Loading…
Loading…
Join the community
Real quilters, real deadlines. Here's what's open to join.
Row by Row started as a summer-long quilt shop crawl — visit a shop, get a free row pattern, sew it, drive to the next shop, repeat. Quilters made road-trip quilts a row at a time, with each row carrying the soul of the town it came from.
A row-by-row quilt is what it sounds like — a quilt built from horizontal rows, each row standing on its own as a complete design rather than being made from repeated blocks. The format had its golden age from 2011 to 2019, when independent quilt shops across the country gave away free row patterns to summer visitors. Some of the most-loved quilts in our community still carry rows from a dozen different shops in a dozen different states.
Row by Row Experience launched in 2011, the brainchild of Janet Lutz of Calico Gals in Syracuse, New York, who invented her own shop hop after her shop was turned down for a local one. The idea was elegant: a participating quilt shop would design one free row pattern each summer (a 36"-wide pattern with a theme connected to that shop's region — a lighthouse for a coastal shop, a wheat sheaf for the Plains). Visitors who stopped in between June and September could pick up the row pattern for free. Visit enough shops, collect enough rows, and you'd have the makings of a full row-by-row quilt by the end of the summer.
The program exploded. By 2014, more than 1,200 quilt shops across the United States and Canada were participating. There were prizes for the first quilter to bring in a finished row quilt to any participating shop. Quilters planned their summer vacations around the routes — driving from Maine to Minnesota collecting rows, stopping at every fabric shop they could find. Bonus row patterns were sold as kits with the row patterns plus the recommended fabrics for each shop's design. It became one of the largest organized quilting events of the 2010s.
The original Row by Row Experience ran from 2011 through 2019 — nine summers, hundreds of thousands of participating quilters, millions of free row patterns dispensed. The program rebranded as Quilters Trek for 2020 and 2021, skipped 2022, and the Row by Row Experience name returned in 2023 under new management — running July 1 through August 31 each summer, with participating shops designing 9"×36" row patterns themed to the year's official theme (2025's was "The Great Outdoors"). A different size than the original 36"-wide rows, but the same shop-hop spirit. The revived program ran through summer 2025; as of mid-2026, no new event has been announced and the program's future is uncertain.
What endures is the form itself. A row-by-row quilt is still a wonderful way to assemble a quilt that doesn't require repeating blocks. Each row can be a different technique, a different theme, a different color story. You can buy contemporary row patterns from designers, source vintage Row by Row patterns from quilt shop archives, design your own rows, or assemble row quilts from a guild's row exchange. The summer road-trip framing may be gone, but the quilt structure remains one of the most accessible ways to build a finished quilt from independent, variety-rich pieces.
There are three main types. A themed row quilt has every row in a shared theme — gardens, the seasons, the alphabet. A travel row quilt collects rows from different shops or different places, each row representing where it came from. A sampler row quilt uses rows in completely different techniques (one row of HSTs, one row of foundation paper piecing, one row of appliqué) to teach yourself a range of skills. Pick which type before you start; the rest of the decisions follow from that.
Modern row patterns are available from independent designers (Pat Sloan, Janet Wickell, J. Michelle Watts have all designed row quilts), from quilt shop archives selling old Row by Row Experience patterns, from quilting magazines that periodically run row series, and from row exchanges in guilds. Aim for 6–8 rows for a throw-size quilt, 10–12 for a twin, 12–14 for a queen. Make sure all your patterns share a row width — usually 36 inches finished — or you'll have setting headaches.
Row quilts can look chaotic if you don't pull them together with a shared color palette. The trick is to use the same background fabric (or a small family of backgrounds) across every row. A unifying background — a cream, a sage, a low-volume print — turns a chaotic collection of row designs into a cohesive quilt. Pull all your row fabrics with that background in mind.
Make each row as a standalone unit. Cut fabric, piece, press, and trim each row before moving to the next. Don't mass-cut for all rows at once — you'll lose track of which fabric goes where. Finished row width should be uniform (36" for the original Row by Row pattern); finished row height varies by design (anywhere from 6" to 14" tall). Stack your finished rows in order as you complete them.
Row quilts ride on the unifying background more than any other element. A consistent background — even just a cream, a low-volume gray, or a soft sage — pulls together rows of wildly different design styles. Pull your background fabric first and let every row's accent colors play against it. Avoid mixing warm and cool backgrounds in the same quilt; the contrast is too jarring across rows. If your rows came from many sources and use many colors, embrace the scrappy variety — but anchor it with a single, repeated background and the quilt will read as a unified whole instead of a stack of unrelated rows.
Ready to pull fabric for this one? These are the retailers we trust.
We may earn a commission on purchases made through these links, at no extra cost to you. Learn more.
The original summer-long quilt shop crawl. Free row patterns at participating shops between July and August. The original program ran 2011–2019 (then two summers as Quilters Trek); the name returned in 2023 under new management with a 9"×36" row size and ran through 2025. No 2026 event has been announced.
Every row shares a theme — gardens, the alphabet, the seasons, the months. Designed as a coordinated set, often by a single designer. Sold as multi-row patterns at quilt shops.
Rows collected from different places — quilt shops on a road trip, retreats attended, vacations taken. The quilt becomes a record of where you've been.
