Ashland Meetups

With Diane Ericson

I just returned from a quick trip to Oregon.

I like Oregon!

The reason for the trip was to deliver DD1 and her "stuff" (which filled my van to the tippy top), to college. But I combined the trip with some fun. On the return drive, I spent two nights in Ashland, OR. The last time I was in Ashland, I was 20 years old and attending the summer Shakespeare festival. I am happy to report that the town of Ashland is just as cute and charming as it was over 30 years ago.

While in town, I had a couple meetups!

With Mary and Teresa. Ignore my closed eyes and blurry torso. :)

First, I met Mary, of Bibioblog and Teresa, of Camp Runamuck for shopping and lunch. Both of them drove no small distance to meet with me, which I really appreciate. We had planned to meet at the town square, but I arrived early and checked out all three of the quilting stores in Ashland. (Who ever heard of 3 quilting stores within a few blocks of each other?)

After visiting all three, I returned to my favorite, Fabric of Vision, which has a thoughtfully chosen selection of non-quilting fabrics and some very interesting trims and notions, at very reasonable prices. (The other two stores carry quilting fabrics exclusively.) I was making some very well considered choices, when who should wander in, also early, but Mary and Teresa!

We sewists are so darned predictable...

Mary shopping at Fabric of Vision

(Before I forget, if you are looking for the jumbo hook and eye tape that Marcy Tilton used in her recent short jacket pattern, Fabric of Vision carries it in both silver and brass (on black tape), and it's something like $7 or $8 a yard. She also sells other very interesting tape trims, gorgeous ribbons, Japanese double gauze, hand dyed wools, beautiful voiles... Heck, it's impossible to list everything, but she carries some very nice treasures. A small but well curated collection. I suspect they would be happy to take phone orders for the jumbo hook and eye tape...)

The treasures that came home with me. The fabric resembles shibori, but is not. It is highly textured like shibori. The label on the bolt, from the supplier, called it "Boucle" but it is not "A" boucle. It is very cool and when we returned from lunch (yes, our fabric shopping lasted so long we had to break for lunch) Teresa wanted to buy a piece of this but it had sold out in our absence. You can also see the two interesting tape trims that I bought. I already had the jumbo hook and eye tape. Lunch in the courtyard at Dragonfly (highly recommended) Myself, Mary, Teresa, and Sandy, owner of Fabric of Vision

After all three of us exhausted our checkbooks at Fabric of Vision, we wandered into various shops along Main Street (so many nice boutiques and shoe stores...), ending up at The Web*sters, a well known yarn store. I wanted a little knitting project and Mary and Teresa obliged my whim. I am very familiar with their online yarn store, but was surprised to discover that the brick and mortar also carries some high end boutique RTW clothing and jewelry. This distracted us for awhile and I could have easily gotten into trouble with all the beautiful art to wear pieces and jewelry. But I have to save my pennies for Taos, so I resisted.

(Before I forget, my other recommendations in Ashland are Zoey's Ice Cream and Great American Pizza Company. Yum.)

Diane Ericson also lives in Ashland and we planned to meet up at the Ashland Art Center where she has a studio. We managed to miss each other, so instead, we met at dusk for a walk in Lithia Park. Lithia Park, designed by the same guy who designed Golden Gate Park, is one of my favorite things about Ashland. I was so happy to have a chance to finally meet Diane in person and chat as we strolled around the gorgeous park on a warm summer's eve.

If possible, after talking to Diane, I am now more eager to get to Design Outside the Lines in Taos.

So that's it! Twenty hours of driving in four days and I'm back home, back to a grumpy cat who demanded food and then disappeared in a huff, and back to work.

Launched.
Note bed caddy. ;)