One thing about Portland. You no sooner fall in love with a new brewpub or art gallery than it disappears. Something else takes its place that you might also fall in love with. This is a place of commerce, caffeinated. There you are, walking down a familiar street, when suddenly you have no idea where you are, and you have to stop and check yourself for signs of stroke. What has happened, of course, is that in the two months since you were at this corner, where a mom-and-pop grocery snugged up against a coffee shop across from a parking lot filled with food carts, someone has dropped in a set of four-story buildings as quickly as plucking out a green house for a red hotel. Our old Mediterranean Avenue has gone upscale.
We were heartbroken when the restaurant on our corner was evicted. This had also been the site of the Homestead Tavern, Johnny’s Jar Room, Chez What? restaurant, and finally Bernie’s Southern Bistro, serving fried green tomatoes in a dilapidated building. The new owners were compelled to stouten up the place but ultimately could not save its weathered exterior, and the new, sterile replacement has had For Lease signs on it for more than a year. It wasn’t promising. Then a boxing gym appeared in the back corner, and the lease signs disappeared from the former restaurant site in front. We peered in the glass. Didn’t look like it was set up for another restaurant. They’d need a kitchen, for one thing.
So Dave and I walk by this place nearly every day. Imagine our surprise when a new store appeared, apparently overnight. What could it be? What sad merchant could possibly replace our hush puppies and blackened catfish?
HOLY SAINTED SON OF A CHICKADEE! IT’S A FABRIC STORE!
Oh my heart. I don’t like to shop except at fabric stores and hardware stores, and for the same reason. They are full of people who (1) can help you and (2) want to help you. I can walk into a hardware store and ask for a grommet flanger and one of the employees will walk me over to the exact spot and ask me what I was planning to do with the grommet flanger, so she could get me the correct size. And I will explain that my diphthong has sprung a leak at the conjunction where the gerund screws into the participle, and she will put a hand on my hand and say Oh! Is the modifier alliterated or is it the conjugated kind? and helpfully hold up one of each for clarification, and then she will sell me the correct item and give me a tutorial on how to fix it. I freaking love hardware stores, which probably goes a way to explain why every project requires at least three trips to one, usually in the same day.
And fabric stores! You stroll through hauling out bolts of fabric and stacking them on your arm, periodically replacing one of them with a new one you like a little better, and somebody asks you what you’re making. And you explain that you’re going for a star quilt with all these colors in it but can’t decide on a border, and three or four other people lean over your choices and weigh in. “This violet would really make the green bits pop,” one says, and another suggests a complementary solid for the sashing with an echo of it in the corner blocks, and a third stares for a while and then goes away and comes back with another bolt of fabric you hadn’t even considered and it is absolutely perfect.
Someone mentions paper piecing and you admit you don’t know how to do that, and she heads you over to a wide table and demonstrates the technique, and you don’t even know if it’s a store employee or fellow shopper.
Fabric stores and hardware stores sell fabric, hardware, community love, and social joy, and they do it every time. Bolt Fabric! One-half block from my house! I did not think things could get any better.
And then I saw the salamander material.
So I imagine you bought the salamander fabric. Are you incorporating it into the quilt, or do you have something else planned?
I did not buy the salamander fabric. The faces are too lizardy. But it’s the thought that counts!
When we moved into our current neighborhood 40+ years ago there was both a fabric store (which turned out to be the only really terrible fabric store I have ever seen or heard tell of) and a hardware store within a couple blocks. Both are long gone, but we still have a fairly accessible hardware store so all is not lost. But a fabric store – you ARE lucky!
Ceci
Apparently I was very, very good this year.
Hardware stores in my area have mostly been driven out of business by Home Despot and Lowe’s. There was a mom and pop five miles from my rental that was fantastic and had a little of everything.
Once upon a time there was a mom and pop and their son’s store equally spaced north and south of the current house. They got tired of fighting the monoliths, switched to mostly landscaping equipment, closed down the son’s store and now have a landscaping equipment store with racks of whatever was left over from their hardware store days.
Used to be back in the day you just walked up to a counter, told the guy what you wanted and after he’d browbeaten and bullyragged you, he might mosey in back and bring you what he thought you wanted. There would follow more abuse, perhaps money and merchandise would be exchanged and you’d leave thanking your lucky stars that you didn’t need to shop there weekly. Unless you did and then the proprietor just knew you were a masochist.
These days he’s a bit tamer, but I can still expect some guff.
Fabric stores are pretty much extinct here, but I do know what you mean about learning something on each trip. Once upon a time I was a puppeteer and had to put up with abuse for being a man in what was considered a woman’s domain.
I bought a few yards of white fake fur once and was getting the raw edge by the woman with the scissors who assumed I was buying it to cover the seats in my car. Nope, puppets and I had in mind doing the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, but couldn’t figure out how to do the neck ruff. Well, that was a whole nother thing. She explained how you folded and doubled starched fabric into a brick, then pierced one end and strung it on a wire circlet. Unfold accordion fashion and voila, neck ruff!
