Fabric Shopping

 Last week I went fabric shopping at two new-to-me shops with a couple of girls from the quilt club. I was specifically looking for backing for my Deco-inspired baby quilt, and of course I was open to some stash enhancement if something jumped out at me. 

The first shop we went to was 35th Avenue Sew & Vac (Northern Ave. at 35th Ave). This is the shop that was described as being comparable to Hancock's of Paducah. In some respects the description fit, but in others, no. It was a huge store. They had a large area devoted to selling sewing machines and long arm machines, and accessories for them. They had bay after bay of patterns and notions. They had a very large selection of quilting fabric, very well organized and presented, but probably only 2/3 the stock Hancock's has. No home decor fabric at all. They had one little bay of sale fabrics; everything else was full retail price, $12-13 per yard. The store was organized so that complete collections were presented together, with several collections from the same manufacturer or designer grouped in the same three-sided bay. Fabrics were on shelves three high with room for fat quarters, although the stock of fat quarters was slim. Other than the one scant sale area ($8/yard) there were no bargains. The store accepts guild discount cards for 10% off but all my old STL guild discount cards are expired and the PCQ club hasn't issued anything yet, so I tried to use my AQS card and they rejected it, no discount. 

I was able to find the perfect print for backing for my quilt (see previous post below).

I also found a few stash enhancements from the sale area, just because I liked them. 

Not shown, I found a couple of sports prints suitable for boy quilts so I bought quarter yards of each. One is footballs and the other is football helmets. I'm using them in another project which will be the subject of a future post. 

The girls and I had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Cajun place on Northern Ave. and I had a delicious shrimp po-boy. The girls had catfish po-boys which they enjoyed but I'm not a fan of catfish. One of the girls had lived in Baton Rouge for several years and she thought the food was very good and authentic. 

After Lunch we went to Mulqueen's, at 59th Ave. and Northern Ave. Mulqueen's was smaller than 335th Ave. but does a good business in sewing machine repair and service. The fabric selection was okay but was more basic and was mostly past season. There wasn't as much organization, although solids or batiks or flannels were grouped together. Prices were $8 per yard for prints. I didn't look at batiks or flannels so I don't know about the prices for those. They had a big table of FQs, half yards, and remnants. I found some FQs of good basics that came home with me. I also found another sports print, cars, not shown. I wasn't inspired to collect anything else this trip, but I'll definitely go back. 

Both shops were a bit of a drive, more than a half hour. I live at 164th Ave. and we went all the way to 35th Ave. I'll definitely go back to these shops. Most likely I'll go to 35Th Ave. when I'm looking for something specific that I'm willing to pay full price for, and to Mulqueen's when I'm looking for bargains or something for a donation quilt. 

The girls who were with me are both new quilters but experienced sewists. One found a kit to make a baby quilt for a baby coming in October, and the other found fabrics for a tote bag pattern she wants to make. Neither had ever heard of stash enhancement....😉

A good day was had by all. 

Link ups: Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt