Row By Row

Or

My Own Little Shop Hop

I am home now, from a trip back to Iowa and Minnesota to visit my family.  I had a great time visiting with people, and I even got to work in a little more "quilt business" than I usually do.

My own LQS, The Loft, is participating in the Row By Row Experience.  This was the first I'd heard about this, but RxR has been around for several years.  The idea is to visit participating quilt shops and receive a free pattern from each one.  This year's theme is Home Sweet Home.  The patterns depict something about this theme, usually mixing in something about that particular quilt shop.  The shops also offer (for sale) special fabrics that have been chosen for this year's theme.  Also available are fabric personalized license plates.  

Now, back to my trip to the Midwest.  Before I left home I looked up participating quilt shops on the route I would be driving.  I ended up stopping at Calico Hutch in Hayward, Minnesota; Quilt Cove in Eagan, Minnesota; Quilting by the Hearth in Lonsdale, Minnesota; Michele's Quilting and Sewing Center in Blue Earth, Minnesota; Old Alley Quilt Shop LLP in Sherburn, MN, and Bear Patch Quilting Company in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.  One day we drove to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to visit my niece and her husband, and I was able to visit Quilters Headquarters there.

At each shop I picked up the free pattern, did some looking around, sometimes bought some fabric (like I need any more!!), and at most of the shops I also bought the fabric license plate.

Notice the cute license patch fabric under the patterns.

Before I left on my trip, I had also collected RxR patterns from The Loft in Gualala, California and Eddie's Quilting Bee in Sunnyvale, California.

It happened to be that the Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop was going on at the same time.  So there were many shoppers who were also participating in that.

Now I have my work cut out for me--to sew up all these cute rows into a happy quilt!