The TN Valley Spring Shop Hop made for a wonderful day!  The family took a road trip just for me!

TN Valley Spring Shop Hop

Freebies from the TN Valley Spring Shop Hop

A group of local quilt shops sponsored the Tennessee Valley Shop Hop.  Buy a “passport” for $5, visit each store on the list, get the passport stamped, collect goody bags and quilt block patterns from each stop, and finally submit your completed passport to win a prize. Kids brought their reading and math schoolwork for the drive.  We laughed a lot.  Talked. They got some good schoolwork done and I spent time with my family while doing something a little weird but lots of fun.

I’d never visited Betty’s Quilt Shop in Cleveland before.  They gave us a nice tour of the shop.  Mr. Betty (so he says he’s called) even talked with me how to do bargello quilts.  I examined their quilting — absolutely exceptional!  — and petted the Civil War reproduction fabrics.  All fabric is $5.50 per yard! I am going back to get a few yards.  I’m thinking the quilt blocks I collected on the Shop Hop will be beautiful in the reproduction fabrics.

Lana’s Quilt Shop is a quaint shop in a remodeled house!  I love going room to room! It’s like the fabric selection never ends and Ms. Lana knows how to utilize space!  Looking forward to this year’s Row by Row Experience — I loved the row she submitted last year.  She has it hanging above the counter.  Lovely pieced row of Blue Hole from Red Clay State Park.  Even though I’d told myself I wouldn’t purchase anything during the Shop Hop, I couldn’t help myself! She had a fabric I’d been eyeing on the clearance table and I also picked up a jelly roll with teal awareness ribbon fabric on sale.  Teal/Turquoise ribbons are for ovarian cancer and also for Myasthenia Gravis.  One of the free blocks will work perfectly with this jelly roll, too.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so!

Free Fabric from the TN Valley Spring Shop Hop

Got a free mini-tutorial at Sew-n-So Quilt Shop in Rocky Face, Georgia.  Nice to learn a new method for triangle points and especially with the flying geese pattern. Her method will make sure the geese’s noses don’t get chopped off.

We ended at Pins & Needles in Hixson.  What fun! David and I even had our pictures taken in front of some quilts for an additional contest they were sponsoring.

Really looking forward to playing with my free fabric samples and new quilt block patterns.  And of course, going back to buy the reproduction fabric!  Oh, the agony — I won’t let myself make the new quilt blocks until I’ve cut out my daughter’s shirt for a cosplay event and hemmed my husband’s pants.  Probably get done tomorrow!

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