Christina Creating: Road Trip: Row by Row

Last weekend I went home to celebrate my mom's 75th birthday, which meant a road trip. My sister and her daughter came along and they were amenable to stopping at quilt shops along the way.

Have you heard about Row by Row? It's a new type of quilt-along that started a few years ago and has swept across the country and into the world! Participating quilt shops offer a free pattern and a kit you can purchase on that year's theme. This year's is "Home Sweet Home." All designs must be 36.5" wide (or tall) so you can fit them together in the same quilt.

The patterns are available for a limited time and if you are the first one to bring a quilt with at least eight rows to a quilt shop, you win a prize! I have been following this program for a couple years, but this was the first year I really collected any patterns.

I think it's ideal for a road trip to collect as souvenirs.

I would have been happy to stop at three stores but apparently once you get my sister going on a list, she wants to do them all! We didn't quite get to all 21 on the list (ha ha) but we did visit five shops. Besides picking up some fun patterns, I discovered some great quilt shops!

Here are the rows that I picked up patterns for: (all pictures from the Row by Row Michigan Facebook page)

The Hen House of Charlotte

The Pincushion, Imlay City

Second design from the Pincushion

Stitchin at the Barn, Imlay City

RMC Quilts, Port Huron

Sew Elegant Quilt Shop, Fort Gratiot

And then, once at my mom's, I discovered the quilt shop in my hometown. It was my first visit and I enjoyed the lovely shop. They also had a great pattern:

The Stitch Witch, Cobourg, Ontario

I don't know when or how I'll put these together but it was fun to collect them. You can get some good ideas looking at the Row by Row Facebook pages where they show the winning quilts and any other quilts people bring in to the shops to share.

And of course, I picked up some lovely fabric at almost all of the shops too.

It's hard to resists rows and rows of lovely fabric!!

It's not something I'll do on every trip home (although I did miss all the stops in Ontario, so maybe...) but I sure enjoyed doing it this time.

Addendum:
I didn't show the patterns when I talked about my trip to the UP, but here are the patterns I picked up then:

Village Fabrics & Crafts, Paradise

Cardinal Creations
Lake City

Delphine's Quilt Shop, Gaylord

Ausable Fabrics & More, Grayling

And I have a few more from local shops when I drove to Shipshewana:

Calico Point, Goshen, IN

Six local shops collaborated on nursery rhyme themes and it would be fun to collect them all. I think there's another local road trip in order! I have until September 6 so I'd better look at my calendar...