While growing up, I never dreamed of owning a quilt shop or
even quilting. I was a tomboy and never
cooked or sewed until after I was married.
I did have sisters who liked to do these “domestic things”. I met my husband while attending the
University of Kansas and got married after my sophomore year. My sister Amy made us a double wedding ring
quilt for our wedding, however, I was too busy to appreciate the work she was
putting into it. She decided she liked
it a lot more than I did (which was correct), so she purchased a very nice
bedspread for us for a wedding gift and kept the quilt for herself.
Christina and kids in 1997 Back row, niece Megan & Brianne Front row, Mark, Christina & Timothy |
After my husband
graduated, we moved to Minnesota where we ending up living for sixteen
years. While living there, I took some
quilting classes from the local community education program and fell in love
with quilting. Amy would visit (and even
lived with us for a couple of years) and we would go visit quilt shops. She moved back to Kansas after a few years
when she decided it was tooooooo cold for her in Minnesota. Everytime I came home to visit, we
immediately went to visit quilt shops and even our vacations turned into quilt
shop excursions. It was always Amy’s
dream for us to open a quilt shop and she said multiple times, “When you move
back to Kansas, we are going to open a quilt shop”. Well, the Lord did lead my family back to
Kansas to live in August of 1997 and we decided to open our own quilt
shop. Amy quit her full time job and we
started talking to sales representatives from various fabric companies to order
fabric for our new quilt shop. We found
a vacant building on Main St across from the post office and opened Quilting
Bits & Pieces on Nov 1, 1997. We had
several sales reps try to talk us out of opening a quilt shop. They said Eudora was too small to support one
and we would never make it. Well, I
think they were wrong. The Lord has
truly blessed us and we have witnessed many miracles as we watched Him work in
our lives and in the lives of many of our customers.
Christina
P.S. - Amy has since made many quilts I love. A few years ago she gave me a hand appliquéd
Hawaiian style pineapple quilt for Christmas.
It is coral colored which is my favorite color and I cherish it.
QB&P at 714 Main Street
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