Quilt Shop Hopping

My sister and I had a great time on Wednesday. We only made it to one of the three shops on our list, but we found three others, and we had a great time.

The first shop didn't have much in the way of fabric yardage off the bolt, but looked like it did a lot of teaching and custom longarm quilting. I bought a few fat quarters (after checking to make sure they all had selvage dots.) The proprietor suggested we visit a quilt shop about 40 minutes away. It wasn't on our list, and we hadn't planned to drive that far north, but it was a nice day, and we had nothing better to do, so off we went.

Our sons were spending the day skiing with their grandfather, and we talked about the two boys (17 years apart) getting up and getting ready in the morning. Mine has never been a "morning" person, hers, once awake, is "On" at top speed.

We visited quilt shop # 2. It was a nice shop, very bright, with a nice selection of fabrics. I bought more fat quarters, and a nice Asian print. Then we went to find a good place to have lunch.

What we found was a complete surprise in every sense of the word. We found an internet cafe, with terrific food, that was also a quilt shop! No kidding! This place had terrific fabrics, and my sister and I spent more than an hour there, eating and choosing fabrics. I bought the terrific Rowan print and some wild batiks and some more fat quarters.

Then we drove toward home, determined to visit Quilted Threads in Henniker. As soon as we walked in the door, we knew we had found "It." This shop has it all, great batiks, new designers, Amy Butler, Mark Lipinski, great kid fabrics, great traditionals, several spacious classrooms, every book you could imagine and lots more. We spent another hour just looking around. In the end I bought about 17 fat quarters (almost all of them with selvage dots) and 8 more half yard cuts which my sister I later divided into fat quarters. We'll be visiting this shop on a regular basis.

Here is a photo of most (but not all) of the day's catch. I didn't go shopping with much in mind. I wanted fat quarters with selvage dots in a variety of colors and patterns. Mostly we were looking to scope out the various quilt shops in the area.

When I got home, there was a package of black and whites from eQuilter waiting for me, and the great day wasn't even over! More tomorrow!


OH! I'm looking for a copy of the new Quiltmaker magazine. The one with Tonya's wonky houses in it. I couldn't find it anywhere. Would anybody be willing to get me one? I'd be happy to pay for it or trade for fabric.... let me know in the comments, or email me! Thanks!