Quilters rave about crafty Karen Montgomery of Hampton.
“She's a good teacher,” said husband, Cary Montgomery, CEO of The Quilt Company on Harts Run Road in the township, the couple's fabric-packed emporium of patterns and tools for beginner to advanced patchwork artists.
“A lot of our customers start with table runners,” Karen Montgomery said.
The Quilt Company, now in its 20th year of business, also offers quilting classes and Bernina sewing machines.
“It's been 20 years, and I can't wait to get to work every day,” Montgomery said. “It's creative, and it's different every day.”
Bus loads of customers occasionally show up at The Quilt Company, along with roving quilters simply passing through Western Pennsylvania.
Likewise, Montgomery typically spends one week a month as a traveling vendor or quilting instructor.
“I go anywhere in the United States,” she said. “I teach on cruises.”
Quilts and More magazine, a sister publication of Better Homes & Gardens, features the Autumn Gems quilt Montgomery designed on the cover of its fall 2014 issue.
“Her workmanship is always superb,” said Jody Sanders, editor of Quilts and More. “Her ability to pull fabrics together is amazing.”
Sanders also praised Montgomery's knack for innovation.
“She is a great businesswoman who is always thinking of new and better ways to make quilts,” Sanders said.
Montgomery designs quilter's rulers for Creative Grids, a line of rulers known for accuracy and nonslip surfaces. Earlier this year, Montgomery's new 6-inch Scrap Crazy templates — a set of ruler-style, see-through, plastic tracing tools — became a bestseller for Checkers Distributors, an Ohio-based supplier of sewing items.
“Her Scrap Crazy templates have maintained one of the top 10 spots for many, many, many weeks,” said Cam Kilman, project manager for Checkers Distributors.
Montgomery's 6-inch Scrap Crazy templates sell for $23.50. Also available for $15 is an accompanying booklet of instructions for seven projects made with the templates.
By placing one of the templates on cloth and then cutting the cloth along the template's straight edges, one can mass produce, and then sew together, matching pieces of cloth to create untold designs.
“She's great at coming up with ideas and then doing the support products and pattern ideas that go with them,” Kilman said. “Basically, she's just got really innovative ideas and she puts it all together in a nice package.”
Montgomery, 56, is a graduate of Hampton High School and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where she studied interior design.
“I didn't sew too much when I was little,” she said.
Married 36 years, Karen and Cary Montgomery, a University of Pittsburgh graduate, met when she took over his college job of cleaning the Oakland apartment building where she lived at the time.
They have three children — Lauren, 33; Brandon, 32; and Lindsay, 23.
After serving in the Navy, Cary Montgomery worked for Home Depot.
“We did 11 moves the first 15 years we were married,” said Karen Montgomery, a former craft coordinator for Lee Wards, the chain of craft stores.
Montgomery fell for quilting when she had to create quilts for Lee Ward store displays.
“I love to hand quilt,” she said. “I just don't have time to do it.”
Deborah Deasy is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 724-772-6369 or ddeasy@tribweb.com.
