To gain inspiration, I went to every website I could and read the "about" sections. Each one was different and fairly informative...but I couldn't get a feel for the people that created those fabulous shops. Is that important? I think so.
Quilting is a unique art. So unique, in fact that I think the way a store feels to you is imperative. When you walk into a shop or enter a website, does it seem "just the facts ma'am." or does the love and passion the shop creator feels for the art of quilting come through. On that note...Let's get to know one another...
The Quilting Cottage started out as a small department in the corner of Rochester Drug and Variety. Established in 1987 by my (then) husbands mother and stepfather. I joined the business in December 1996. Together we analyzed, changed and GREW! What started out as a small town drug store with a small fabric section quickly became a full-fledged quilt shop with a pharmacy in a small corner of it. Eventually it grew to be a large quilt shop with a small pharmacy in the corner.
I grew up in a quilting family in Alaska with four sisters. quilting, sewing and Crochet were always around. I was completely unaware that this was not something all families knew. I can't tell you how many times someone would look at me and say "you know how to sew?" I really thought it was because I didn't look the part. (you see, I've always had a bit of a wild streak about me.) I think one of the most defining moments for me that it was the sewing and not specifically me doing said sewing was when I was at a friends house and she said she lost a button on a shirt. My suggestion that she sew it back on was met with a combination of laughter and shock. The laughter was for the fact that I suggest she do it and the shock that I did it for her.
Quilting, for me, is not something I can give an absolute date of beginning. I remember being fairly young and able to look at the fabric and see the completed project in my head. That is something I still do today. Back then the designs were much more simple and somewhere around ten, I started my first quilt. It took what seemed a long time to complete, but in the end I learned some very important things. Patience, the creative process and most important...how to focus my mind.
Since that first quilt I have gone on to do many things with my life. Today my days are filled to the brim and overflowing with enough things to do that my palm pilot groans from exhaustion. But through it all, I know that whenever I want to re-center and re-focus my life in general. It's only as far as my machine and the next quilt...
Welcome to my website and I hope you get to visit my shop.
May Quilting Bring you the peace, joy, passion and love it has brought me.
Diana
The Quilting Cottage
Somewhere in the middle of 2008 My (then) husband and I looked at each other and said, “It’s time…” We had watched as the insurance companies kept eating away at our bottom line, When the announcements came in that some were going to pay us less than we had to pay for the medications… no more. We decided to sell the store. Get out of the game while we were on top…
On December 9th 2008, the pharmacy part of our business had been sold to a larger company and moved. Craig went to work for the buyer.
There we sat. Craig and I.
The next item up for discussion… The quilt shop.
I didn’t hesitate. “Not negotiable, I’m keeping it. The ladies and I will find another building and start over again.” He gave no argument, because he agreed with me. The Quilting Cottage was special. The responses to the newsletter were nothing short of amazing and rather encouraging. I started the master plan for the Quilting Cottage…
Hmm, move shop, check. Restructure, EVERYTHING, check. Start writing that book, check. Regain our lives back, definitely CHECK.
It took a lot of work. Each day I asked myself if this was going to turn out well. Each week in the newsletters telling of the ups and downs of the move and after two months The Quilting Cottage re-opened on February 1st, 2009 in Oakville Washington.
It doesn’t matter that my numbers said it would all be fine. The unknown still loomed, always my inner fears nagging at me. Frankly, the response to our unadvertised first day was just the medicine I needed. A sigh of relief and my fears were suppressed. The proverbial sparrow has left the corporate nest. The Quilting Cottage had arrived.
These days I come and go in the shop as I am living my life. My days are spent guiding my children’s educational needs, guiding the direction The Quilting Cottage a will go in, quilting and… writing that book. I am usually deep in thought lost in the words I see flowing through my mind. Flowing into sentences and waiting to be written down. Just like the images I get of fabric showing me what the next project will be, the words in my head are alive. Music is what gets my creative mind running best.
90 Ross Road/PO BOX 339
Oakville, Wa. 98568
(360) 273-5523
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