East Helena Quilt Shop Creates New Space
Author: Nancy Marks, MT43 News Reporter
East Helena Quilt Shop Creates New Space
Nancy Marks
MT43 News Reporter
Julie and Buddy Hanrahan opened their Creative Stitches quilt shop at their new location, 101 West Main Street in East Helena last week.
Buddy said they were really crowded at their location on East Main in the old Hrella Grocery building and had been planning to move. Where to? Hanrahan said finding the new location was a “God” thing: “My phone rang at my job one day. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyway. Person on the other end, a regional property manager for Town Pump, said she had not called. Must have been a mistake. We started talking. The 5,000 square foot building just vacated by Town Pump was just what we were looking for.”
Hanrahan, a military veteran with a Master's in Business Administration, is certified in servicing the equipment the store sells. The store is a one-stop shop for all the repair, installation and training for the equipment, including Viking sewing machines and Handi Quilter long arm quilters. Helena has five area quilt stores. He said they have a good relationship with the other stores. Each carry a different one of the various equipment brands and do their own service. “We have a spirit of what I call ‘coopetition,” he said.
The couple’s involvement in the quilting business is a long and winding story. When the couple lived in White Sulphur Springs, Julie, who had never quilted, learned from her sister and YouTube. After they moved to Helena, Julie worked for Cheryl York at Creative Stitches on North Montana Ave. Eventually, the couple and their partner, Theresa Tomich, bought the business and moved to East Helena in November 2018. During Covid, they bought out Tomich.
Julie is the creative one, according to Buddy. She also loves working with positive and creative customers who come in for classes and materials. “The customers are about sharing their legacy stories of saving grandma’s quilt that they cherish,” she said.
The drawbacks of the current situation for a small business like Creative Stitches, Julie explained, are that in this current economy material may become hard to buy. She is not concerned about tariffs on imported material, even though most of them are made overseas. She has a good inventory, but pointed out the Batik cloth, made mostly in Indonesia, may become scarce.
In this current economy, quilting customers may cut back on their expendable income. On the other hand, she thinks customers will hang on: “They’ll give up their vacations before they give up their hobbies,” she concluded.
She lamented the lack of interest by the younger generation in learning quilting: “People no longer teach their kids to do handiwork, and we’ve lost home economics in our schools.”
Sign up for classes will be on Creative Stiches website. The store is open Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday. For more information go to https://www.creativestiches.com.
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PhotoCredit: Nancy Marks, MT43News Photographer
Image 1 Caption: Creative Stitches owners Julie and Buddy Hanrahan at their New Location in East Helena.
Nancy Marks, MT43News Photographer
Image 2 Caption: Hanrahans with their long-arm Handi Quilter machine.
Nancy Marks, MT43News Photographer
