Row By Row Begins!!!

Yay! The Row By Row shop hop began on July 1st. There are 1,250 quilt shops participating. Each shop is giving away a FREE row pattern and many of the shops offer a fabric kit for purchase to go along with the pattern. They also have a unique fabric license plate for sale. The plates are what I'm primarily after. I picked these up on day 1 as I did a northern Virginia drive around.

I purchased 2 from each shop. I might use one with the row and use the other in a different quilt.

In Manassas, VA I went to Suzzie's Quilt Shop, Aurora Quilts and Old Town Needlecrafts. I was disappointed in Aurora Quilts because it was LOCKED with a note taped to the door saying, "Be right back, went to Hancock". That was at 10:25am on the first day of the row-by-row!!!

These are the patterns from Manassas. Suzzie's didn't have a kit available but I picked up the pattern. The next shop had kits for the 3 different versions of their row. I bought the kit for the top row shown.

Next I went to Nokesville, VA to the Daffodil Quilts and Fibers shop. Their kit has buttons and trims.

This bookshelf row is from The Quilt Patch. No kit and no license plate! :(

They did have a cute shop though. 

LOTS of TRAFFIC in Fairfax! 

I made my way to the next shop in Fairfax: The Quilters Studio.

The Quilters Studio had a kit for their row celebrating the state bird (cardinal) and tree (dogwood) of VA. They had a really nice shop too. But the TRAFFIC!!

So next I was on my way to the 2 shops in Alexandria, VA. 

Just after I got on the capital beltway heading EAST there was a huge crash in the lanes going WEST with tons of BLACK smoke. The traffic on that side of the median was stopped --all 4 lanes of traffic was stopped....then the rescue vehicles passed me going to the crash. I hope everyone was ok. The cars involved were totaled.

This row is from Artistic Artifacts. I didn't realize I needed to purchase the cute doohickey and paint to stamp my own butterflies on the white fabric. My row will NOT look like theirs. I didn't buy the extra stuff mostly because I wasn't told about it. I do like learning new techniques but this one will not be on the list this time.

Amber Waves of Grain is from Bonnie's Sewing and Fabric. I bought the kit which was 3 fabrics. She didn't tell me until AFTER I had completed checking out that there is a SPECIAL RULER needed for this block. Yeah, whatever, I'll figure it out.

Not bad but my middle points don't always match. Especially the last block because I cut one with the fabrics wrong side up on that one. Who knew it would make a difference. Still it looks nice.

On my way home I passed the wreck. The burned out car was on a tow truck and traffic was moving along. Time for one last stop at my favorite local quilt shop.

Capital Quilts in Gaithersburg has a very patriotic row. I was going to wait until the 4th of July to piece this one but couldn't help myself! I bought the kit and started on the stars. There wasn't enough of the dark blue to piece all the outer points on both stars. I used their fabric to piece the 4 identical parts that are above and below the center star. I used one of my fabrics (also from Capital Quilts!) to complete the block. Next I need to prepare the appliqué to go over the fireworks fabric....

Maybe tomorrow.