Quilt Shop Travel Break

When traveling I like to break up a long road trip by stopping in at quilt shops along the way, so on the first leg of our trip back up to Canada, we stopped into Mammaw’s Thimble in Knoxville, TN.

I’d stopped in there once before on one of our trips and was impressed with the wide selection of quilt fabrics they have from batiks to traditional to novelty prints to the latest pre-cuts. They also have several different quilt kits in addition to a wide variety of quilting notions and patterns.

But now their selection has grown even larger as they’ve expanded into the space next door. Good thing Dave is a patient man because he spent quite a bit of time sitting in the car listening to an audio book.

One of the quilts on display really caught my eye. It was simply beautiful and what struck me immediately was that the effect had been achieved with the use of just two fabrics. The lady who was working that afternoon saw me admiring the quilt and she mentioned she had made it and there was a free pattern available if I would like it.  To which I reply, “I’d love one.”

I then spent more time browsing and pondering and picturing in my mind’s eye different combinations of feature fabrics and co-ordinating fabrics.

I finally settled on these two.

For a while now I’ve been wanting to make a 4^th of July picnic quilt and I think this combination will look great together in a finished quilt. The US became home for us with Maui truly being home of our hearts and before this trip back to Georgia, I’d been feeling really homesick so maybe making this quilt at this time will help that.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, the pattern is called The Potato Chip quilt; so named because you can’t make just one. Most appropriately too because I’m already thinking of other fabric pairings that would look great. There wasn’t a photo of the quilt with the pattern, but I found this example on etsy to give you an idea of what the finished quilt might look like.

For example, remember the jelly roll of Twirl by Me and My Sister Designs that I used for the Jelly Roll 1600 quilt? I can see a Potato Chip quilt made using the Twirl Going Places Green Twirling Flowers as the feature fabric with Twirly Dots from the same line as the co-ordinating fabric.

I can also see this done in solids; perhaps red and white.

Or…  you know those fabrics that you buy because you fall in love with the large print but then have trouble finding a project to use it in because you don’t want to lose the effect of the print by cutting it into small pieces. This could be the perfect quilt to feature that fabric.

Oh so many possibilities!

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