Page 26 - IA Shop Hop 2021

26 ALL IOWA SHOP HOP
IS CELEBRATING
On a warm summer day a little over 10 years ago, Joyce Franklin had a great idea: let’s get as many of the 130+ existing Iowa quilt shops together as possible and have a statewide Shop Hop. What started with an idea became
a letter out to shop owners, some statewide meetings, and soon almost all of Iowa’s quilt shops were on board for the first All Iowa Shop Hop (AISH) to be held the first two weeks in June of 2012.
Joyce recently reminisced how the first AISH in 2012 “did not have fabric; it was a really low-budget start. 90 shops par- ticipated, we had a website, and we encouraged the stores to advertise locally and through their newsletters. Luckily, word- of-mouth advertising is really good among fabricholics!”
From this humble beginning, the AISH began to grow and innovate. In 2013 the AISH began to offer an exclusive selection of fabrics. The fabric that first year was a colorful take on Iowa Counties. Since then, the yearly themes have included Iowa Patriotic, Postmarked Iowa, Bike Across Iowa, Iowa Toile, and now a Winter Tour of Iowa for 2021.
Jill Reicks was instrumental in developing those eagerly anticipated AISH fabrics and she always had a clear vision about how the AISH fabrics should be presented:
“Some themes literally were in development for years before coming together as a collection. Working with a variety of designers and fabric houses, we focused on developing unique designs that would capture the essence of Iowa while remaining within the parameters of creating fabrics that were pleasing and worked well with all kinds of sewing. For years now, the AISH fabrics have proven that they are unique, rare and treasured.”
In 2014, Leland and I joined the leadership of the AISH and we set out to tackle a new and somewhat formidable task: the creation of the first AISH magazine. In the process of “figuring” the magazine out, we got lucky when Deanna Roberts came on board as the magazine’s designer.
Deanna knew how to take the yearly theme, literally thousands of bits of information and pictures, and distill it into what the AISH magazine is today: an indispensible quilt shop directory for the state of Iowa that’s full of articles, quilt patterns, and information about the participating stores.
— BY KEVIN CARPENTER —