Shopping Locally

I have been in Oklahoma this past week with my daughter.  We were looking at University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University.  On the say to OSU, we made a detour in Oklahoma City to visit Oklahoma Quilt Works.  WOW!!  What a cute shop.  It was in a strip center that had unique stores all around and no visible chains except for perhaps the Jimmy's Egg next door (A local breakfast chain I am thinking).  OQW had lots of fabric and everything that I wanted to see; Anna Marie Horner, Amy Butler, Brights, & solids.  (I am planning a houndstooth quilt and want to use solids.)  My daughter and I liked that they had lots of samples made out of the collections and I was really mesmerized by a quilt that had a circle theme and was made our of primarily polka-dot fabric.  I love polka dots.  They seem very happy to me!  They just add a lot of zip to your quilt projects. 

Well the employees at Oklahoma Quilt Works were like bright yellow polka dots ----- very helpful!!  They sent us to a restaurant to eat at which coincidentally,  was a one of a kind, jewel of a restaurant.  Here   is the link for Nicolette's Raspberries 'n' Creme. It was a chic little bistro with delicious food.  I had the fish tacos and my daughter had a chicken sandwich on fresh foccacia.  Yummy!!

This is the funky ORIGINAL chandelier that was hanging over our table.  I thought that the brush fringe made it tooooooooo cute! 

Some more originality that made me happy!!  Iron napkin rings that were the same vintage of the chandelier.  Fresh Flowers!  Each napkin a different color and colorful dishes with the same vibe of Fiesta Ware.

I cannot say enough about how important it is to visit and shop at brick and mortar stores.  It means a lot to me that I can go to these stores and actually touch the fabric.  Even though ------ in my last post I referred my readers to an on-line shop that sells Guterman thread inexpensively, I support my local shops.  The Quilt shop that I frequent;  The Quilter's Workshop, is a great place to go.  Their site is Here.   Sam and Diana of TQW a Mother/Daughter team have made this a creative place to learn and tweak your skills. I will be sharing lots of the quilts that I have made with Sam's patterns and you can look for them on their web-site. 

Bottom line ------  I value being able to shop local.  Keep your local stores in business because these are what make up the flavor of your town.