On Friday morning, we grabbed some coffee to go and hit the road by 8:00 am. The coastal weather was overcast and a bit foggy ... adding to the adventure!
It was a beautiful drive from Bainbridge to Port Gamble. This community is a national historic landmark that has been well maintained.
The General Store houses a museum and restaurant, where we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast!
After we'd eaten, we went to the local Post Office and mailed home all the purchases we had made thus far on this dillydally excursion! It is going to feel like Christmas when we get home! I fell in love with this elderberry tree ... so just had to take a picture of it! ;-)
Our first shop in Port Gamble was a weaving studio called The Artful Ewe II. There were hand woven gifts for sale and several looms available for students. We loved how the building had been restored and was being repurposed ... this studio used to be a garage!
The next stop on our stroll was
The Artful Ewe.
We fell in love with this shop before we even opened the door! Total cuteness!
Oh. My. Gosh. Good. Golly! We found ourselves in hand-dyed heaven!
Lucky us, artist and owner Heidi Dascher only has the retail portion of the studio open Friday through Sunday! We are so grateful we chose to visit on a Friday! Everything was piled high with her beautiful yarn! Plus ... she allowed pictures to be taken!
See that huge ball of yarn in the center of this photo ... it holds 10,830 yards (hope I remembered the amount correctly) of wonderfulness! Heidi is such a warm and personable yarn artist! That charisma is reflected in every square inch of her studio! We had so much fun visiting with her ... she was so generous with her talent and insight.
Valerie decided to bury herself in all of this wool goodness! We both bought ourselves lace weight yarn for a scarf! Heidi's yarn is as beautiful as she is kind ... we'll remain loyal fans! Such fun! So inspiring!
When we left The Artful Ewe, we crossed the street and look at what we saw on the other side of the park? The reason we came to Port Gamble ...
Quilted Strait!
The Quilted Strait shop was featured as an American Patchwork & Quilting's Top Ten Shop in 2012. It is wonderful! Apparently it was my turn to sign up for a BOM on this day ... it is a wool appliqué project ... you can see it
here. I love seasonal or themed projects ... this one really tugged on my heart strings ... so I signed up! Living on a whim ... it is the dillydally way!
The shop has a fantastic classroom. We didn't want to be nosy or interrupt but we could see that they were working on wool appliqué. While checking out we asked about the class ... and nearly fainted when the women said that it was a class being taught by Kim Diehl. I said, "Do you mean THE Kim Diehl?" YES! The Quilt Rock Star
KIM DIEHL was there! Teaching! And we missed it! Had this been a planned and researched trip ... we would have been in that classroom!
Our time in Port Gamble was wonderful in every way. Am so happy we traveled there and plan to return some time ... I will definitely plan ahead and spend an entire day ... or more! ;-)
Our next stop ... Poulsbo ... also referred to as "Little Norway" ... yep, lots of my "peoples" live here! ;-) We had lunch that included the best clam chowder ... ever! Then we were off to
Heirloom Quilts and Fabrics!
When we walked in and saw this quilt ... my heart stopped! Valerie (our local hand appliqué guru) nearly fainted! It was so incredible that the world stopped turning!
A staff member explained to us that it was the local guild's raffle quilt. Several different members made the individual blocks! What an extremely talented guild! We both bought tickets ... several tickets!
Look. At. This!!! After explaining the raffle quilt and the guild's 2014 quilt show ... she shared with us a project she was working on! I put the bic pen on it so you could see just how tiny those hand appliqué pieces are! This woman was so kind and inspiring ... she made our visit to Heirloom Quilts enjoyable in everyway!
Couldn't leave Poulsbo without taking a picture of the Sons of Norway Lodge! What a wonderful and inspiring day we had! We met exceptional people ... found inspiring talent ... and participated in retail therapy! ;-) Love my dillydally life!
Do what you love. Explore. Do dillydally!
Mrs. DillyDally
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