Missouri Star Quilt Company

Good morning, my friends. It was my day to visit Missouri Star Quilt Co. yesterday. I really did not know what to expect beyond lots of quilt shops and lots of fabric. All the stores on Hamilton's main drag open at 9:00. (Just FYI, everything is closed on Sundays.) When I arrived, there was already a crowd of women outside waiting for the store to open. It was 8:59 a.m., and we were an impatient bunch.

Stepping back a few paces, this mural was painted on the side of the building.

Here's the accompanying information about it. It was painted directly onto the brick, and you can see that a bit of the brick facade has chipped off.

Turning directly around, this mural was painted on the side of the building across the street.

When the doors opened, and I could step inside, this is what I saw:

Now, I can't possibly do a whole "review" post like I usually do for quilt shops. There were way to many for that. Instead, I just took a few pictures of each one as I went inside, and I'll show you anything that caught my eye. After snooping around inside here for a bit, I walked out with this fabric as my regional fabric. Given the hundreds of barns I've photographed along the way, it seemed like a good choice.

They gave me this nice tote for carrying my purchases.

Also, I found a shot glass there. I was surprised by the availability of shot glasses.

Also, I wanted a t-shirt. This was really the only one I liked. I liked all of the designs available, but they all had v-necks. I wanted a crew neck, and this was my only choice.

I tried to understand the significance of the flat Chuck the duck. All I can gather is that he's their mascot. And maybe there's some kind of "trading card" collector's activity? Not sure. In any case, he came in the form of a refrigerator magnet.

I picked up a map, and then just made my way down one side of the street and up the other. Next door, was this shop.

As you might guess, it specialized in all things Christmas. From what I can gather, the shops are all a part of the one larger MSQC business. There were other unrelated businesses in Hamilton, but the quilt stores all seemed to be a part of the larger whole. Receipts from any purchase were shown to be from Missouri Star Quilt Co.

Did you know Hamilton is  the hometown of James Cash Penney, who built the business, J. C. Penney? Neither did I, but there is a library and museum in his memory located here, and there is a high school named for him. Also...this shop.

Walking inside, it looks like this.

All the quilt shops looked like this. They were long and narrow with lots of fabric lining the walls.

I liked all the quilters wisdom encountered along the way.

It was possible to walk between the shops without going outside. I could walk from Penney's Quilt Shop into Licensed to Sew next door through an opening in the wall. Outside, it looked like this:

Inside...another long and narrow room.

This was the only other purchase I made. I liked both of these. The quilt blocks you see there are about two inches square. I've had good luck fussy cutting these fabrics and using the quilt blocks as cornerstones and other embellishments on some of my quilts. I bought a yard of each.

Continuing on, this shop was more of a sewing machine and tool shop.

Inside, it looked like this:

These vintage sewing machines were displayed in the front window.

Walking through the door in the wall there, I found Man's-Land. This is a place set up for husband's, fathers, sons, and other non-quilting people to wait.

It was comfy with reclining chairs and dim lighting.

There was a television for anyone who wanted to watch.

Continuing on, I loved the fabrics in this next shop.

They were tempting, but I didn't see anything I could put to use right away in any of my projects, and so I restrained myself.

Back outside, I wanted to see the shops upstairs, but found this door locked. 

They had forgotten to unlock it, but I could take an elevator to the upstairs shops. Inside the elevator, these three quilts were hanging.

And I found more quilter's wisdom there.

Back outside, this was painted on the wall of their community theater.

Turning directly around, there was a small park.

I walked across to the other side to where their public library was located. It had a quilt block on the side.

There, I sat for a bit looking at the map to see if I'd missed anything. I passed by this shop on my way, preferring to look at fabrics first.

Inside it looked like this.

There was a collection of vintage miniature sewing machines inside.

And this treadle machine. Looking at this, you can see the machine isn't actually set into the table, and it appears there is a crank on the side. I don't think this is a treadle machine at all.

Here was another shop where I loved the fabrics, but restrained myself from buying anything more.

There were several things inside this next shop that I liked...nothing I couldn't live without, however.

It was tempting to go back for this pillow, but again...we really didn't need more pillows cluttering the inside of the RV.

I loved the sentiment on this plate.

And I liked this mug. Yeah...that's me.

Okay, so I'd seen all the shops by that time. I walked down to where I could see the World's Largest Spool of Thread. Wikipedia tells us the quilt businesses inspired its construction. At 22 feet tall and 8 feet wide, the spool was unveiled in September 2019, containing 1 million yards of Aurifil thread. 

Behind it was the quilt museum. It was closed while I was there, and I wasn't motivated to wait the half hour for it to open.

From there I was close enough to the RV park to walk back. Smitty got out for a short walk.

He's been watching out the window as people have walked their uncivilized woofies around on HIS LAWN. And then those woofies do their doody, and gack. He didn't want to eat any of that grass. Disgusting. Woofies are such cretins.

Sadie watched from her window perch.

And that's all I have to tell you about our visit to Hamilton. I'm glad we came, and it was fun to see Missouri Star Quilt Co., having heard so much about it. I'll say my expectations exceeded my experience a little, but it was worth a stop along the way for sure.

It's our last morning in Missouri. We're probably less than an hour away from the state line with Kansas...our 49th state. We'll be filling in the last open spot on our map of the lower 48 states. We're on our way to Lawrence, Kansas, and Clinton State Park. When we reach the state line, we'll cross the Missouri River yet again. 

There is still a little sight-seeing to do on this trip, and we're going to meet up with a friend from high school when we reach Colorado. Mainly, we're making our way home at this point. We'll travel slowly, stopping at least two nights in most places. We can all relax a little for this last leg of the journey. For now, it's time to get ourselves around and packed up to head down the road again. It's a short drive today. We'll just take it slow and enjoy the scenery.