By Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:
UNCOVERING ALDEN
“If you’re a quilter, you know Alden,” Vicki Young said as she led me on a tour of Prairie Flower Crafts.
I’m not a quilter; this was my first visit.
Alden is in the center of Kansas – and, for many who love fabric, it’s the center of their quilting world. It is to this Rice County town of 154 that quilters flock for their fabric, batting and thread, notions and advice.
The town is not along a highway, so the average traveler is not likely to stumble upon Alden. The community is southwest of Lyons, accessible by a county road from either K-14 or U.S. 56.
The owner of Prairie Flower Crafts, Sara Fair Sleeper, wasn’t in when Dave and I dropped by but she’s the one responsible for this feast of fabric in Alden. In 1970, Sleeper started out in the old mercantile store, selling fabric, crafts and imports. Over the past 40 years, the store has expanded, consuming one building after another in this quiet downtown.
Across the street from the store is a café that’s open a few days a week and there’s a post office and the co-op. The Alden school has long since closed.
I’d heard about this fabric shop years ago, but finally made the stop in Alden. Minding the store on a Saturday morning in March were Nadine Stapleton and Vicki Young.
Pieced together are four buildings, seven color-filled rooms. As Vicki Young showed me around the store, each bolt of fabric, each design came as a surprise. I kept thinking “What else could there possibly be?” But there was always more.
“Here are the heroes, Oriental, Christmas, Southwest,” Young said. “The black and whites are very popular.”
“Cats,” Young pointed out. “And here are the ‘30s designs. Those are what Grandma would have used in her quilts. The ‘30s make happy quilts.”
The fabric that jumped out at me here was a soft blue background with a simple puppy design. Other cotton fabrics offered tiny flowers, soft colors, and prints with childhood toys from that time period.
“John Deere is popular,” Young said,” And westerns. Here are the juveniles and the sports.”
Some fabrics are arranged according to color, but most groupings are designer collections. You’ll find prints by Alexander Henry, Kona Bay, South Sea Imports and many others.
In addition to hundreds of bolts of fabric there are smaller pieces, pre-cut.
“Those are fat quarters,” Young said. “A quarter of a yard. That’s the most popular cut for quilters, and then come the yard cuts.”
“Is quilting making a comeback?” I asked.
“It’s never lost its popularity,” Young said. “We have a lot of quilters in Kansas.”
“Here’s the baby fabric,” she said. “And Sara still has gingham which is hard to find. Quilters spend hours looking for just the right color and just the right design of fabric.”
I don’t know how they ever choose. We walked past the white-on-white fabrics and the Easter designs, bolts of a patriotic nature, and the Hot Wheels grouping.
“These are the ‘Wizard of Oz’ fabrics,” Young said. The Over the Rainbow designs were the bright ones and the Under the Rainbow patterns had muted colors.
In the garden room, Young said, “The sunflowers are for Kansas and the Eagles for Ellinwood. Here are landscape fabrics. And our quilt hoops and batting.”
The store is mentioned in the Quilters Travel Companion and that draws customers from far and wide, but Young said much of their business comes from word of mouth.
It makes me smile to think that blocks of fabric from Alden are sewn into quilts that cover beds across this country.
While traveling this patchwork state of ours, I find countless pockets of delight, and this quilting store in Alden is one of them. It amazes me that hidden away, miles from a highway, you can find a thriving fabric store in a tiny Kansas town.
Copyright 2010 ~ Cheryl Unruh
A customer, left, gets advice from store clerks Vicki Young and Nadine Stapleton.
Nadine Stapleton makes the cut.
One of the rooms in the store is a former residential kitchen – so the fabrics in here are food related – fruits, vegetables, cake…
Prairie Flower Crafts, downtown Alden.
One of my HS classmates with two of her sisters stopped by Emporia two years ago in October for the Welsh Heritage Festival at the Howe House on their way back from Alden. They live in Atchison County.
What a great find – very interesting.
Thanks for making us aware of this wonderful fabric store. While I’m excited to make a stop, on my next trip home, I don’t think my husband will be.
OHHH on the phone with my sis now!
Ohh, my mom would have thought she’d have died and gone to heaven. You don’t have to be a quilter to love quilt shops.