By Janet Eastman
The Oregonian/OregonLive
Suzette and Eric Andersen of Oregon went on a journey as distinctive as the quilts they create. They drove a total of 7,000 miles from their home in Sweet Home, weaving across Oregon, Washington and Idaho visiting fabric, quilting and sewing shops.
They collected passport stamps at 126 stores, traveling to places from Bellingham, near the U.S.-Canada border, to Pocatello, near the western border of Wyoming.
The Andersens are among thousands of people across the country participating in Shop Hops, the nation’s largest sewing and quilting retail event that ran April 1 through May 31.
Independent retailers offer special discounts, exclusive merchandise and prizes to customers who visit their stores during the Shop Hop period.
“Our goal is to keep quilting and sewing stores alive, and to get as many customers through their doors as possible during the two months of the Shop Hop,” said Maddie Herlocker of Shop Hop Inc.
The company, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will organize 19 Shop Hops this year, with three more set to start in 2027, Herlocker said. More than 80,000 people have requested information through the company website, she added.
Each of the Shop Hops has a magazine, and Herlocker said more than 9,000 All Pacific Northwest Shop Hop magazines were sold this year.
The $14 magazine serves as a passport and a yearlong directory of stores in 13 regions in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The magazine also includes travelogue descriptions of coastal drives and mountain passes, and guides readers to shops in big cities and remote small towns.
Among the All Pacific Northwest magazine’s 140 pages are instructions for five original patterns, ranging from beginner-friendly to challenging. There are also five bonus patterns online, and every passport holder visiting a participating shop receives a block pattern card.
The patterns, reflecting the different states, were designed specifically for limited-edition fabric lines created for the event by companies like Seattle’s In The Beginning Fabrics.
Quilt designer Cheran Bee of Fiddlesticks Quilt Shop in Vancouver, Wash., created a pattern titled “Highland Meadow.” The pattern depicts a watercolor painting of Mount Rainier surrounded by meadows and uses fabrics by Riley Blake Designs of Lehi, Utah. The kit sold out.
“I love that our program gets people out of their houses, off of their phones,” Herlocker said. “You can’t find some of the information in the magazine online, and people need to go to a store to touch and feel the fabric.”
Most shop hoppers visit about two to three regions within the three-state area, Herlocker said.
The Andersens were among quilt enthusiasts determined to shop at every participating Pacific Northwest store.
With careful planning around store hours and distances, they visited 126 shops in 19 non-consecutive days over the entire two-month period, taking breaks in between their trips, but not many.
To succeed, they ate snacks in their car to save time and stayed with family members and at hotels along the way.
“I feel proud that we did it,” said Suzette, 65, who retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in 1996. She then taught high school family and consumer sciences, formerly known as home economics, retiring from her second career four years ago.
Eric, 64, also retired in 1996 from the Coast Guard. The couple have been married 41 years and visited their three grown daughters during their road trip.
Stitching the idea together
Suzette was in Idaho in March, visiting family, when she saw the All Pacific Northwest Shop Hop magazine at Cuppa Tea Quilting in Priest River.
She liked the idea of a road trip to see quilt shops, especially to look for patriotic fabrics.
Her husband was willing to drive her. As she explains, Eric was the perfect travel companion. “My husband likes long car rides, and wandering with no purpose is one of his favorite things to do,” she said.
Eric added a purpose to her casual idea. He said, “We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do all of it and see things in places we’ve never been before.”
They planned their route based on shop hours, aiming to reach the most distant shops before closing time. There were close calls and some misses.
Sometimes, shoppers not on the same time-driven mission were leisurely checking out. Other times, a long line of people needed to get fabric cut before closing time.
A small shop in north-central Idaho, The Wild Hare Fabric, closed an hour earlier than the couple expected. Eric called and tried to get the owner to join them for dinner and bring a passport sticker and merchandise.
Instead, the couple stayed the night in a hotel and visited the store in the morning.
“I liked that shop so much that we later returned for a second visit,” said Suzette, who has been sewing since high school and made her daughters’ formals.
Eric gave her a long-arm sewing machine while she was still teaching, but she said she never had enough time to experiment with it. Since retiring, her quilting has become more creative, she said.
“I’m teaching myself how better to use it, and I have made a ton of quilts that I give away,” she said.
