Virtual Shop Hop – A Quilting Bee, Mahomet, Ill.

You can find A Quilting Bee in charming downtown Mahomet, Ill. It’s the kind of main street that is just a couple of blocks long, filled with small shops where you used to be able to buy everything you needed before Walmart came along.

The quilt shop, which is located about 15 minutes from Champaign/Urbana, has an impression collection of children’s prints. There are soft pastels that are great for baby quilts, bright bold prints for older kids and and the always hard to find fabrics for boys.

I really like how they store fat quarters rolled up in metal buckets. It’s cute.

There also is an interesting display of 1930s reproduction fabrics in a hutch and quilting notecards that would make a great gift for your favorite quilting buddy.

And there is a decent selection of Civil War reproduction fabrics.

I’ve been to a lot of quilt shops. I’ve seen bolts displayed in cribs, on shelves that stack three bolts high and take up the entire wall and in windows displayed like mannequins wearing an amazing outfit you’ve just got to have.

But this is the first time I’ve seen bolts displayed in old church pews. The batiks were stored in two of them. The prints were drool-worthy.

And if you’re looking for backing fabric, check out this shop. They’ve got a decent selection in a variety of colors, because the back of your quilt should be pretty too.

A Quilting Bee offers longarm quilting services and will teach you how to use it so you can rent the machine to finish your quilts yourself. The longarm at A Quilting Bee is computerized. That means you’ll always have neat even stitches and it can even quilt by itself. That’s what it’s doing in the photo above.

A Quilting Bee is located at 406 E. Main St., Mahomet, IL 61853. Include it on your next shop hop in central Illinois.