Traveling along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, we stopped at Inverness, 4-1/2 miles and 10 minutes away. Inverness is one of those "blink and you'll miss it places". Founded in 1889 as a summer town, by (oh surprise!) a Scotsman, it served as a place to stay for some 1906 earthquake refugees. Little did they know they picked the exact spot where the San Andreas fault slices up the coastline.

I enjoy looking at old buildings and thinking about what their past lives were. We entered the general store and were immediately struck by the obvious demarcation lines on the ceiling and floor that appeared to be the joint lines where two different buildings were merged. It somehow pleases me when buildings are given new life in this manner. We asked the worker (perhaps owner?) who was inside if this was the case and were astonished when the reply we received was border-line rude and definately cold. Maybe she was tired of hearing the question from people in-transit but she lost a sale because of it; we did an about-face and walked across the street to the gift store.

We asked this proprietress the same question and she actually paused to think about it. She didn't believe it was so; she had always known the building to be that way.

As I puttered around the store, Mr. Pirate found a lovely carved wooden scooper made from dyed, laminated wood. It now resides in our sugar container.

I'm always looking for innovative uses of fabric and discovered a nice-sized tablecloth (60x90), printed as a whole cloth design from India. Eventhough the color printing isn't the best, I knew it would make a good quilt and a nice remembrance of our trip.

As I chatted with the owner, talk turned to fibers and I told her of the loom we had just purchased for Lisa. I was astonished to discover that the owner was a weaver also and KNEW the lady who Lisa has taken spinning lessons (and future weaving lessons) from! What an incredibly small world. Who knew?

Post Script(added February 2009)
I have now finished the transformation of the tablecloth into a quilt. The hems were unstitched, the entire piece ironed smooth and loaded onto my longarm quilting machine, a Tin Lizzie 18.

I used plain muslin for the backing and a low-loft polyester batting.

My intent was to not have the quilting itself be seen ... I wanted the design of the print to be seen and not obscured by the quilting. I used matching color thread in the areas where I did quilt and was more-or-less successful in staying on the printed design lines! (Following lines with free-motion quilting on a longarm is not a trivial matter and I am still very much in the practice, practice, practice mode.)

From purchase of the tablecloth in late September 2008 to a finished quilt in February 2009 isn't so bad, considering that the holidays came in between those months and I was finishing up other projects!