The Quilted Moose opens today

Heidi Brincken holds a bolt of quilting fabric in the new quilting store.

Standing among a maze of quilting fabric bolts, shelves holding embroidery thread, and display cases of hand-hewn nick-nacks are two women trying to pull a quilting store together before opening day today, Oct. 1.

“Do you have any idea how many bolts we have now?” calls Heidi Brincken to her mother, Caren Barber.

A doubtful laugh comes from the next room.

“Uh, no,” Barber answers back.

The Quilted Moose is the new quilting store in Colfax, located on Main Street across from the Community Education and Training Center. They plan to sell quilting fabric, quilting threads, patterns, and books related to quilting.

When they are fully settled in, they plan to teach quilting classes in the evenings and on weekends.

Hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with the exception of Thursday, when they are open until 8 p.m. They are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Most of the fabric, which is geared toward making large quilts, costs an average of $9 a yard, more for the flannel fabric. It takes 16 to 20 yards to make a decent-sized queen quilt, said Barber.

“It’s a family heirloom. You’re not just doing a blanket on the couch,” Barber said. “Most of what you’re doing is going to last for years and years and years. So you’re going to sink a few bucks into it.”

They also have racks and racks of thread, both for quilting and for hand embroidery.

Brincken and her husband Cory bought a home in Colfax a year ago. Brincken left her job as a records tech with the WSU police department to open the quilting shop. She and her mother are renting the corner building from Lori and David Nails.

Origin of The Quilting Moose stems from Barber, who operated a store with the same name in Cashmere for one year. But when her parents became ill, she dropped the business in 2007 to care for them.

The two couldn’t shake the idea, which is why a quilting shop is opening in Colfax today. Most of their dozens of bolts of quilting fabric were bought brand new and not transferred from the old store.

Brincken said she will work full-time at the store while her husband continues working as a 911 dispatcher for Whitcom in Pullman. They have one 16-year-old son, Russel Mayo, who attends school in Colfax.