Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are all divided into different regions. There are anywhere from 6-13 shops per region. True, some participating shops are clustered somewhat together (Greater Huntsville, Metro Atlanta, Coastal Georgia) but there’s still a LOT of driving involved to hit all of the shops.
Random observation: The Stitching Atlanta and Middle Georgia Shop Hops provided the nucleus of participating shops for the North Central and Central regions of the new All Southeast Shop Hop. If you are trying to visualize it on a map, I-85 is basically the dividing line between the two regions.. I decided to concentrate on these two regions because they are closer home. There are 24 participating shops in these two regions alone.
Today, I hit 5 shops in the northeast Atlanta area, bringing my total number of shops visited so far to 13. This took about 3-1/2 hours with traffic, road work and rain. Getting to the remainder of the shops in these two regions will require another 1/2 day like today, plus two full days.
New-to-me quilt shop discoveries that I’ll definitely visit again: And Sew She Did quilt shop in Ambrose (S. GA) and Needle Down Quilt Shop in Ringgold (NW GA).
Will I attempt another region? Let’s see what September brings. The Quilted Cow in Gulf Shores, Alabama has been on my list for a while. A little beach time while collecting a few more passport stamps? Sounds like a possibility!
Tip: Use Google Maps to create sample routes to make the best use of your travel time and gas. It may make more sense to split your shops into smaller groups and catch them over multiple days. With all of the road construction around Atlanta, this is what I’ve had to do. I’ll catch the Fayetteville and Hogansville shops in one trip, avoiding the Northeast GA on another day and points Macon & below (picking up 2-3 south GA shops I haven’t been to previously).
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