BAY AREA QUILT INSPIRATION (Cheri)

We were headed out to see old friends and their newish son, and Mark asked if I wanted to stop at any quilt shops.

Would I?  That's like asking if I want ice cream!

New Pieces and Bay Quilts are maybe five miles apart, just slightly beyond the Bay Bridge if you are coming from San Francisco.  Each of them speaks to different aspects of the vibrant quilting life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

(Image Credit:  QuiltFolk Magazine)

QuiltFolk magazine generally devotes one issue to each state that it visits; before starting Issue #27, the editors had decided to split California into two issues.  But then . . .

[A]s we began to review reader submissions, it became clear that
the Bay Area alone was overrun with quilting talent and history.
Eventually, we determined that, in order to give both the Bay Area
and Northern California their due space, they needed to be separate issues.

(QuiltFolk.com.)

Thinking about the differences between the two shops, I decided that Bay Quilts is all forward movement, while New Pieces gives homage to the deep history of the Bay Area's art-quilt heritage.

New Pieces has been in the Berkeley/Albany area for about 30 years, and was just purchased by four of its former employees.  This is a blessing, as many quilt shops fade away when their original owners retire.  (Back Porch Fabrics, in Pacific Grove, is another that was thankfully just purchased, due to the depth of love it engenders from its patrons.)

I had an incredible time talking with one of the New Pieces owners about shops, shows, and quilters that have blessed the Bay Area over the years.

If you've been quilting for "a while," you likely remember Roberta Horton and her twin sister Mary Mashuta, both quilting legends.

This quilt on the wall at New Pieces was made from Roberta's stash after she died in 2021, and is so evocative of her style:

(Here is a link to a book that she wrote about using plaids and stripes in quilts.)

But New Pieces isn't all about history.  They have a good selection of aboriginal fabrics:

and a wide-ranging selection of fabrics from Japan and fabrics inspired by Japanese arts.  Here is a kit that they offer:

Seeing the applique quilts and class offering below brought tears to my eyes.  I bought a quilt from Nancy Brown, the artist, a bunch of years ago at a silent auction.

The quilt is of two whippets in turtleneck sweaters.  I'd had an employee, also a quilter, who had two whippets and had died only a few months earlier.  She had a great sense of humor, and it is a perfect trigger for our good memories!

Speaking of a sense of humor, the picture at the top of this post is from a binder on the front desk at New Pieces.

Surprisingly, both New Pieces and Bay Quilts are currently offering a good selection of the best quilting books from the past several decades.  (Maybe more from Roberta Horton's stash?  I don't know.)

Bay Quilts is on the "water" side of Interstate 80, in a very industrial area:

After I browsed at the substantial selection of gift items right at the door, I glanced at the wall to my right and immediately turned around to get Mark, telling him that he had to see the quilts being displayed:  12 quilts by Sandra Bruce.  (That's a teaser for another day's post, coming soon.)

Bay Quilts recognizes that quilters are pretty big spenders; here's a picture of one of their shopping carts:

They take advantage of the high ceilings to hold classes in the loft space:

While the shop has a good variety of fabrics of all types, I thought that I would use this picture of some of their fabrics to memorialize the art-quilt leaning of the shop and the region: