March 16, 2008 06:32 pm
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By Jo Ellis
Globe columnist
They are out there. I know they are out there — boxed up in some dark closet, lying silent and accusing on some high shelf or locked away in some attic trunk.
I’ll wager that one out of three households in the country is harboring a stack of old quilt squares, possibly even an entire quilt top, waiting to be transformed with backing, filling and fine stitching into a verifiable, usable quilt.
I plead guilty to having not one, but two such uncompleted projects that would prick the conscience of any quilt lover. The first is a “sampler” of quilt patterns pieced into individual blocks that, with edging, would make a great quilt for a queen-size bed. My interest in the project waned when the colors in my bedroom went out of sync with the color scheme I chose for the quilt.
The other is a collection in the quaint Sunbonnet Sue pattern that I wanted to piece and quilt as an heirloom-type gift for a new grandchild. (Our youngest grandchild is now 10; what does that tell you?) I have arranged and rearranged the blocks many times, mulling over which layout is the most striking. Since I am prone to indecision in such matters, they remain in individual blocks, un-pieced, un-backed, un-quilted and un-given!
If this state of affairs sounds familiar, do not despair. Help is available. Three years ago, Amy Campbell and her husband, Chad, opened Block by Block, a quilter’s paradise, on Route HH at the south end of Carthage.
Amy had been an accountant with Schmidt & Associates, but had grown “a little tired of tax season,” she says. She had been quilting as a hobby for three years, and her visits to different quilt shops convinced her that it would be a fun business. She picked the brain of a friend who owned a quilt shop in Rogersville, went to a quilt market in Kansas City, “and the ball was rolling from there.”
Her shop holds more than 2,000 bolts of 100 percent cotton quilting fabric. There are prints, solids, stripes and dots in colors from pastels to rich, dark jewel tones. All manner of sewing notions, patterns and how-to books are available, along with some gift items. Amy can even supply you with a sewing machine since she is a dealer for Husqvarna Viking.
Like many successful business owners, Amy says the thing she loves best is talking to her customers.
“My first-grade teacher, Lou Floyd, wrote on my report card, ‘Amy is a ray of sunshine but talks too much during class.’ That became a common theme on all my report cards,” Amy says with a laugh.
With the help of her assistant, Susan Neil, Amy opens the shop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Classes are held quarterly for entry-level through advanced quilters if there are three or more participants.
The instructor, Sue Swindle, also offers “Finish It Up” classes at least twice a year — for procrastinators (like me) who have lost their incentive (or willpower) to turn all those blocks and batting into a completed quilt. Let’s see now, I’ve completed nine sample blocks, including Monkey Wrench, Tumbling Blocks, 8-point Star, Drunkard’s Path, Dresden Plate and some others I can’t recall by name. I have just three blocks to go, plus connecting them together and doing the binding. Forget that fancy Prairie Point edging; I’m going with a straight edge. Will you take me on, Sue?
Seriously, while some local churches still have quilting groups, true hand-quilters are becoming more scarce, Amy says. We should be grateful we still have a few in our community.
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