Every day at the store we meet new people and reconnect with others. We hear about what is happening in your life, who the next quilt you are making is for and upcoming family events like weddings, graduations and new additions to the family. You share with us about your vacations, or how busy you are at work currently, the joys and the heartaches of daily life. We love this, it makes all of you special to us and you become our friends rather than just another customer walking through our doors.
Today when I was picking out some fabrics for a car seat cover I said I needed a blog idea for this evening, Jennifer suggested the idea of doing a profile on everyone working at the store, and when the words came out she looked like she wanted to take them back because Esther and I jumped on the idea. I have been contemplating the idea for awhile now, and it turns out I wasn't alone, and so for the next few weeks I will be doing a blog post on each of us. Hopefully this will help you to learn a little more about each of us. Logically Esther is up first. 
Esther married my Dad, Jim nearly 28 years ago. They live and work on a Dairy Farm just east of Coaldale. Together they have had 6 children. I am the oldest, Carrie is the youngest and we have two brothers and two sisters in between that. Three of us are married now and we all still live close to home. Esther has 5 grandchildren now and two more expected in the next few months. Our family is really close and we all come home for dinner on Sunday Evenings. 
The majority of our family is big into water skiing and several years ago my dad expanded the dugout in their backyard to be large enough for a water ski course and a boat. Esther spends a lot of her summer on the water driving the boat and swimming with the grandkids. In the winter she loves going on water ski trips to Orlando, Florida.
Esther loves being busy and taught home ec at Coaldale Christian School for 7 years, often with cooking for the first semester and sewing the second. She had little kids at home during this time, and her only stipulations were that she could only do one day a week, and her kids had to be able to come with her. When they moved to a bigger dairy farm 10 years ago, Esther gave up the teaching to be more involved with the bookwork of the farm.
Esther has been sewing since a very young age. She started out with sewing clothes for herself, and she made her wedding dress which was absolutely stunning. As us children grew up she made a lot of our clothes, I remember so many new dresses for church and special occasions, new school outfits, pjs and even swimsuits. Our dolls were often decked out in outfits that matched our own. She also did some upholstery work, recovering chairs, tractor and boat seats.
She sewed my grad dress, and two of my sisters as well, Carrie graduates next year and I'm sure Esther will find the time to make hers as well. She also sewed my wedding dress and I loved how I got a one of a kind dress that was 100% unique. 
When we kids got to old to sew for, Esther took a break from sewing and started Scrapbooking, she made some amazing books and had a lot of fun but found it to be less relaxing and therapeutic than her sewing was.
This is when she got into quilting, she took her first class from Tammy 12 years ago and has been hooked ever since. Since than she has made more quilts, table toppers, bags and wallets than she could ever count, recently she has added some rugs to the mix as well. Many of her quilts and toppers have been given away to family and friends, and I have multiple quilts in my house that she made for me, my husband or my kids. Up until about two years ago Esther preferred to work more with the traditional fabrics, and her stash of Kansas Trouble Fabric is pretty incredible, but she has branched out and loves working with pretty much anything, but still prefers lines of fabric rather than pulling fabric from multiple designers.
Esther never does anything halfway and so she bought Chicken Feed Quilts, nearly two years ago, with her husband's complete support and encouragement. She loves owning the store and has no regrets whatsoever. She has made lots of changes in the store, and I know she has more changes up her sleeve.
The next profile will be in a couple weeks, as next week Tuesday is Week 4 of our Be My Neighbor Quilt Along. I hope to spend some time this week doing some sewing for my little one,a nd will share some of the projects with you in a couple weeks.
Kayla
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