Disneyland of Quilting

Main shop - stuffed with precuts

Driving through Missouri the other day, we had to pull off Highway 36 to see for ourselves what is happening in Hamilton.

That sleepy little town is being transformed. Just a few years ago, the Missouri Star Quilt Company started there. Today, it is expanding to overtake the entire main street. They give tours several times a day and during my tour, someone opined that they were seeing the Disneyland of Quilting. A couple from England was there to visit.

Our tour started at the (new) very large main retail shop (top photo). We passed 2 new restaurants on our way to the quilting retreat building, where there are 37 sleeping spots upstairs and sewing room galore downstairs.

Two buildings just purchased ...

We walked on by 2 newly purchased buildings (not sure what will go there). Across the street, we toured separate shops: one just for solids (!), one just for batiks, one for seasonals, and one for sewing novelties. The upstairs of those buildings is being developed for small retreat group use.

Solids shop

On to the quilting lodge (the old library), crammed with 7 longarm machines. Computerized programs will stitch the design of your choice for 2 cents a square inch. They will bind your quilts too - $45 machine stitched, $55 hand stitched, no matter the quilt size. Full racks of tops and finished quilts were nearby.

Inside the quilting lodge - tops ready to be quilted are in the background.

The original shop is now the company's shipping center, full to brimming. A new warehouse is nearly complete just off highway 36. When it's ready, the current 13 shipping stations will expand to 35 stations. They currently run 12 hours a day there and mentioned a record or 2235 orders received in one day. There is a customer service department there and a photographer who photographs product (mostly precuts) all day long ...

The overflowing shipping department

The story about the company (link above) mentioned 25 employees - last week that number was 115 and growing regularly ... I ran into several people I knew from Kansas City (about an hour away), there to see the newest quilting phenomenon in our area. It is definitely worth a stop.