Tag Archives: Reproduction Fabrics

Happy National Quilting Day, 2026

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My current project now colonizing the dining room table!

Live and learn!

I have been making quilts since 1983, back when I was a student in a poetry M.F.A. program. That’s when I learned how refreshing it can be to put words aside for a while and dive into color, texture, and form.

Now quilting is a permanent part of my life, and, in a time when retail fabric stores are as rare as hens’ teeth, I feel uncommonly blessed that here in Northfield, within walking distance from my house, is a true treasure: Reproduction Fabrics.

This little gem of a store is located on the second floor of the Merchant Bank Building at the center of town. Brainchild of fabric historian Margo Krager, this store combines her loves of history, fabric, helping, and teaching. Where else can you find every quilting notion you need, bolts and bolts of bequiling fabric, and expert advice for any project? Best of all, you don’t have to travel to Northfield! Margo does a lively business through phone and internet connections.

At Reproduction Fabrics can you find early Colonial calicos, Civil War designs, accurate reproductions of popular prints from the 1920s or the 1950s, and so much more. Margo’s website is an art gallery for the fabric afficianado. My current favorite? That would have to be the bold fabrics inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School geometrics.

If you are contemplating a project, you are in luck, because today Reproduction Fabrics is having a sale to celebrate an annual holiday. It was their email yesterday that alerted me to an national holiday of which I was previously unaware: Today is the 34th celebration of National Quilting Day! Every year, on the third Saturday in March, this holiday, a joint project of the National Quilt Museum and the Quilt Alliance, showcases the history and joy of this textile art form.

So hang a quilt outside today! Hug your favorite quilter! –or simply spend a few moments browsing through the wealth of color, line, and story available on these amazing websites!

Happy National Quilting Day! LESLIE

Reproduction Fabrics brochure on my coffee table

Happy Halloween, 2020!

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(Quilt by Edna Ness of Northfield, Minnesota)
Halloween 

"Nine little witches,
Nine little hats,
Nine orange pumpkins,
Three black cats."          (Leslie Schultz)

Late in 2019, I was visiting my friend, Elvin Heiberg, at his home in Parkview East. Knowing my love of textiles, he invited me to see the work of master quilter, Edna Ness, who was selling some of her creations in his building. Her work is deft, imaginative, and beautifully executed. Immediately, I fell in love with a triple trio of little witches (did anyone else read Eleanor Estes’s The Little Witch over and over as a child?). I see that this is a whimsical riff on an historic pattern, especially popular in the 1930s called variously “Sunbonnet Sue” or “Sunbonnet Babies” for children’s bed quilts.

Here is a close-up of the center witch with her pumpkin and cat, so you can see the workmanship. Each dress has a different fabric, and each print is perfectly to scale.

As my daughter knows, I have long had an irrational but powerful fear of applique work. (Why? Who knows? That something will emerge puckered or askew after hours of work, I suppose.) In recent years, I have begun to counter this, helped by a class at our local quilt shop, Reproduction Fabrics. I made a wall hanging with birds and berries for my sister a few Christmases ago, and I have more applique projects planned (perhaps even incorporating machine sewing! Another hurdle for me that has been partially cleared by the past six months of sewing masks.) For now, I will just enjoy regarding up close the work of another quilter that is on display in my own kitchen.

(For a perspective on the “Sunbonnet Sue” design, please search for an article on Bertha Corbett Melcher, the “Mother of the Sunbonnet Babies” from the Minnesota Historical Society’s website.)

(Pumpkins on Fourth Street, Northfield, 2020)