Quilts fit for a queen – Deer Country Quilts of Seeley Lake – one of the top 10 quilt shops in North America

Voted one of the top 10 quilt stores in the country by Better Homes and Gardens, Deer Country Quilts in Seeley Lake has about everything one could want or need for quilting. The store in this small town pulls in quilters from all around the state, as well as the country.

By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/05/21/hometowns/ht01.txt

They come from around the state, the country – occasionally even from foreign lands.

They pull up in cars and trucks – sometimes even on motorcycles and snowmobiles.

And what brings them to Seeley Lake? Is it the mountains, the lakeside resorts, the snowmobile trails?

No, it’s 100 percent cotton fabric, batiks and flannels. More than 34 miles of it.

The visitors are quilters, and they make their way into this valley to shop at Deer Country Quilts http://www.deercountryquilts.com/ .

Thanks to a national magazine, Better Homes and Gardens Quilt Sampler, the traffic will likely increase in the coming months.

Deer Country Quilts has been named one of the top 10 quilt shops in North America by the magazine, due in stores this month.

Better Homes and Gardens combs through 3,000 customer-nominated fabric stores to come up with its annual list.

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Deer Country Quilts

Penny Copps and Pam Rose

P.O. Box 808

Seeley Lake, MT 59868

(406)677-2730

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The quilting community is such, say the owners of Deer Country Quilts, that there are quilters who climb into cars or RVs and head out to visit each store on the list.

"People say they take the magazine and hit every shop in there," said co-owner Pam Rose.

"Owning a quilt store is very different from working in the corporate world," added Penny Copps, the other owner who founded the store in 1996. "As owners, we understand that when we introduce someone to quilting, they’re going to travel around and patronize other stores. But we’re very supportive of that because we know the same thing is happening at other stores, and those quilters may come here."

But watch out for the "ferocious" guard dogs. Fourteen-year-old Skye, and one-year-old Echo, a pair of golden retrievers, splay out on the store’s floor and wag an occasional tail in the hopes someone will pet them.

Deer Country Quilts offers 4,000 bolts of fabric.

"That’s two bolts," said Rose, "for every man, woman and child within a 30-mile radius of Seeley Lake."

Or, judged another way, it’s 60,000 yards of choices for quilters.

Rose came on board as a co-owner in 2002 and she and Copps moved the business from a rental space into a beautiful, 4,200 square-foot building on Highway 83 built specifically for the store.

The $250,000 log structure is the perfect home for a business that concentrates on a North woods feel for its fabrics, patterns and kits.

That no doubt caught the eye of the editors of the magazine.

They also selected fabric shops in Massachusetts, Georgia, Iowa, California, Utah, Oregon and British Columbia for inclusion.

Montana scored a double hit: Bless My Buttons, a small (800 square feet and one-fourth the number of bolts that Deer Country Quilts has) shop in Fort Benton, also made the list.

"We’ve been there," Copps said. "It’s really a cute store."

It’s something of a coup for the state. In the 10-year history of the magazine, only two other Montana stores – the Quilt Gallery in Kalispell and Quilting in the Country in Bozeman – had ever made the top 10.

On a recent day, Deer Country Quilts was humming. Shoppers shopped, and several women from Helena and Great Falls had driven over to take a chenille class.

"Part of the reason behind the new building was to have the space to offer a safe place for quilters to gather together to sew and share friendships and talents," Copps said.

"Fabrics are very addicting," Rose said. "The textures, the colors, the feel to the touch. It’s a very visual, creative outlet."

Many of the store’s employees teach classes, and it’s clear from Better Homes and Gardens Quilt Sampler that quilters like to know who works in the stores.

Among Deer Country Quilts’ employees are three mother-daughter teams, and one three-generation set of employees in Marlene Haveman, Patti Bartlett and Michaela Dunlap. Victoria Elliott teaches a class on machine-appliqueing towels.

Elliott, who is autistic, "adds something incredible to the store," Copps said.

The husbands of Copps and Rose also play a part in the business, although the women chuckle over their roles.

"My husband Loren, who’s an accountant, served as general contractor on the building," Rose said.

"And my husband (Jack), who was an educator, does the accounting," Copps said.

"We like to say our husbands own one percent of the business, and we both have 49," Rose said. "But they do do more than one percent of the work."

Customers are the first step toward making Better Homes and Gardens’ top 10. One of them must nominate a shop to the magazine.

Thousands nominate stores.

The stores are then invited to fill out applications and submit photographs.

And they must design and sew a quilt as part of the process. Deer Country Quilts came up with one they call "Tamarack Time."

The design, Copps said, was a staff-wide effort. Renee Lenz then sewed a batik version, and Patti Bartlett a flannel one.

"Renee and Patti get most of the credit," Copps said, "but everybody here had a hand in it."

Deer Country Quilts made the cut, and the magazine dispatched a writer and photographer, who visited Seeley Lake last fall.

"One was from Chicago and one was from Des Moines," Rose said, "and when they were getting ready to leave a bear wandered across the street. I’m sure they’d never seen anything quite like it."

Even before the magazine hit newsstands, Deer Country Quilts had a national – and occasionally international – clientele.

That’s partly due to the business it does over the Internet. But lots show up in person.

"There are lots of stores, and quilters like to visit them all," Rose said. "We’ve had men pull up on Harleys all decked out in leather who come in to buy their wives something. People ride up on snowmobiles in the winter. We had a fellow from England who was riding a bicycle from Mexico to British Columbia stop. We’re very fortunate to be in the corridor between Yellowstone and Glacier."

The bulk of their customers are women. But Deer Country Quilts offers something many other quilt stores can’t.

"Guys seem to be more comfortable coming into a log cabin," Copps said.

"The men come in and look at the beams, the ceiling, the floor," Rose added. "And we always like to point out to them that a sewing machine is just a power tool with thread."