shop Hop passports were nearly filled as we headed to our last quilt shop of seven (7) – the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon:

Stitchin’ Post (Sisters, Oregon)

We were flooded with relief when we arrived at the Stitchin’ Post as it had been a long day of driving and shop hopping and we were ready to be done.

After turning in our Shop Hop passports we wandered around the quilt shop (which also has a lovely yarn shop) a bit before heading home.

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Mike outside the shop waiting to head home:

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The Haul

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, each quilt shop on the Shop Hop provided a block pattern for a mystery quilt. When you completed your Shop Hop passport after visiting all seven (7) shops then you got the final layout pattern and instructions:

Each quilt shop also gave out a free fat 1/8th quarter of batik fabric. Below are my seven 1/8th quarters and TTQH’s (which he gave to me) – we made sure not to select the same colors:

I usually try to support as many shops as possible by buying a little fabric at each shop during Shop Hop, but this year there was only two shops that I found fabric I had to have – Homestead Quilts and the Stitchin’ Post (and of course the scrap bag I found at QuiltWorks on Day One of the Shop Hop – see previous post for image):

Thanks for joining us on Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop 2018!

Quilt Shop Tours, Special Events

Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop Day 1

May 6, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Last weekend over the course of two days, Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH), Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and I attended the Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop.

We made it to all seven (7) Central Oregon Quilt Shops over a two day period which involved driving around 150+ miles:

Thought I would share a sort of “photo essay” of the two-day shop hop in a series of two posts.

Day One of the Central Oregon Shop Hop was completed after work on Friday 04/27/18 and included the three Bend, Oregon shops: QuiltWorks, Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center, and BJ’s Quilt Basket.

Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center (Bend, Oregon)

Our Shop Hop began at Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center.

Each shop gave out a free fat 1/8th quarter (18″ x 11″) of coordinating batik fabric and a free block pattern for the Central Oregon Shop Hop Mystery Quilt. You get your Shop Hop Passport card stamped at each shop and if you completely fill it out, visiting all seven (7) shops, you can enter to win several prizes including a new Bernina sewing machine!

Later in this post I will share my Shop Hop Passport stamps and my haul of free fat 1/8th quarters from day one (see section “The Haul“).

Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center is where I bought my Bernina sewing machine many years ago and my breath always catches a bit when I walk into their shop and see all the dream Berninas:

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They appeared to be embracing as many holidays as possible, and here are a sampling of their displays which covered: Easter, Valentines Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween!

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All the shops offered a delicious smorgasbord of snacks and treats for the shoppers. Here is an example from Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center:

In addition to the big prize drawing for those who completed their Shop Hop passports, each shop had their own individual drawing for shop gift certifications, etc:

QuiltWorks (Bend, Oregon)

Next stop on Shop Hop was at QuiltWorks, where the lovely owner Marilyn Forestell greeted shop hoppers and stamped their cards.

They also had delicious food including a huge chocolate birthday cake to celebrate the shop’s anniversary and the owner’s birthday (I forgot to take photos of the other shops’ snacks).

Here are photos from around the shop:

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They even have a Quilt Shop Dog (looks like a schnauzer mix to me!):

I wonder if they intentionally coordinated the quilt shop’s carpet with the dog?

This is where my naughtiness started – they had a section I could not refuse (see the section “The Haul” for what I purchased…you know just to be polite to the shop, ha!):

They also had a very timely display on the book Pillow Pop: 25 Quick-Sew Projects to Brighten Your Space Paperback by Heather Bostic. A couple weeks ago I decided to attack my pile of 2.5″ x 2.5″ scrap squares and enlist TTQH to help me make a huge pile of Half-Square Triangles (HSTs) to make several of the pillows in this book (future post).

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Seeing several pillow patterns from the book displayed really inspired me to (eventually) continue working on the pillows (not sure though if TTQH is still speaking to me after trimming all those HSTs…)

BJ’s Quilt Basket (Bend, Oregon)

Our third and final stop for day one was BJ’s Quilt Basket. BJ’s hold a special place in my heart as it was the start of meeting many of my other Quilting Sisters besides Judy who got m into quilting (see post Quilting Sisters, Part I).

