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My quilting journey began in September 1993. I’d been watching my daughter, Lisa, make her first quilt and decided "If she can do it,
I can do it". I wanted to make a bed quilt for another daughter for Christmas (3 months away), all hand quilted of course.
I worked with a lady that designed quilts, so I assumed all quilts were designed by the maker. I drafted my pattern, figured yardage,
and off to Wal-Mart I went. This daughter was collecting everything in black & white cows, so cow print fabric was perfect. I bought
blue for the sashing (poly-cotton blend) and red kerchief print for corner stones.
Lisa told me about this neat tool she had heard about kind of like a pizza cutter that cut through several layers of fabric.
I found one of those "pizza cutters" and proceeded to cut on my kitchen cutting board around cereal box templates. I thought it
worked great! However, it ruined the cutting board. I sewed that top with 5/8" seams pressed open. Then, back to Wal-Mart for
the cheapest polyester batting I could find. The back was a light blue sheet. I thread basted that quilt on my hands and
knees and learned quickly I'd never do that again.
Hand quilting here I come! I quickly realized this would be no Christmas present in 1993. I finished the quilt in January
1995 at a spectacular 5-6 stitches per inch. I washed it once before proudly giving it to Lori. What happens to poly batting inside poly blend fabrics? It beards, and quite badly.
From that point forward, I took classes wherever and whenever I could. Lisa and I went to a big sewing "thing" at the Puyallup
Fairgrounds in 1994. Were my eyes opened! I had my sketch pad and madly tried to draw as many patterns as I could.
I finally came to the realization that you didn't design all of your own quilts.
In November ‘97 I opened the quilt shoppe. I remember thinking that the ladies coming in to
buy fabric probably knew more than I did! We recently moved to a larger location and survived the flood of December 2007 in
Lewis County, WA.
My daughter and I have started our own pattern company, Starlight Studios. She is the designer of
beautiful pieced quilts and my specialty has been lighthouse landscape style quilts. I have completed a judging course,
assisted judging at our local Fair, teach in my own shoppe and in 1997 chartered the local Rainy Daze Quilt Guild in
Centralia, which today has about 80 members.
-Evelyna Manier, Proprietor
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