Eric also creates quilts and produces quilt tools with his 3D printer. He also makes tie-dye shirts, which the couple wore during their Shop Hop adventures.
Sometimes, they wore T-shirts that read “Shop hopping is my therapy.”
From coast to border: The Andersens’ route
Here are highlights from Suzette and Eric Andersen’s journey.
Suzette worked as a substitute teacher for the first week in April, then she and Eric took off for the weekend.
They started close to home in the Salem-Eugene region. They drove from Sweet Home to Salem and visited six shops, including Will-N-Bee’z Quilt and Coffee Shop, on a Friday.
They then drove to the southwest region, zigzagging from Everything Sew Nice in Roseburg south to three quilt shops in Medford and east to Tater Patch Quilts in Merrill, a small city in Klamath County north of the California border.
From there, they drove west, crossing the state to get a sticker at It’s Sew Brookings, and drove up the coast for two hours to spend the night in Charleston.
The region across the bottom of Oregon was the hardest one to do, Suzette said.
“We had to go way out to Merrill before the shop closed. Seriously, I would never have gone there, but it was cool.”
The next leg was north to Astoria, where the west region was hosting a special Shop Hop event. The pressure was on for the Andersens to move through the crowds, buy an item, get a passport sticker and be on their way. There was little time for miscalculations.
When they arrived at one shop Sunday morning, they stopped the owner as he was driving away. He told the Andersens his wife had forgotten to tell him he was supposed to open the store that day and he was on his way to church.
“Luckily, just then, a car full of ladies showed up, and he opened the doors,” recalled Eric.
From there, the couple swept south to Kruusn Quilt Shop in Coos Bay, then sped back up the coast. The next day they visited Patchwork Quilt Oasis in Newport, Sew Little Time Quilting Shop in Tillamook and Center Diamond fabric store in Cannon Beach.
They also continued into the west-central region to see some of the shops in the Portland area like Modern Domestic and Sewlarium.
“We did a lot on that weekend trip,” Eric said.
Suzette said she rushed to find something to buy at each shop, promising herself she’d return when she had more time. At minimum, she purchased bundles of “fat quarters,” fabric pieces used for patchwork and scrappy quilting.
Melissa Hanson of Aloha Sewing and Vacuum in Hillsboro said her shop welcomed loyal customers and new faces during the Shop Hop.
“Quilters are a wonderful charitable group of people with so much to offer our community,” she said.
After seeing Paisley Duck Quilting and Design across the Columbia River in Kelso, the Andersens boomeranged back to Portland to catch the Quilt, Craft & Sewing Festival April 16 at the Portland Expo Center.
Spontaneously, Eric splurged on a 10-needle embroidery machine for the price of a new compact sedan.
“I don’t want to know how much we spent,” said Suzette, who would later pick up a few cases of her favorite Riesling at the Ste. Chapelle winery west of Boise.
After they finished the coast, they crossed the Columbia River again to reach Vancouver, and then headed southeast to Bend and other shops in the central region. Places were starting to blur. They can’t remember if they stayed in Pendleton or another place.
“My dad was getting out of the hospital, and we needed to pick him up and take him home, so we rushed up to Cusick, Wash., shop hopping on the way,” Suzette said. “We watched him for two weeks, and did a little bit of shop hopping in different areas that were within range of my mom and dad’s house.”
Her sister Regina Williams lives next door to their parents, and she jumped into the couple’s Toyota Sienna on a quick shop hop trip to the Spokane area.
Finally, on May 15, Suzette and Eric Andersen posed for a photo at Heavenly Quilts & Fabrics Redeemed in Onalaska, Wash., after each received a final sticker, completing their passports.
“I hope the rest of you are successful and have as much fun as we did,” Suzette posted on the All Pacific Northwest Shop Hop Facebook page. “Now we are on our way home where we can sleep in our own bed for the first time in over a month.”
The Andersens will learn June 30 whether they have won free classes or a quilt shop gift certificate, a Tula Pink quilt kit or other gifts in a livestream of the prize drawings starting at 6 p.m. on YouTube.
They’re not committing to next year’s event, but Suzette picked up a copy of the All Nevada & Utah Shop Hop magazine and mentioned that they have family in those states.