Living a dream: Owner of Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton finds success doing what she loves

Linda Dolinski works on a table runner during a class at the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton.

Linda Dolinski works on a table runner during a class at the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner.

Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

 Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner.

Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner. Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner.

Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner.

Ginette Senecal, owner of the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, works with a customer during a class on striped table runner. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Sara Liedell, right, teaching a striped table running class at the Yellow Quilt Shop owned by Ginette Senecal, works with Lori Butson, left. “It’s so important to choose fabrics that you love,” said Liedell.

Sara Liedell, right, teaching a striped table running class at the Yellow Quilt Shop owned by Ginette Senecal, works with Lori Butson, left. “It’s so important to choose fabrics that you love,” said Liedell. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Linda Dolinski works on a table runner during a class at the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton. “You really get into the zone making the quilts and touching the fabric,” said Dolinski.

Linda Dolinski works on a table runner during a class at the Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton. “You really get into the zone making the quilts and touching the fabric,” said Dolinski. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Sara Liedell, teaching a striped table running class at the Yellow Quilt Shop owned by Ginette Senecal, works with Denise Rousseau. “It’s so important to choose fabrics that you love,” said Liedell.

Sara Liedell, teaching a striped table running class at the Yellow Quilt Shop owned by Ginette Senecal, works with Denise Rousseau. “It’s so important to choose fabrics that you love,” said Liedell. STAFF PHOTOs/CAROL LOLLIS

Sara Liedell, who teaches a striped table running class at the Yellow Quilt Shop owned by Ginette Senecal, works with Denise Rousseau. “It’s so important to choose fabrics that you love,” said Liedell.

Sara Liedell, who teaches a striped table running class at the Yellow Quilt Shop owned by Ginette Senecal, works with Denise Rousseau. “It’s so important to choose fabrics that you love,” said Liedell. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

By EMILEE KLEIN

Staff Writer

Published: 11-21-2024 1:29 PM

Modified: 11-21-2024 4:32 PM


SOUTHAMPTON — Excited chatter covers the hum of sewing machines as each woman scales, snips and stitches fabric into an individualized striped table runner.

Despite this being the final project of the Yellow Quilt Shop’s Christmas gift series, the class operates much like an open studio, giving students flexibility to eat lunch, chat with each other and finish their project within a 3.5-hour time span. The instructor, Sara Liedell, checks in on the students to offer tips and customize the projects to each person’s preferences.

“It really brings out your creativity. Even if you don’t think you have it, you have it,” Denise Rousseau said while cutting out strips of blue floral fabric.

Ever since the Yellow Quilt Shop moved from its Hatfield location to a storefront on College Highway in Southampton five years ago, store owner Ginette Senecal said business has tripled. Liedell came on board to teach classes in 2021, and since then the quilt shop has grown a loyal following, with expanded classes and hours to keep novice quilters and regulars coming back.

“People love to come in and hang out,” Senecal said. “They stay here all day. We have a refrigerator over there, a K-Cup machine, we have music, we have TV, we have a fireplace, we have it all to make people comfortable and want to come and sew. So it really, truly is like a community center.”

Various fabrics and batting — the middle layer of a quilt — are squeezed into the limited shelving. Patterns and quilting books are available on spinning display racks, and sewing tools like needles, scissors and straight edges line a wall next to two sewing machines.

Despite the vast array of merchandise, a majority of the Yellow Quilt Shop’s business comes from one device: an 18 inch long arm quilting machine that sews together the three layers of a fabric to complete the quilt.

Senecal started at the Hatfield location in August 2016 after going back to college to earn a degree in business administration from Bay Path University. As a single mother with two jobs, Senecal began quilting at a Thursday evening class in Northampton in the late 1980s, which her kids called “Mom’s time.” She went to her first quilting retreat with her mother in Cape Cod in 1990, and fell in love with the art.

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The Yellow Quilt Shop spent three years in the rural community, gathering a small following of quilters whose local shops had closed in recent years. One day, Senecal noticed an empty storefront 30 seconds from her home in Southampton. She originally wanted to avoid competition with the Southampton Quilt Shop, but with that store’s closure and an open retail space so close to her home, Senecal knew it was time to move. The risk paid off.

“I went to college at age 54 to get my business degree, because I wanted to know what I was doing when I started my business,” she said. “And I learned about location, but it wasn’t really set in my mind until I moved here (Southampton), and then I really saw what they were talking about.”

The space is cramped, 900 square feet compared to the 1,400 square feet she had in Hatfield. Senecal said she has to move around shelves and displays to make adequate table space for classes. If too many people enroll for classes, Senecal adds an extra class, or even an extra day, to fit everyone in — as long as she has approval from Liedell, who drives from Upton to teach classes twice a week.

“It’s my business, but she’s (Liedell) definitely 100% in charge of classes,” Senecal said.

Originally a math teacher for 30 years, Liedell said she was forced into an early retirement in 2018 after developing bad feet. Once the pandemic was over, she taught a round bargello class at a Cape Cod quilting retreat, and Senecal asked if she would teach it to people in Southampton.

“I enjoy working with adults. I enjoy empowering them,” Liedell said. “They look at this and think, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s no way I could do that.’ They’ve learned, if they’ve taken a class here, that I will make sure they can do that.”

The class started as a monthly workshop to six people, but now attracts nearly 30 people per class. Liedell drives to Southampton twice a week and splits her day into two sessions. She offers two, five-week classes for larger projects, one or two two-week classes for short projects and a quilting boot camp that covers most basic skills.

Lori Butson, who chats with Rousseau during class, took the boot camp a year and a half ago, and has been hooked ever since.

“We’re all doing the same pattern or the same design, but everybody has different fabrics,” Butson said. “Everybody’s looks completely different. There’s such a big variety, so you get to see what everyone else’s looks like.”

Both Butson and Rousseau’s quilting projects took home blue ribbons at the Big E this year, each of which they made under Liedell’s guidance. In fact, Buston said that every person who took classes with Liedell and entered the Big E received some award for their work.

“Sometimes some of us come during the week, like on a Tuesday or Thursday, if we don’t have classes, we just sew,” Buston said.

The Yellow Quilt Shop offers open sew with two sewing machines available for customers. It’s normally loud with chatter, Senecal said, and many times students FaceTime or text Liedell for help. Rousseau said she learns most of her sewing machine tips while talking with other quilters during open sew.

Despite the space constraints, Senecal said she likes the size of the shop. She’s dreamed of owning a small quilt shop for a very long time, and she said it’s as fun as she always imagined it would be.

“I don’t want to grow it anymore. This is big enough for me. I just want to do what I love,” she said.

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.