Taking a New Quilter on Her First “Shop Hop”

I’m not sure if our day qualified as a “Quilt Shop Hop” since we only visited two quilt shops (the day got away from us) but on Friday I headed with two other quilters to Loveland and Longmont, Colorado for a day of quilt shop hopping, tasty treats/food, and a yarn shop.

My new community has a quilting group that meets monthly and I have new quilting friends in my life now! One of our members D is a brand new quilter (though she is a very experienced seamstress) and my buddy J and I decided we should take her on her first quilt shop hop to help her select fabric for her first quilt that she is making for her newborn grandson.

Now if you are a quilter, you know experienced quilters LOVE to get in other quilters “business” (ha!) and help them choose fabric for a quilt (just visit any quilt shop and you will see this is action).

So J (who has been quilting since birth I think) and I (since 1999) couldn’t wait for this road trip. Luckily D was of good humor and appreciated (being bossed around) the help to select fabrics!

J drove and I sat in back and worked on my latest granny square blanket:

(Previous post – Starting a New Granny Square Blanket – I’ll do an update on that post from April 2026 once I get a little further along on it.)

Quilter’s Dream

Our first stop was Quilter’s Dream in Loveland, CO (they don’t have a website but I linked their Facebook page) where we got to work helping her pull fat quarters and yardage for a beginner quilt pattern that D was making:

And we figuratively “held her hand” while she got her yardage for a quilt pattern cut from bolts for the first time:

(By the way the “Toilet Paper Quilt” I shared in the post The Funniest Quilt Concept I’ve Seen was in the loo at this shop!)

After all that fabric selection assistance and additional time wandering around this wonderful quilt shop looking for ourselves (it’s not like J and I weren’t going to shop too!), we were ready for a treat and headed to the ice cream shop next door to that quilt shop! (hmm…wonder if they get a lot of business from quilters, ha!)

Yes we were well behaved and did not tap on the glass…but we did longingly gaze at all the delicious sounding flavor options! (This shop also has a “liquor infused” ice cream selection but we thought that a bad idea at 11 am and fabric shopping!)

A couple ice cream cones later (only one person, ha) and we were ready to head to the next shop.

Maggie’s Sewing & Fabric

The second shop we visited (and fell into a hole in the space-time continuum because I think we spent a month there, ha!) was Maggie’s Sewing & Fabric in Longmont, CO.

We were greeted by an adorable pup as we walked in, which is also a good sign for me when I enter any shop!

They had quite the sense of humor in this log cabin themed quilt shop with fun displays like this Barbie fabric one:

A couple photos around this shop, which I really liked and didn’t want to leave:

Yes I spent some time visiting the Clearance section where they had some amazing modern fabrics for 30 – 50% off, as well as kits, panels and pattern. I ended up bring the kit (for 50% off) of this quilt home with me (hey, it begged me to take it home, not my fault!):

The shop dog saw us off after our long visit (which did involve some dog petting of course):

Yes we had ice cream (hours ago!) but we were now hungry for actual food and had a wonderful lunch at Teocalli Cocina in Downtown Longmont.

I had the most amazing salad with a spicy oil infused egg and lots of avocado (I love, love, love avocado).

As we came out of the restaurant we noticed that practically next door in Downtown Longmont was a yarn shop!

Longmont Yarn Shoppe

We couldn’t stop ourselves from wandering in since we all either knitted and/or crocheted.

While checking out (I bought a deck of granny square pattern cards) they had this awesome crocheted mandala on display behind the register, which reminded me I want to make one someday.

Believe it or not, we began our day with J picking us up around 9:00 am and it was now 3:00 pm! So it was time to head home and to wander how we didn’t have enough time to have fit in a 3rd quilt shop (unfortunately the one we wanted to go to next closed at 3:00 pm we discovered too late!).

Very fun day and it’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of quilt shop hopping with other quilters and bossing around new quilters on their fabric selections – ha!

(I posted that meme above with humor as J and I were very respectful of D’s choices on fabrics and just acted just as facilitators…okay rather passionate and insistent at times facilitators..ha!)