i visited a quilt store in Olympia that had lots of samples of projects hanging up. That motivated me to buy the fabric for a big wall quilt from them. And they have lots of fabric and thread choices. That was the positive.
The negatives: whomever had made up the sample did a lot of embroidery on the picture to give it that "eye pop' and since it was hanging up high, i didn't catch that and no one shared that they had added to the pattern so i was perplexed when i found mine being a different color etc. when i was using the exact same fabrics. Fortunately, i was still in the area and able to go back to the store and figure it out and i have the Pfaff Quilt 4 so was able to replicate the thread painting which made the piece so exciting. The customer service was minimal and i came back 3 times before i found the terrific "little" quilt store in Yelm. Totally different atmosphere. I wanted to spend money in Yelm.