Here are images from around BJ’s Quilt Basket:

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The Haul

First, here are the stamps on my Shop Hop passport for Day One:

Only 4 more to go!

Here is my haul of free 1/8th fat quarters – six (6) fat 1/8th quarters (TTQH gave me his of course!) from Day One:

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Here is an example of the free block pattern given at each shop. You have to go to all seven (7) shops to get the final layout/instructions for the mystery quilt; but if you do not get to all the shops each pattern also has instructions on turning the block pattern into a table runner.

And finally, here was the scrap bag I bought from QuiltWorks. It had several yards of large samples of fabrics!

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Thanks for joining me on Day One! Next post is Day Two of course 🙂

Quilt Shop Tours, Special Events

Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop 2017

April 30, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Friday, a day after returning from our Oregon Roadtrip, Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I hit the road again – this time for the annual Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop.

We visited all seven (7) Central Oregon quilt shops in order to fill out our shop-hop passcards for a chance to win a dream Bernina sewing machine (and gift certificates to the local shops).

As much as I enjoy the annual quilt shop hop, I did offer to pass on it this year as TTQH had just done all that driving. But he insisted – he wanted to go and wanted to complete our shop-hop passcards (he likes a challenge).

Here are the seven (7) shops we visited:

Several of these shops were featured on previous posts. I have added a new Category for my posts – “Quilt Shop Tours” in case you want to find quilt shop photo tours I have posted (check out “My Topics” Menu).

Quilt Shop Hop is always fun: you run into the same people shop-hopping in the same order as you are; the quilt shops have tasty treats and one even served lunch; and you get to look at the wonderful displays and fabrics at each shop.

In addition, each shop you visit gives you a free fat 1/8th of fabric. Between TTQH and myself, we collected 14 fat 1/8ths. Here is the haul (note, I let TTQH select his own fat 1/8th and he went rogue and selected a black & grey one that did not match the rest of the brights palette!):

Several fabrics are duplicates because we accidentally selected the same fat 1/8ths!

Last year I took our collection of fat 1/8th from the 2016 Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop and turned them into English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexagons (see post Adventures in English Paper Piecing, Part II). I plan to use the collection of fat 1/8ths from the 2017 shop hop for a project, this time I am thinking a standard paper piecing project.

I would like to use these free fabrics in a challenge project each year. I was intimidated by the thought of doing of EPP and now I absolutely love it!

I am completely aghast at the idea of traditional paper piecing (my sister-in-law Sue, the master quilter, once showed me how to do it as did my first quilting instructor Roxanne Carter, but it still fills my heart with terror), so why not challenge myself again?

So I nicely pressed and organized the 2017 free fat 1/8th in preparation for a future project:

I did not buy anything at shop hop, but TTQH did! He decided he wanted to make a flannel fishing themed quilt (he is into fly fishing). Also he could not resist a couple animal themed prints. Here is his haul:

2017-04-30_07-51-15_523 — For the fishing themed flannel quilt

2017-04-30_07-50-55_785 — For his “stash” I guess…

Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer and her adopted brother Mike went on the road with us during Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop. We stopped for a nice lunch and lots of dog walks. Material Girl Fabrics in Redmond, Oregon is in a house in a quaint old neighborhood so we had a really nice long dog walk before heading into that quilt shop.

Here is Sassy on the road:

Sassy has to sit on my lap in the front seat for the best views

Here is a sampling of the lovely Central Oregon views as we traveled around the area shop hopping!

I would guess we did about a 100+ miles of driving on Friday; for example the distance between some of the farthest quilt shops (from my house) – Homestead Quilts in LaPine, Oregon and the Quilt Shack in Prineville, Oregon is 65 miles.

Postscript

In a future post I will feature more Central Oregon quilt shop photo tours.

If you enjoy quilt shop virtual tours, I highly recommend Anna of Woolie Mammoth’s YouTube channel – Quilt Roadies. She, her husband and their adorable dog, travel in their RV to quilt shops around the country as well as other interesting sights!

Quilt Shop Tours, Studio

Quilt Shop Tour (Sew Many Quilts) and Sewing Machine Maintenance

January 30, 2017October 29, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post has two parts: Part I (the fun part) is a tour of the new Sew Many Quilts quilt shop location; and Part II (the less fun part) is a little discussion on sewing machines and their maintenance (with a request for your input).