I still need to try that…
Oh,man… we had a “mom and pop” hardware store just two blocks from us when we took over my mom’s home after she died. Mike Farnan was a Yoda of information! I bought paint from him, and things to refinish our floors. And he would tell me what I needed to do! AND! If i didn’t see a product in the main part of the shop (which was pretty small) he would go into the back and come out with it! It was like dealing with Doctor Who in his Tardis! The shop was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside!
Of course, Home Depot came in a few blocks away, and Mike went out of business. Home Depot does not have enough people to help you, and they don’t know anything anyway. I miss Mike Farnan.
One of those fake Rules of Writing says you can’t start a sentence with “and.” I was DELIGHTED to see you make a whole sentence out of “and”! My admiration for you has just gone up another notch.
Hey Mary Ann! Did you see Bruce’s comment? Huh.
Mimim, I miss Mike Farnan FOR you. Bother.
Jeremy, fortunately for me, I don’t know the rules!
I DID see Bruce’s comment. To which part are you referring? Really enjoyed your CS Monitor narration!
That he made Alice in Wonderland puppets. Like someone else I know.
Not a fabric store, but a yarn shop will grab me every time. My favorite one is in Presque Isle, Maine. It has great yarns and even a couch and easy chairs to sit down and knit a while. BUT… the clincher is… they also sell wines, imported and “designer” beers AND fine chocolates. I could max out my credit card in no time flat!
Whoa, there’s heaven! It sounds like you’re not there at the moment. Why would you leave?!
I moved to Mexico 9 years ago… where it’s warm. Now I knit socks for my grandkids while I drink margaritas.
I moved to Mexico 9 years ago to get warm. Now I knit socks for my grandkids while I drink margaritas.
One of these days I’ll be able to move to Alaska–more my speed–to, uh, get warm.
I’m a quilter. the last year before I retired, I gave myself permission to buy one yard of any fabric I desired. I accumulated hundreds of one-yard pieces and looked forwards to spending the rest of my life happily patching and quilting. Unfortunately I now have arthritis in my fingers which makes it painful for me to hold a needle and quilt for more than a half hour at a time. Also, it’s gotten a lot harder to thread a needle. So…bad planning.
I am SO sorry, anonymous. I, too, have arthritis, and it has had a horrible impact on my life. My fingers, yes, but mostly my knees. I used to hike, and just walk at a sprint like a New Yorker. I feel fucking old. I don’t like it. The thing is, I look and act much younger than most people feel is “old.” So they sometimes are impatient with me… maybe they think I am just lazy or slow.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that i know how you feel.
I just got my first arthritis this year. Shortly before my birthday. It came on sudden. It’s my first knuckle on my right index finger. I am aware, however, that if this is the worst I got at age 70, I have no real complaint. STILL.
What a horrible birthday gift from Mother Nature!
Yeah, I find that it DOES come on all of a sudden. One night, I went to sleep feeling perfectly fine, and woke up the next morning with excruciating pain in my left knee. I thought that maybe I hit it when I was sleeping. (Not as weird as it sounds. I tell Paul that only WE can injure ourselves in our sleep.)
But the next day, it still hurt… and the next. Same way with my fingers. I always had big knuckles, but one day I woke up with soreness in some fingers, and they have gotten progressively more bent and twisted.
I get acupuncture for the pain, and that helps. But it still hurts when it rains.
Jeez louise. Don’t move to western Oregon.
Oh my god!! Oh my god! I am dancing in place with sympathetic glee! Any time you are feeling low, you can go in and pet the fabric, and maybe a fat quarter or two will follow you home. Hell, Murr, I bet you could TEACH a class or two there. Do they have the flashy cos-play fabrics, too? Oh what joy!
As for hardware stores, we have Wichita feed about two miles away. The wooden floors are uneven and there is dust in the rafters from before World War II. I like to just wander, and wonder what those doomahickies do, and how many kinds of nails ARE there? it’s a great place to get lost in.
I can smell it.
Bolt Fabric isn’t large. I still miss good ol’ Fabric Depot, which had everything. But enough smaller fabric stores and I can do okay. There’s another one a
bout 23 blocks west of me.
I laughed so hard during your description of the hardware store conversation. Congrats on getting a fabric store! I am not a quilter nor a seamstress (although I tried to sew for awhile during and right after high school). But we do have a locally-owned ACE hardware store up on Cape Cod that we’ve been frequenting and as soon as you walk in they’ll help you find what you want! Just as you describe. It’s amazing. At home I just order stuff online, to be honest.
I haven’t been in a fabric store for forever, but a friend who is a knitter was visiting us a couple of years ago and she wanted to go to the yarn store a couple of towns over, so I drove her there. And it’s just as you described – all the knitting people talk to each other and have conversations about what they are making, and which needles are best, etc. So fun! Almost made me want to learn to knit. But given the half-finished crocheted blankets lying around in the bottom of closets in my house, I doubt I’d do much better about knitting than crocheting.
