Shop Hop

As a lot of you know this weekend was the Central Valley Shop Hop. We (Brenda, Diane and myself) started Friday morning leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and opening the store in Maricopa at 9: a.m. Maricopa Quilt Co. is such a unique wonderful store. Out in the middle of nowhere but always a must see store. We always have fun there. Fed my shopping addiction right off the bat. We then drove into Bakersfield, starting at Strawberry Patches. They have just moved into their new store. It is beautiful. So light and cheerful and lots and lots of fabric. Their color wall is to die for. I love their new store. They had a wonderful Baked Potato bar set up for all us quilters. How wonderful was that! Next it was onto the Allen Rd store To Quilt and Sew. Seemed like there was less material than last year. There is also a new store in Bakersfield I think they said it was called Bolts to Bindings but we found out about it after we had left Bakersfield. Hopefully it will be on next years shop hop. We then took a detour to Porterville. It has two new stores (not on the hop yet) but we decided we had plenty of time so took a gander. One was Calico Mermaid and the other Tina's Treasures. Both stores are nice. Very different from each other but unique in their own ways. Have to take a field trip back when we have more time.








On to Thimble Towne in Visalia. You could never imagine the changes that have been made from last year. New owner (Jeremy) lots more fabric, everything is bright and cheerful. Just a wonderful wonderful store. I just hand my credit card over because I never get out of there without some new batik fabric. He has done a wonderful job on the store. Lots of goodies to munch. I could not pass up the popcorn. What can I say, I am a popcorn nut. It was fun to have our photos taken in all the clown garb. Just had to clown around a bit.



From Visalia we went to Quilters Quarters in Hanford. They decorated to the max and it was really darling. They did a bang up job in the decorating department. #1 for best decorated. They had lots of little vignettes with cute items. The color wall is gone now. Did not seem like it had as much fabric's as last year. They also had lots to munch on. I had to try the brownies.



That was the end of day one. I came home, took my shoes off, put my jammies on and called it a day.



Day two we headed north. First Stop was Ceres Fields of Fabrics. We opened their store also. Thank goodness they let us use the girls room before 9 a.m. when they opened. Ceres is a small shop that had two long arm machines set up in the shop It seemed like their was not as much fabric this year in their store compared with last. On to Turlock Cloth and Quilts. Love this store. So Roomy with lots and lots of fabric. They have a huge classroom. They are celebrating 15 years in business in June and are having a one day special June 18th of 40% off their material. On to Oakhurst and Bear Paws. Just a quaint store with some fun fabrics. Could not pass up the gentleman selling opportunity tickets for their local guild quilt. From their it was onto our leisurely lunch at Crab Cakes in Oakhurst. Onto Fresno and Cottage Quilts. Very nice store. Lots of fabrics. Did not get to see as much of it as I would have liked. They had a power outage and everything went dark. Oh well, next time. On to Clovis and Quilters Paradise. I also have fun in their shop. They were ready for us with a Louisanna theme. Always love the selections of fabrics they have. I even got to pet the dog. Just a fun store. Our last stop was in Reedley at the Mennonite Quite center. I hit the sales fabric and found fabrics for three quilt backs. Yea. I seem to always have trouble with backs. We turned in our passports and headed for home.


The first day I did not take my camera so have to wait to download photos from Diane and Brenda. But.....here are a few from day two.



I hope all of you that went on the SHOP HOP had as much fun as I did. Hope to here your reports and what shops were your favorites and why.



happy quilting, Paula