Monday, November 16, 2009

Shop hops

I had a plan. A tried and tested plan. Remember when I went to Europe and bought a alf meter in each shop and made it up into one souvenir quilt? That was the plan for the US. Did it work?
Well, lets just say that I can confirm that you can stuff 23.5 meters of fabric, one gift pincushion and a magazine into a medium USPS flat rate box, which then ships for $42.
So no. It didn't work. but boy did I have fun.
Blogger is messing me about tonight so these photos are not in the ideal order but bear with me...

At Fabrications in Healdsburg I found a number of pieces of Art cloth which had very individual resist patterns on cotton sateen. They were pricier than standard cotton but I could not resist (ha!) a few pieces becuase I am not going to see them again. Then I bought some cottons to tone in both with the Art cloths and with some fabric I have at home, from Cabin Fever in Auburn and Sugar Pine in Grass Valley
I forgot to rotate these photos but Blogger has taken an age tonight to load them so you will just have to tilt your heads 'coz I am not doing it again!















Before Healdsburg in fact I started a shop hope around Berkeley with Diane who only enabled my shopping. I decided to go out of my usual brown comfort zone ( see above) and go for colours which reminded me of the sugared almondy houses in San Fransisco.



The haul was built up over a number of shops....


..... including: cabin fever, Auburn. The lady in the Green jacket is Marlene my penfriend and host in Auburn


Stone Mountain and Daughter in Berkely. This is Diane bringing me more to buy!

New Pieces in Berkely.

Cotton Patch somewhere down the dark and traffic clogged I-24.




Sugar Pine in Grass Valley



And Thimble Creek in Berkeley.

5 comments:

Margeeth said...

Yes, I believe you can stuff all the stuff you mentioned in a flat rate envelope and sent it home. I am quite curious however what will happen when it will get there. After all, you are sending goods from a non EU-country to an EU-country. I do not know how this works in England, but I can tell you what would happen if I did the same only sending it to the Netherlands. The envelope would be opened at the postalservice and an estimat of the value would be made. As people do not know the value of fabric, this probably would not be very high, but I would have to pay VAT over it. Allthough a nuisance, I would be able to understand this. What I would never be able to understand would be the excessively high flat rate handling fee I would have to pay on top of this, the last time I ordered something from US I had to pay VAT and a handling fee that was thrice the VAT value.
I am quite curious if something similar might happen to you, if it does we will probably all know because you will blog about it?

Gerrie said...

Oh, wow, that art cloth is done by my friend and dyeing mentor, Judy Bianchi. Those are gorgeous!!

You are having too much fun.

Kristin L said...

The Judy Bianchi fabrics are so unique they'd be worth the VAT. Being that teh flat rate box is a gift from one address to another, and not a purchase from a store (at least not directly) I'm guessing that it will be happily awaiting your return. :-)

June Calender said...

What beautiful fabric! GEe, I might have to visit California, I've seen nothing of the sort on the other coast. Glad you had so much fun!

June Calender said...

What beautiful fabric! GEe, I might have to visit California, I've seen nothing of the sort on the other coast. Glad you had so much fun!lankli