Adventures in Quilting: La Conner, WA

 

 

If you ever find yourself in need of a fun, laidback quilty day trip in Western Washington, check out La Conner. Recently, my mom, grandma and I headed there to visit the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum and had a fun, memorable day.

The museum alone is worth the trip. Housed in a Victorian mansion, the museum itself is beautiful, with a solidity that you seldom find in more modern buildings. When we visited, the main exhibit was “Color, Design, & Inspiration: Kaffe Fassett & Brandon Mably, with Liza Prior Lucy.” While familiar with Kaffe Fassett’s fabrics and books, I had never seen any of his quilts in person before. Sadly, photography was not allowed, although each quilt was tagged with the book it appears in. Turns out that the majority of my favorite quilts in the exhibit can be found in Kaffe Fassett's Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts: 23 Original Quilt Designs. The helpful lady at the front desk mentioned that the fabric store in town carried Kaffe Fassett’s fabrics, so we headed there after lunch.

Fabric D’eva is a nicely laid out store with a pleasant combination of quilting basics and current trends. I was especially charmed to have my purchases rung up by the burliest man I have ever seen working in a quilt shop, and who engaged me in light chitchat on the merits of Aurifil thread. Another clerk asked if we had been to their Stash Builder sale across from the museum. We had not, so we decided to check it out on our way back to our car, lured by the promise of fabric by the pound. We were not disappointed. There were tables and tables of quilting cottons for $5 a pound! After a stunning display of self-restraint, I walked away with approximately 15 yards of Benartex fabric for under $25. I’m still a little giddy about that!