Quilt Shop: Hickory Hill Quilts; Hot Springs, Arkansas

Good afternoon, my friends. We've had a good day here at the state park. I'll tell you about this morning's hike in tomorrow's post. For now, I want to back up and tell you about the quilt shop. We needed to kill some time between checking out of the Hot Springs KOA and checking in at the state park. A quilt shop seems to me to be the perfect way to kill some time. I selected this one for its proximity and for its large parking lot. Since we'd checked out of the RV park, we had the big fifth wheel in tow.

Here's how it looks from the outside.

Walking through the front door, it looked like this. The hallway leading into the actual store was about halfway down on the right. There was a pretty quilt hanging there on the left. The blocks had numbers and months on them, and so I figured it must be a block of the month in process. The fabric on the side didn't have any particular descriptive information.

Here's another frontal view of it.

To its left was this sign. I wondered if the fabric also needed adoption. And you can see that lying on its side toward the bottom is all holiday fabric.

Walking inside the store, I first came to this table. You could get a deal with a purchase of certain three and four-yard cuts.

Just behind that table were sewing machines for sale. This store also focused on machine embroidery.

Turning around and walking past the cutting table, I found all these panels. I'm not generally a panel person, but sometimes I see them made up to quilts, and then they can become irresistible.

But let's just take a look at the fabric, shall we? They had lots of pretty stuff. I loved the pretty florals at the beginning of this row. On the lower row were Christmas fabrics.

In the corner were some beautiful batiks.

Walking down the next aisle, it looked like this. As I've mentioned to a few of you, I'm avoiding yardage these days unless I have a purpose for it. If I buy any more fabric, I'm going to have to rearrange my sewing room to accommodate more three-drawer bins. Believe me, I've considered it. 

I didn't see anything here that I thought I could use in any of my WIPs.

Ooooh...but I do love the bee fabric. It makes me think of a book I once read about beekeeping. (For about five minutes once, I considered getting a beehive. My dad and I kept bees together, and it was fun.) The book said you'll become a beekeeper for the bees. You'll quit because of the honey. And I can remember the honey...practically by the gallons. We gave it to everyone we knew, and we always had honey for our personal use. I loved biting off a chaw of honeycomb and chewing it until the sweetness was all gone. And all of that to say that when I'm considering buying more fabric, I think about that book. You'll start quilting for the fun of it. You'll quit because of all the fabric you'll accumulate. But, yeah. I'm a quilter for life at this point. It's hopeless.

Moving on...these were pretty. Lots to tempt my color-loving eye.

The back wall was all solids and tone-on-tones.

Here were some novelty fabrics and landscape prints.

Now, this amused me. My understanding is that Arkansas is only legal for medical use. (Have you noticed how I'm always "up" on what the legal and illegal states are? Hmmmm.)

This is the name of this fabric.

In one corner of the store was a small room one could pass through. Inside were some sale fabrics and other items.

Nothing here really floated my boat. I think I have a fat quarter at home of the one that's fifth from the right.

Passing through, there was a brightly-lit classroom in the back. Nothing going on there when I visited.

Backing up to the main part of the store, they had a nice supply of different notions.

Here's something. I've only ever seen these online.

Someone on Facebook used them to pretty up her sewing machine, and it made me want to do it. Several years back, I gave Eliza a little face lift.

These were some pure solids.

Here's something I haven't seen before. This is iron-on glitter produced by OESD.

It's intended for use in machine embroidery, but it seems like it could be used in other kinds of sewing too.

Walking on, here was some pretty quilting.

These were 108-inch wide fabrics.

This is cork fabric! I've never seen that before.

Oooooh...and look what followed me to Arkansas. I'm telling you, it might just follow me all the way home.

Okay, so what did I buy? I really liked this one. I decided it would be a good one for the "Grandpa's Bridges" quilt I'm currently working on. I bought two yards. It will probably end up in the border.

So far, I have just two blocks completed, but I'll be starting the third one within a day or two.

For my regional print, I chose this one. It made me think of the pools and hot springs at Hot Springs National Park

I only wanted a fat quarter, but they would only cut a quarter yard. That would give me nine inches of width, and I worried it wouldn't be enough. It was an excellent excuse for purchasing a whole yard. After all, if a quarter yard won't do it, the next step up is a full yard, right? (I'm very good at math.)

So, I enjoyed this store. It was staffed by two very friendly women, and I enjoyed the few minutes I spent chatting with them. The shop was easy to find with plenty of parking. Do stop in if you find yourself in Hot Springs.