The Running Stitch

June 14, 2013
A couple make big changes to an existing Ontario quilt store and finds success by providing the ultimate customer experience.
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Color Works

Michèle Santerre, one of two owners of The Running Stitch in Kanata, Ontario, loves color, which is reflected in a vast selection of prints. An 8-foot-long wall of fat quarters is a favorite of customers. While they shop, customers lay out fabric samples and patterns on a table in the middle of the room.

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Meet the Staff

Sitting, from left:

Jody Taylor, Michèle Santerre (co-owner), and Gabriele Howell; standing: Miriam Palewandrem, Heidi Taylor, Sandra Bernier, Beth Cameron, Wilma MacDonald, Raymond Hébert (co-owner), Fran Marson, Kathy Orvis, Wendy Fraser, and Michéle Gagnè.

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Good Reads

Michèle Santerre and Raymond Hébert offer their customers a selection of more than 200 books and fills the walls with quilted samples in support of the store's motto, "where we can inspire you."

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Learning the Long Arm

Quilters in shop classes get a chance to learn how to use the long-arm quilting machine. The store also offers long-arm machine-quilting services to their customers.

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Urban Cabins

Owner Michèle Santerre designed Urban Cabins for Quilt Sampler® Fall/Winter 2011 magazine.

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Machine-Quilting Details

Using the "sticky buns" motif from Anne Bright, Jody Taylor machine-quilted a spiral connected by stippling across the quilt top.

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Urban Cabins Color Option

Bird and botanical prints become abstract art when cut into strips for Log Cabin blocks. "I was a little hesitant to cut these bold prints into narrow strips, but I like how the yellow bird print strips gained even more depth and dimension after I sewed them back together," quilt tester Laura Boehnke says. Her fabrics are from the Love collection by Cedar West for Clothworks.

For more information about The Running Stitch, visit

therunningstitch.ca/.

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