Cannon Beach, OR - a project finished!

Recently, Mr. Pirate & I went on a road trip. Mr. Pirate recently acquired a new-to-us, small travel trailer and one of the places we stayed was at the Cannon Beach RV Resort in Oregon. This was just an overnight stay for us, so we didn't have a whole lot of time between the time we arrived in the late morning and the time we needed to be on the road again, 24 hours later. 

We did relax, have dinner and a campfire.






BUT, we made good use of the time that we did have.  Specifically .. a quilt store!  Yep, Cannon Beach has a quilt store.   A very NICE quilt store.  Mr. Pirate usually looks for a nearby pub/tavern, as he knows that I can be quite a while at quilt stores.  He has resigned himself to this, so he looks for a place where he can consort with the locals in a friendly setting .... and that is usually a pub.

And wouldn't you know it?  There WAS a pub just a mere block away.  Now this isn't JUST a pub.  Oh no.  By some strange set of circumstances that we never did get a straight answer on, the owner of the pub is also the owner of a hardware store.  He decided to join the two businesses.  I mean *physically* join them in the same building.  You enter one door; to the left through an opening, is the hardware store.  To the right, is the pub.  You pay for your hardware purchases at the pub. 

The name of this conjoined business?  Wait for it .... the Screw-n-Brew.  :-)   I kid you not.  :-)

So, while Mr. Pirate whiled away the time over a glass of porter (yuck! yuck! yuck!), I devoted MY time to carefully perusing the inventory of the quilt store, Central Diamond Fabrics.

It is a FABULOUS store.  The building is long and narrow but inside is an incredible inventory in both fabric and books.  Because this is a beach town, the store has a great stock of water and beach themed fabric.  As with many other quilt stores I have visited, this one seems to have unique selections in their fabrics.  I saw fabrics here that I simply haven't seen anywhere else .. and that's a good thing because it would be ever so boring if quilts stores all had the same inventory.

They had wonderful eye-candy hanging up for their customers to enjoy .. both quilts and garments.   The staff was very, very friendly without being obnoxious.  I wouldn't mind if this was my local store!
   

The haul I collected at Center Diamond fabric is shown here: the green bordered box has fabrics that are going to be a body pillow cover for one of my Dear Daughters.  If she reads this blog, then she'll have advance notice of what one cover will be. :-)  The hot pink block is a book on Sashiko.  This Japanese hand-stitched outlines has always intrigued me.  It could be an excellent, portable project to work on when I'm away from home.  The yellow block contains a digital print of a local landmark, Haystack Rock  (For those of you from California, I actually mistook this rock for the one that is in Morro Bay .. they are THAT similar!)   and fabric to make a tote bag.  The digital photo print will be an exterior pocket on the tote.

That leaves the purple bordered block ... that contains the trailer and travel-themed fabric I bought to make placemats for our trailer.  It was impressed upon me, during this trip, that although I have many sets of placemats for use at home, I didn't have ANY placemats ... commercial or home made ... for the trailer.  So when I found the fabric with vintage trailers on it, I knew immediately that THIS FABRIC would become placemats for our trailer.  The travel-themed fabric was just perfect for the backing.  I bought the polka-dot fabric for bias binding.

I couldn't start on the placemats until I got back home because 1) I needed to wash the fabric first (I'm firmly in the camp of "wash all fabric before using") and 2) the Insulbrite I would use for the "batting" was at home.

But, once home and all the fabric was washed and dried, I started on the placemats ... and FINISHED them! Woo hoo!!  I can't believe that a project *from this trip* has actually been COMPLETED ... within days of us returning home!! 

I hope that is a harbinger of similar success for the other fabrics I bought on this trip.  :-)






And yes, I only made two placemats.  Why?  Well, it's only Mr. Pirate and me who are traveling in the trailer.  The dining table is very small ... two people can sit very comfortably on the opposing benches.  Four *children* can sit comfortably on those benches.  But more than two adults?  Nope ... there isn't going to be any comfort factor at all.


Which is why any traveling to be done is in this trailer will be strictly for two .. Mr. Pirate and myself.  :-)

Oh .. here's Mr. Pirate & I with Haystack Rock in the background.  Now ... doesn't that look like the rock at Morro Bay??

Don't be fooled by the apparent sunshine.  Sure, it was sunny.  Not a cloud in the sky.  But this is the Oregon coast .. in May ...  and it's COLD and WINDY!  Both of us are wearing jackets (as was most everyone else on the beach!) and you can see my hair being blown around.  Heh .. we didn't see anyone actually swimming in the ocean. :-)

This isn't your southern California beach!  :-)