Q First in Quilting: A Local Treat! - Part II

Good Afternoon Everyone!

We're back for the continuation of our fascinating conversation with Laura Schneider of Q First in Quilting!

Kim Dixon: Organic fabrics and Japanese imports are very popular right now.  Do you carry such fabrics and if not why?

Laura Schneider: We don't carry those type of products because of the price point.  They are just too expensive and I don't see a huge market for that right now because are just not asking for them.

KD: At least in this area right?

LS: Yes, right.

KD: So what exactly is your philosophy about collecting fabric for the store?

LS: When we started we really didn't know what people were going to like so we tried to carry a little bit of everything but as time has gone on we've narrowed our scope based on what fabrics have and are moving.  What seems to me to be big in this area are the modern fabrics and styles and we will be moving more toward that direction and cutting out those fabrics that are not interesting to customers.  For instance kid novelty prints.  Mommies are not using novelty prints but grandmothers are.  Young mothers want to use fabrics that match the colors of their house.  They're using grays and yellows not bunnies and bears... We will also be talking to the modern quilting guild of Cincinnati and see if they will come down here to give a talk and eventual start a guild in Lexington.

KD: Many of the classes you offer are machine based.  Have you ever thought of expanding your classes to include work-by-hand options?

LS: Yes, we actually have a young teacher who just did her first class about a week ago and she did a phenomenal job!  She had about 8 students for a hand quilting class and after we saw how successful that was we thought well let's see what else we can do.  Now she wants to teach a cathedral windows class... Hand quilting is a not a frequent request for us but I do see some interest raising... it depends on your customer base whether they want a hand project to preoccupy them or work with their machines.

Anne Warman: I have a question for you.  Tell me about your first quilt project.  I always think it's fun to hear about!

LS: [laughter] I was such a novice and I knew so little... I was going to grad school and I needed something for my bed, which was a futon and I wanted something that would look nice when the bed was folded up into a couch but I could also sleep with it.  So I thought, well... I'll just go and learn how to make a quilt and that will be neat and cheap! [laughter]  Everybody laughs when I say that!  Several hundreds of thousands of dollars later it turned out not to be so cheap but it did turn out to be a great thing to do.

My first quilt was a log cabin and it was back when Quilter's Square [Another Lexington area quilt shop]... was located in Dudley Square in downtown Lexington.  The owner use to do "night owl" classes until two in the morning.  I know it was incredible!

AW:  We could totally do that!  That's awesome!

LS: We would start at 7 p.m. and everyone would bring something to share to eat and as the night wore on you would do a lot of sewing and I got all of my blocks made, for my very first quilt, in that first night.

AW: One night class?!

LS: One night class.

KD: Wow!  A log cabin quilt?

LS: A log cabin, can you believe it!?  And it was a queen size... All of it!

KD and AW: [Disbelieving looks of astonishment]

LS: I know, it was a revelation to me because I had no idea about rotary cutters or any of that.  The class taught me about all of it.  I got all the cutting done and all the piecing done in that one night.  It was seven hours of completely uninterrupted sewing, so you stripped piece and continued onward... but you did have to square up after each step.

So when I did my next quilt, which was suppose to be a bear's claw and I did have square triangles, and squared the blocks up and lost every single point!  The whole quilt was what I like to call "pointless". [laughter]  So you make your mistakes and you learn from them and you go on.  There's probably not any mistakes out there that I haven't made.

KD: Do you have a philosophy about quilting?  For example, my philosophy is that I'm pretty open to about everything.  I like to break the rules and just kind of try new things.

AW: Which we're the exact opposite about that!  Kim will do these amazing drawings and will say, "I think I'm going to make a quilt out of this can you help me figure it out?"  And I looking at it and just say, "Ah... you can't do that..." [laughter]

LS: I think I'm more like Anne in terms of being a rule follower but I admire people like Kim who can do the art.  I have always thought of myself as a good reproducer of other people's work.  I am not great at coming up with stuff on my own...

KD: Really!?

LS: ... well I can trace and I can cut out and I know how to do the things that I want to do, I just don't have the ideas.  I never took art classes so I was never able to break out of any "coloring book mentality" of how art was created in my lifetime anyway.  I'm older... and we didn't have the coloring books where the birds looked like check marks... but if you didn't do art you just didn't DO art.  I didn't do art after elementary school and I certainly didn't do it in college since that would have been considered a waste of time.  So I don't have that art background or color background that a lot my customers, who are really creative and able to put fabrics together that I would never dream of putting together and make wonderful quilts.  They break the rules and come up with great stuff!  I admire that a lot and wish I had more of that within me.

AW: That does sound a lot like me! [laughter] I have a hard time not following rules because there ARE quilting rules!  I would agree with you.  I have a lot of admiration for people who are very artistic and love seeing their work but I just can't do it on my own.

KD: I truly appreciate people who DO follow the rules because it does make things much easier and you are able to design things that actually work!  And there's something to be said for having some sort of understanding of that and I think part of my issue is that I don't always have that understanding.

LS: It's sort of like learning to drive.  When you take a drive's ed class they teach you where to put your hands on the wheel, how to break at stop signs, and know exactly what to do and the more you drive the more you begin to break those rules because you know which ones you can break.  Well it's the same with quilting.  Once you learn the basics of how to do a quarter inch seam, how to press, and how to get things to look the way they're suppose to look... once you understand that then that gives you room to breakout and create.

AW: This was great!

KD: Yeah, thank you very much!

LS: Yes, thank you so much for coming and doing the interview.  It's always fun for me to talk about quilting and I love to talk about this place!

KD: Well, it's a really beautiful shop and I've enjoyed talking to you.

LS: Well thank you very much!

Anne and I would like to thank Laura and the staff of Q First in Quilting for their generous time.  We really had a lovely experience!  Make sure you stop by Q First because you'll find beautiful current fabrics and they ALWAYS have time for you!

Until next time...