Have You Ever Wondered How a Quilt Design Comes to Be?

Maybe you are already familiar with the 2018 Row by Row Experience. If not, I’ll try to give you a brief explanation. Since 2011 quilt shops across the United States, Canada, and Europe have joined together during the summer months to participate in a program to offer customers, who visit their shop, a free pattern. I have designed “rows” for several different shops the past few years but this year brought on a new challenge.

Eight of my local quilt shops in the Raleigh and Cary area of North Carolina decided to get together to create a quilt of rows which would go together to create one quilt design. When they asked me to design the quilt, I experienced many emotions, excited, honored, nervous, “What was I thinking!”, etc., you get my drift.

The theme for 2018 is Sew Musical, which could be interpreted in so many ways and if you know me at all, you realize that I am an “outside the box” kind of girl. It was nice to be able to focus in on one concept when the shop owners agreed on a Jimmy Buffett themed quilt.

I started the designing process before Christmas. The biggest challenge was that the “rows” were actually blocks of specific sizes this year and I had to figure out how to get eight blocks of specific sizes to work together. Next, I came up with some sketches for design ideas and then needed to arrange them into a workable solution. You will notice that not all of my original ideas “made the cut”.

In the end, and after many hours of reworking the design, I was able to come up with a workable solution. You may be able to recognize a few of the songs represented if you are a Buffett fan. If not, this would still make a great quilt for a beach house or for someone who simply loves the relaxation of being by the sea.

The white lines show the separation of each of the rows/blocks and are not visible when they are sewn together.

You can collect your own free rows by visiting the participating shops listed here…
APQS – Thread Waggle Quilting
BERNINA World of Sewing
Carolina Sew-n-Vac (Raleigh)
Carolina Sew-n-Vac (Cary)
Cary Quilting Company
Elegant Stitches
My Sewing Shoppe
Wish Upon a Quilt

Each of these shops also have laser cut and regular fabric kits available for purchase.

After the RxR Experience is over, on November 1st, I will have the full pattern available on my website for purchase.

I will also be offering this as a class next June on a cruise with Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas, June 16-23, 2019. Save your spot today by contacting Dawn Olmstead at QuiltandCruise.com.

Charge up your GPS and have fun collecting Rows on your travels this summer! Maybe I will see you in passing!

Sandy Fitzpatrick

Hissyfitz Designs