Row by Row vs traditional Shop Hop
 

I've participated in the Western Washington Shop Hop for over 10 years. Supposedly many of the shops are going away from it in favor of the Row by Row (which I'm not fond of).

What makes you like the row

I've found they are two different events, anyway in our area. The only Row By Row I've participated in was when we were traveling out of state. Not so interested in this just for local shops. By the way, I have found that I'm not a fan of shop hops for some reason, don't know why exactly.

I prefer the local shop hops but I noticed less shops are participating in them. I like the feeling of doing all shops that are local if they have rows or not. The last one I did in my area had blocks that they handed out the pattern.

Picture of quilt made with blocks from the quilt run patterns. I did not make the quilt. this was at one of the shops.

I live in the far southwest Chicago area. My DD and I go to our local shops when we need something. The RxR gets us out of our area to check out the many shops in the Chicago area, mainly north and west areas. It's fun to checkout unfamiliar stores we wouldn't ordinarily know about. We haven't made a RxR quilt yet, though I did make one from all the license plates I collected and ordered online.

All of my local shops are doing both, I haven't heard anything about shops dropping the shop hop. Perhaps shops that aren't doing the shop hop any more weren't getting as many participants. Row By Row is a fairly new and still growing thing, and you don't have to buy anything if you choose to just get the free patterns.

Cari

I saw ''Crabby quilter'' too funny....great job, love it.

Our local shop hop wasn't as big this year. Last year, we gave away over 1000 patterns. This year was only 600.

The Row By Row has really brought in the summer sales this year -- which is what it's intended to do.

They're both a lot of fun, but the Row By Row is less work.

our area supports at least 2 local shop hops (different sets of shops) in the spring. This year I did 12 shops (out of 15) i none day! 12hrs!! could hardly walk afterward and glad I didn't drive! Anyway, the R by R is in the summer and think it does bring in to the local shops visitors that are traveling and willing to drive a little out of the way for it. I personally only collect license plats as I find way too many of the patterns include applique and embroidery--neither of which I enjoy doing much!

I was just looking over one of the row patterns I picked up the other day, trying to figure out what fabrics I needed to make it. The darned thing didn't even give dimensions! It said 'do such and such with the brown strip' but not how big to cut it to begin with! Same with all the other pieces in the row. This is the worst pattern I have ever seen. They don't even give you the finished dimensions of the row. I guess they were counting heavily on selling their kits... which must already be cut to size??? This pattern totally does not work without the kit. And the owner of the shop made this pattern!

If they want the RxR Experience to work, they need to be more careful with their patterns, and not hamstring their customers who don't buy their kits.