Rows in completely different techniques: HST row, applique row, foundation paper-pieced row, log cabin row. Designed as a skills-builder for one quilter.
Members of a guild each design and make rows, then exchange them. Similar in spirit to a block swap but with rows instead of blocks. Less common but produces wonderful quilts.
Rows themed around a single holiday — Christmas, Halloween, Independence Day. Often released by designers one row at a time over a year leading up to the holiday.
A row-by-row quilt is built from horizontal rows of varying designs rather than from repeated blocks. Each row is a complete design in its own right — a row of flying geese, a row of appliqued flowers, a row of pieced houses — and the rows are joined together (sometimes with sashing) to make the finished quilt. The format became famous through the Row by Row Experience, a summer-long quilt-shop crawl that ran from 2011 to 2019 and was revived in 2023.
The Row by Row Experience was a summer-long quilt-shop event that ran from 2011 to 2019. Participating quilt shops across the United States and Canada each designed one free 36"-wide row pattern per summer with a theme tied to their region. Visitors who stopped in between June and September received the free pattern; at its peak, over 1,200 shops participated. Quilters made road trips to collect rows from many shops and assemble them into souvenir quilts. The program rebranded as Quilters Trek for 2020–2021, and the Row by Row name returned in 2023 under new management.
The standard Row by Row Experience row was 36 inches wide. Most contemporary row patterns still use this width because it allows them to be assembled with patterns from the original program. Row heights vary — typically 6 to 14 inches per row.
Yes — both retrospective patterns from the original 2011–2019 program (many shops still have old patterns available) and patterns from the revived 2023–2025 Row by Row Experience summers (9"×36" rows), which many participating shops still sell. Designers like Pat Sloan, Janet Wickell, and J. Michelle Watts continue to design contemporary row patterns. Quilting magazines run row series periodically. Etsy has thousands of row patterns for sale.
Depends on your finished size. A throw-size row quilt has 6 to 8 rows; a twin has 10 to 12; a queen has 12 to 14. With 36"-wide rows and typical 8"–10" row heights, you can calculate: row count = quilt length ÷ row height. Most quilters add a couple of extra rows for a generous finish.
NiftyFifty has hosted 30+ quilt block swaps since 1997. Browse our archive or join an upcoming swap.
Browse quilt swaps →You make a handful of identical blocks and mail them to strangers. They make a handful and mail them to you. By the time the packages stop arriving, you have a quilt's worth of blocks you couldn't have made on your own — and friends in three states you didn't know you needed.
A block of the month — BOM, in quilting shorthand — is a year-long project where you make one quilt block each month. By December you have twelve blocks ready to set into a quilt. It's the most forgiving way to make a sampler, and it's been the backbone of guild programming for decades.
A quilt-along — QAL, if you're typing — is when a group of quilters sews the same pattern on the same schedule, sharing progress, troubleshooting together, and finishing within a few weeks of each other. It's part class, part book club, part group cheer.
Send your quilt center off to four or five other quilters, let each one add a border, and trust the process — that's a round robin, and it's one of the most rewarding kinds of swap there is.
Lay your rows out vertically on a design wall or the floor. Decide the order — which row goes on top, which on the bottom, which in the middle. Most row quilts read top-to-bottom like a book: lightest at the top, darkest at the bottom, or grouped by theme. Some quilters add narrow sashing between rows (1–2 inches) to give each row some breathing room. Others butt the rows directly against each other for a denser look.
If you're sashing, cut your sashing strips the full width of the quilt (or piece them to that length) and sew between each row. If not, sew rows directly together — pinning at the seams and easing where the rows are slightly different widths. Add borders if you want a finished size larger than the assembled rows. Most row quilts get a 2"–4" inner border in the unifying background plus a 4"–6" outer border in an accent.
Row quilts look better when the quilting unifies them. Don't quilt each row in a different style — that compounds the visual chaos. Pick one all-over quilting pattern (meandering, swirls, stippling) and let it run across the whole quilt. A longarmer can also quilt distinct patterns row by row if you want each row's quilting to match its design, but uniform is the safer choice.
If your rows came from different shops, designers, or places, document them on the back label. List each row's source — "Row 3: The Quilt Shop, Boise ID, 2017" or "Row 5: Pat Sloan design, 2021" — so that future viewers (or future you) know what each row represents. Row-by-row quilts are inherently archival; their value comes from the variety of sources, so document them.
Not necessarily. Some row quilts use narrow sashing (1–2 inches) between rows to give each row visual breathing room. Others butt the rows directly against each other for a denser look. The decision is aesthetic — sashing makes each row read independently, no sashing makes the rows feel like part of a single composition. Pick what suits the rows you have.
A consistent background fabric across every row is the single biggest unifying element. When all your rows share a cream, a low-volume gray, or a soft sage as their backdrop, the variety of row designs reads as a cohesive whole instead of a chaotic stack. Pull and reserve your background fabric before you start any of the rows.
The revived Row by Row Experience ran summers 2023 through 2025 (July 1–August 31, 9"×36" row patterns at participating shops across the US). As of mid-2026, no 2026 event has been announced and the program appears to be on pause — check rowbyrowexperience.com or the program's social channels for current status. Plenty of regional shop hops are running in 2026 and many include row-pattern elements; see our 2026 shop hop calendar for the full list.
Real quilters, real deadlines. Here's what's open to join.