Knitting is impossible. It’s a trick. I explain here: https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2017/0405/The-mystery-of-knitting-remains-a-mystery
My Facebook feed is full of quilter folks lamenting another closed fabric store, so I’m delighted to learn of a live one opening. A veritable unicorn. Buy everything so they’ll get to stay a while. Show us what you’re working on, too.
This particular one used to be down the street about seven blocks. Then it moved a couple miles away. And now it’s back and closer than ever!
I am not currently working on anything but the winter’s young.
I had to read this one to my wife because she sews all the time and also LOVES fabric stores. Unfortunately, we have to drive to the nearest one. My favorite snortworthy part was the conversation in the hardware store–hilarious! It reminded me of the time I had a split infinitive needing mending (sorry, couldn’t resist). For several years, we lived in Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlottes)–remote islands in BC, off the SE Alaska coast. The nearest hardware store was a ferry ride away, and one time I arrived only to find a “gone fishing” sign on the door. So, the local butcher, started selling hardware, lumber…all sorts of stuff. We called it “Ed’s Meats & Bolts.” His tag line (and t-shirts) said “You may beat my price, but you can’t beat my meat.” The only place I know of where you could check out with ground round and a 2×4! Now, our best local hardware store is Home Hardware — a chain, but with small stores and people know stuff and help. The paint lady there can match any color imaginable–and did so even before the computer app.
P.S. For a real treat, check out Murr’s “A Christmas Chorus” story with animation for the CS Monitor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXLjsAKwPiU
(And if you haven’t seen it before, check out the Tuba Christmas story under the
Articles tab above). Happy new year everyone!
Did you see Bill Reid’s gorgeous sculpture, “Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Jade Canoe” in Vancouver? The last time I was in Vancouver (decades ago!) I saw it. Now it’s at the airport, but then it was somewhere else — maybe a museum. Someone was explaining it while I walked slowly around it with the videocassete camera I was just learning to use, recording it from every angle. I’ll never forget it. I still have the cassette somewhere.
Jeremy – Yes, the Spirit of Haida Gwaii sculpture at YVR is fabulous. There are two other versions: The Black Canoe (outside the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC) and the original white plaster full-size model for the two bronzes (in the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec). I’ve been fortunate enough to see all three! If you ever get to Vancouver again, you should visit the UBC Museum of Anthropology and see “Raven and the first men” by Bill Reid, carved out of yellow-cedar. An amazing carver/artist!
Thanks, Will! The Tuba Christmas one is the best one. Both the essay and the animation. But this latest is my third. I’m getting to be an institution.
The last time I was in a fabric store was when Marsha & I were about to get married, just around the end of the last ice age, and she wanted to find a fabric for the wedding gown she was having custom made. (That was the last time either of us had clothing — or anything but a bathroom vanity top — custom made.) She perceives things that one touches very differently than I do, and just because I think a piece of cloth has a nice “hand” doesn’t mean she could even stand to touch it. I had to give up on buying scarves for her, or pillowcases, or for that matter, anything else at all that one would come in extended contact with. I could see myself walking through a fabric store, touching everything and wondering how she would react to how it feels.
She sounds sensitive. I’m that way with tags in clothing.
Yes, a pea under the mattress would keep her awake.
You have really got some good karma going on… I cannot believe you are walking distance to a fabric store. That is my dream although I would have to limit my visits… You lucky duck!!!!!
My only complaint is they have everything within reach, and there’s plenty of room for an additional shelf on top of the two they’ve got. Mo’ fabric, mo’ fabric. Bring it on.
I thought that fabric had geckos on it.
We have giant green hardware stores here that a person could get lost in and you just try finding someone to help you! Hundreds of customers who all seem to know the place like it was their home, but not a uniform in sight to help me find a hose fitting. The smaller hardware stores are a bit better, but often don’t have the range they used to have, or the one thing you might want is sold out or no longer available.
You’ve got a good eye. They’re clearly meant to be salamanders, and some of them even have the appropriate attire, but their heads are more reptilian. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t buy any of the fabric (also not wild about the colors). But I sure like the effort.
Winks!
Sounds wonderful. We only have JoAnns, the Home Deot of fabric stores, which I read is having financial difficulties. My daughter-in-law turned me on to Jordan Fabrics in Grants Pass, mostly an online business, I think. So much better to be able to see in person and touch. Went to Fabric Depot once when visiting friends–got kind of overwhelmed and had to sit on the chairs provided for the (mostly) men.
Speaking of an institution. Winks!
Fabric Depot was overwhelming in a good way. I mean, if you wanted fabric with platypuses on it, or bridges, or toy tops, they had it.
Sad to hear Fabric Depot closed. I spent many happy hours (and lots of bucks) in that wonderful yard-goods emporium. I haven’t been in a yard goods store (or any store, for that matter) since Covid. I’m 86 and immunocompromised and really just don’t want to be around a lot of people. But please tell me the Mill Ends Store is still around!
I spent many happy hours (and money
I’ve been wondering. It’s the only place that comes close. I think it’s still there!