Flagstaff Featured Business: Crafty Creations
The Flagstaff Region Featured Business is a monthly newspaper and web feature presented in partnership by Flagstaff County and The Community Press.
Crafty Creations Quilt Gallery
5007 50 Street, Killam
780-385-2153
She looks back on those days with a special fondness.
“I did a lot of crafting with that grandma,” she says, noting that her grandmother was also an avid quilter.
“I have some of her quilts and love the quilting that she did. And, of course, she did it all by hand.”
As happens in life, Sharleen eventually became busy with her family and career, and didn’t do a lot of crafting – until her mother developed a penchant for quilting years later.
“I kept telling myself, ‘Well, when I retire someday, I will quilt with Mum,’” Sharleen recalls. “And then she was getting older and I didn’t know how long I was going to have her, so I thought, ‘I’d better get started now.’”
Sharleen took her first quilting lessons under her mother’s tutelage, learning how to chain stitch, how to iron properly and some of the basic patterns.
Sharleen was hooked and soon started taking formal quilting classes.
“In the end, I got to quilt with my mum, and my granddaughter for a while. Mum quilted until she was 97 years old. She lived to be 100-plus, and her eyesight had faded for the last three years so she really couldn’t quilt. But I have her last quilt,” says Sharleen, a retired high school teacher.
“My granddaughter quilted with us for a while. She’s now disappeared out of the quilting world. Maybe she’ll come back to it eventually, but yeah, I started quilting because of family interests. I love quilting. It’s my happy place.”
In June 2010, the self-described “quilting addict” opened Crafty Creations Quilt Gallery on Killam’s Main Street.
The full-service quilt shop offers a unique combination of fabrics, kits, patterns, books and quilting notions to take on any project, as well as the full line of highly recommended and sometimes hard-to-get DMC embroidery floss.
“We also have ready-made quilts, table runners, placemats and other products that have been pre-made that people can come in and purchase if they don’t want to make their own,” Sharleen adds.
In addition, there are many classes taught at Crafty Creations throughout the year for all skill levels in the spacious classroom area to the rear of the store.
Coming up June 14-16 is a retreat for “people with no quilting or sewing backgrounds at all who’d just like to try it out,” says Sharleen.
“After three days, they’ll go home with a completed quilt and some new skills.”
To register for the retreat, contact Sharleen at the shop.
Crafty Creations, now a Main Street fixture known for its personal and friendly service, is also the home of Material Girls Longarm Quilting, a separate business featuring a longarm computer quilter on-premises and run by skilled operator Deanna Maertz.
Sharleen invites all customers to purchase a $25 annual membership in the Crafty Creations fabric club, which entitles the member to 20% off fabric, notions, kits, patterns and books. (Classes and handmade goods are excluded from the 20% discount.)
Customers are also encouraged to sign up for the Quilter’s Quips newsletter that goes out twice a month.
Crafty Creations is open four days a week, Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Besides the Killam storefront, Sharleen operates an online shop at craftycreationsquiltgallery.com, which features the stories behind some of her quilts because “every quilt tells a story.”
Sharleen adds: “Come and see us or pop into our website and see what we’re about.”
Check out the feature in print in the June 8 edition of The Community Press – available for digital purchase anytime. Never miss an issue, become a SUBSCRIBER today!
The Flagstaff Region Featured Business is a monthly newspaper and web feature presented in partnership by Flagstaff County and The Community Press.
