Sunday, March 1, 2009

Phoenix Quilt Shop Exploration

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the opportunity to enjoy Phoenix, Arizona last week. As I always try to do, I was able to visit some shops in the area. What a treat! I visited The Quilted Apple and Quiltz, both in Phoenix and The Quilter's Store and Gallery in Sedona. If you've never been, make sure you check them out. Not only was the country side gorgeous, so were the shops!

We spent one day in Sedona after my business meetings, which is when I stopped into The Quilter's Store and Gallery.
This is me, DH and a friend who has relocated to the Phoenix area, Cathy Adam. Cathy was our tour guide for the day! We are seated in front of the store.
This is Cathy and 2 of the staff members in the shop. They had lots of cute gift items, so even Cathy did her duty supporting the local quilt shop! The shop was very welcoming, with something for everyone. They carried brights, traditional fabrics, tons of batiks and had two different sections dedicated to Southwestern and holiday fabrics. Books, notions and patterns had a room in the middle of the shop. Nice layout that kept you moving throughout the store. I loved all their sample quilts.... quite a bit of visual stimulation.

They have a separate building with a quilt gallery. The gallery has quilts made by the staff and local guilds which are for sale. We saw some interesting pieces, including a Steering Wheel Cover. It gets so hot in the summer, if you don't cover the steering wheel in your car, you can actually burn your hands. What creativity. I can tell you, they were really cute!

Our first stop in Phoenix was Quiltz (liked the name :-)). The shop had alot of pizzaz and my husband commented on the size, not only of the store, but the classroom.... tons of space. They had 8 6FT tables set up for students, with ironing stations throughout the room. The shop was really roomy. They had fabrics set up by type: batiks, florals, etc... With a special color of the month (pink for February), where fabric with even a touch of that color was 20% off. They had a large selection of books, which are 20% off all the time.
Karen, pictured above, tried helping my husband find a replacement for his XMas stocking stuffer, "Help, I Married a Quilter", which he left on the plane on the flight out. Unfortunately, they were out of stock.

Last we visited The Quilted Apple. It was a smaller shop, but still with a lovely staff. Although the shop was more traditional than the other two, it was still lovely. They had tons of samples displayed, with many quilts depicting the history of the area.... landscapes, indians, southwest images, etc....


This is the owner of the shop, in front of a lovely Baltimore Album quilt which hangs in the front of the store. The workmanship was superb! We were running to the airport, so we didn't have alot of time to spend here. But I will stop back in next time I am in the area.

So that was our trip. I will update the links on the hand hand side of my blogpage later. Now it is off to Ottawa, Canada.















































































































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1 comment:

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

I'm glad to see the Quilted Apple has survived over the years. My brother lived in Tucson more than 20 years ago and we visited that quilt shop.