Part I: Sew Many Quilts’ New Shop

We have wonderful quilt shops in Central Oregon. I have a full list and link to the shop’s websites in the right sidebar of my blog.

Saturday I need to take by Bernina QE in for service (more on that in Part II) to Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center. They recently moved to a larger location and Terry the Quilting Husband and I were looking forward to seeing their new shop and layout.

We have lived in Central Oregon for nearly 12 years and Sew Many Quilts is one of the first quilt shops I went to when I moved here. They used to be in a very very very tiny location and you had to sometimes back out of an area so another quilter could pass by the area you were shopping in. Then they moved to a semi-industrial shop area but it was tucked away and I wonder if they were not getting enough traffic. Now they have moved to a highly visible store front strip mall type location.

This quilt shop is always dear to my heart as it is where I bought my first “high-end” sewing machine (but more on that in Part II).

Enough rambling, here is a photo tour of their new location (note they do not have their sign out front yet so I did not take many outside photos).

General quilt shop photos:

The Bernina Center (warning this section contains “sewing machine porn”):

There were many wonderful quilt samples on display, but this one was my favorite:

So next time you are in Central Oregon, be sure to add this wonderful quilt shop to your visit list!

Part II: Sewing Machines and Their Maintenance

Here are a couple questions for those of you who sew (at first I wrote “sewers” but I thought hmmm that would be like I am addressing all the underground conduits following my blog, ha!):

What type of sewing machine(s) do you have; and if you have multiple machine – which one is your favorite?
How often do you get your sewing machine(s) serviced?

My Sewing Machines

I have 2 sewing machines – a Bernina 440 QE (my primary machine) and Bernina Active 210 (for travel/classes). I nicknamed my beloved Bernina 440 “Berny”.

2017-01-28_11-20-11_929 — My beloved Bernina 440 QE (“Berny”)

I began quilting on a Singer sewing machine and then upgraded to a Husqvarna Viking sewing machine. At the time this was a huge purchase as a new quilter – $400 (on sale of course) for a sewing machine – could you imagine someone spending that much on a sewing machine, I could not (little did I know what was to come…)

After a couple years of quilting and taking classes and drooling over the higher end machines that other quilters had, I decided that to feel complete in life I needed a Bernina. I was very attracted to Bernina because of its reputation for being well constructed and reliable with durable internal metal parts. I did of course have “sticker shocked” when I saw what Berninas cost!

I would visit Sew Many Quilts and drool over their Bernina display. Then they had a sale with 12 months same as cash no interest and I decided to make the investment and purchase the Bernina 440 QE.

Overall I have been pleased with my Bernina and a couple of years ago bought a smaller Bernina for classes during another sale at Sew Many Quilts.

The one thing I wish my Berninas had is a thread cutter. I borrowed a friend’s Janome with a thread cutter and I fell in love with the whole automatic thread cutting experience (it made me coo with delight!).

However after years of quilting and talking to other quilters, I realized I could have bought at least one of my Berninas used and saved quite a bit of money. I have also sewed on other machines such as Janomes that a pretty nice too (and are less expensive).

I’ve also tried out used/older Berninas that work wonderfully and I now realize you do not always need the newest shiniest thing when it comes to sewing machines!

Maintenance

Berninas require regularly service/maintenance and you have to oil them (they come with a bottle of machine oil) to keep them running smoothly. We have one (that I know of) Bernina Service Technician in Central Oregon so if he is busy you have to be patient.

The recommendation is a once a year service which I have to confess I have not always followed. I am pretty good at regularly oiling my machine and keeping all the areas I can reach free of dust and lint. So sometimes I go up to 2 years before bringing it in for maintenance (clean, oil and adjust).

In the 8 years I have had my Berninas I have only had one major issue and that was because one of them got dropped on the way to a quilting retreat by an airport shuttle company. I did pursue a claim with the airport shuttle company and they did reimburse the repairs.

I look forward to reading your thoughts on sewing machines and sewing machine maintenance in the Comment section – thanks!

