Palouse quilt shop moves

Palouse’s downtown quilt shop has moved uptown. Owner Bev Pearce is now operating Small Towne Quilts from her home in Palouse.

“She’s just had a wonderful store front and awesome clients. All the traffic and all the vitality she has helped add to downtown Palouse will be missed,” said Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove.

“I really accomplished a lot,” Pearce told the Gazette in an interview Jan. 4, a day after the downtown shop closed.

The shop sold dozens of colorful bolts of quilting fabric, quilting supplies and had a quilting machine. Patrons could come work on their quilts at the store and work on their own crafts. Pearce taught her own quilting classes to local patrons.

The same services and products will still be available at Pearce’s home. Because she won’t have established hours for the next two months, Pearce said her business will be by appointment only.

All of the clients using the quilting machine at Small Towne Quilts will still use the machine at her home. Pearce guessed she’ll continue to have her usual quota of five to 10 quilts to sew at any given time.

Pearce said she moved the shop because she has been struggling financially with the store since losing business in the winters of 2007 and 2008. Her husband Greg retired last year, and they would like to spend more time with their family, possibly taking the time to do some traveling.

“After five and a half years, I just kind of needed to do something different with my life as far as paying attention to my family,” Pearce said.

Pearce opened the downtown shop in 2005. Downtown Palouse is home to a number of small businesses like cafés and antique stores. The quilt shop was often open for the town’s community events like the city-wide art walk or Palouse Days.

Operating the store day by day helped Pearce form new relationships with citizens in town which is one of the successes she said she takes away from her time downtown. Pearce said she was also proud to have helped many people get into quilting.

For example, she first helped Tianna Gregg’s daughter, Emma Lou, begin quilting at the age of five.