Welcome to Portland, Sandy Sanders - Lauren

Last weekend Portland, Oregon gave a warm welcome to Stixer Sandy Sanders literally and figuratively. Let’s start with the literal. Portland decided to put its best foot forward for Sandy, showing her just how beautiful the city can be in the spring. The weather was absolutely amazing. Clear, blue skies without a hint of cloud during her entire visit and on her final day in Portland it got up to 73 degrees, the perfect Portland temperature. Portland can be a bit changeable during the spring, going from cold and rainy one day to sunny and downright balmy the next. But the rainy days are beautiful in their own right, often with the clouds breaking up mid-day to allow some blue skies to filter through. But Sandy got to see the best Portland has to offer – blue skies and warm temps.

And that brings us to the figurative warm welcome. On her final day in Portland, yours truly met up with Sandy at about 10 am at her hotel. Sandy left it to me to decide how we would spend our day. Her only requests were for us to visit the oft discussed and admired fabric stores of Portland – Fabric Depot and Craft Warehouse. I decided to start with Fabric Depot as no other store has quite the impact as seeing a warehouse full of fabric, books, notions, yarn, etc. Sandy was suitably impressed. She started as we all start upon first seeing Fabric Depot – staring around in awe. After a brief walk around the fabric, we began with the books and patterns. Watching Sandy find so many treasures encouraged me to look for my own and before long (about an hour and a half) we had each found a couple books and a bunch of patterns marked down 75%. Sandy decided to shop for fabric for one of her new patterns and in true mini-Joyce fashion, I took over and picked out all her fabrics. I can’t wait to see her quilt all made up! We then moved on to walking around every aisle to look all the fabric. This was a lot of fun, but even with one entire day, I don’t think you could see everything, so we hit all the fabric highlights. Next, we went through the notions and by the end, our cart was full! It was an absolute blast and all too soon time for us to head off to our next stop – Craft Warehouse.

The beauty and allure of Craft Warehouse are the flat folds. Beautiful cotton fabrics sold at only $6.00 a yard. Unbelievable! That weekend was Craft Warehouse’s anniversary, which meant that we came armed with coupons and an entire new table of flat folds had just been put out. As soon as we arrived and I showed Sandy the flat folds, I immediately called my mom and told her about the new fabrics. Upon hearing they were from some of our favorite modern designers, including Amy Butler and Heather Bailey, she set loose…the kraken. And by kraken, I mean me. She told me to buy her an assortment of fabrics in oranges and blues. Well, with a clear cut mission, I was ready to go. And go I did. You see, I love buying fabrics and it doesn’t matter who they’re for. I just love picking and coordinating fabrics for quilts. So, I went a wee bit crazy and spent almost an hour and half choosing fabrics for Mom while Sandy wandered the fabric section and other areas of Craft Warehouse. It was an absolute blast. And by the time I was done, Sandy and I just had time to grab a quick late lunch at Panda Express and then head off to the airport for her flight. All-in-all, we spent around 6 hours at 2 fabric stores.

I hope Sandy had as good a time as I did. There can’t be much better than a day of fabric shopping. And I hope this will encourage you all to come to Portland soon to visit me, of course, but more importantly, to visit Fabric Depot and Craft Warehouse.