Postscript

I have listened to a bunch of interesting “self-help” audiobooks lately while sewing or walking the dogs. In a future post will share a little bit about those books and key inspirational insights.

A Crafter's Life

Our Beautiful Central Oregon Winter

December 19, 2016December 19, 2016 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Technically it is not Winter yet. Not until Wednesday Dec 21, but we like to start things early in Central Oregon!

We’ve had over a foot (or two) of fluffy snow so far; and when we have one of our many sunny days with the endless impossibly blue sky, the snow looks very pretty.

Last week, after a huge snow storm, I shared photos with my coworkers at my pay-the-bills-job. I am fortunate to be a telecommuter and my coworkers also telecommute, most from warmer climes such as Seattle and Portland (yes I say that with jest as it has been fairly cold, icy and even snowy in those areas).

One of my coworkers asked about our snow in Central Oregon so I sent her and my other coworkers photos of the snow around my neighborhood. At first I was going to share those in this blog post, but those photos are BORING compared to the recent photos my friend Jenny took of our beloved Mt. Bachelor skiing area.

Photos from the Mountain

My friend Jenny went snowboarding last week and took photos from her run at the top of the mountain. She was kind enough to give me permission to share them with you:

Now that is SNOW! I think this photos are worthy of a future art quilt inspiration (oh darn, I could have made this post part of my ongoing series “Creative Inspiration“. I might someday recycle these photos on a future post about creative inspiration…

Snowshoeing in Central Oregon

I am so lucky to live a short drive from one of the largest ski resorts in the country, Mt. Bachelor. I might be making this up but I remember hearing recently that it is the 5th largest in the country.

So you are thinking – wow, Tierney, you must ski all the time.

Nope. I grew up in NY and when I was in nursing school, I went with my roommates on my first ski trip to Vermont. I discovered that I was a terrible and highly uncoordinated skier. I have no place on snow skis…ever.

I did however eventually learn to cross-country ski. However, I did not particularly like it. What I discovered I liked, and so does Terry the Quilting husband, is to go snowshoeing!

I remember when we first moved from Seattle to Central Oregon and we went snow shoeing here for the first time. We had been snowshoeing several times in Washington State in places like Snow Parks and the Snoqualmie Nordic Center, so we thought we were comfortable snowshoeing.

So we scheduled a guided snowshoeing trip our first winter in Central Oregon with Bend Parks & Recreation as we thought that would be the best way to first experience snowshoeing in a new area.

As we boarded the Bend Parks & Recreation van to take us to a day of snowshoeing at one of the Sisters Mountain, we noticed we were the youngest people getting into the van. Everyone else, except for our guide, was a Senior Citizen. We thought, wow, we hope we do have to snowshoe too slowly with this group (fearing our day would be slow and boring).

No. We were the slow ones on the mountain. As I shared in the 04/25/16 post Monday Again, about my continuing adventures hiking up Pilot Butte, Central Oregon has some seriously fit Seniors here!

There was one woman, who said she was in her 80s and was originally from Switzerland, who was especially “dusting” us. We could not begin to keep up with her pace – all I could see in the distance was this tiny woman powering along with her snowshoes and her poles. (I like to think it was because she grew up in Switzerland and maybe she lived on top of a mountain and had to snowshoe to school everyday…)

ry=400.jpeg — These are my old snowshoes, at the end of last season I did get some new ones which I will use this season!

This was my first exposure to how fit people are here. My goal of course is when I am a Senior, that I am going to be very fit like the role models around me!

(Just a side note/excuse for our lack of initial fitnesses – we did move from Seattle, which was at sea level to Central Oregon which is on average at 3000 – 3500 feet above sea level elevation just at the ground level when you walk around town!)

Postscript

I know, I know, this blog is called “tierneycreates” and if you are a crafter reading this you are probably wondering: “where is all the ‘creating'”. Well it is going on, I just cannot show a photo of it yet. I just finished a gift quilt and I am shipping it off to the person today and did not want photos of it on the blog until the person received it (that would take the surprise out of it!)

I did recently add to the right side of my blog a listing of and link to the websites of Central Oregon Quilt Shops, just to prove I really am a quilter (even if my blog does not show this lately) and to support the wonderful quilt shops in my area!