The merger of two of Pocatello’s most successful sewing businesses is proving that sewing is far from a lost art. All-Star Sewing and Embroidery and Sages Creek Quilting, now called All-Star Sages Creek, will celebrate its grand opening at its new location on 1800 Garrett Way in the Westwood Mall on April 10 and will become the largest full-service quilting and fabric center in Southeast Idaho.

Ron Loynd and Alan Fairbanks took over Sperry’s Sewing Center in 2015, which mainly focused on the selling and repairing of Brother sewing machines and embroidery. They changed the name to All-Star Sewing & Embroidery, expanded to selling more notions and even started selling small cuts of quilting material called “fat-quarters.”

“After the first year and a half, we had no room to do anything else,” Loynd said. “We had another location chosen to move All-Star, and then Sages Creek fell into our lap.”

Terrie Webb started Sages Creek Quilting in 2006 and was looking to retire. Loynd and Fairbanks talked to Webb and in August, at the Eastern Idaho State Fair, the takeover and merger was officially announced.

“One thing that made Sages unique and why we were interested is that they are strictly a quilt shop,” Loynd said. “Quilt-shop fabric is a different quality than what you find at other stores. Other stores have apparel fabric and what they call ‘quilting fabric,’ but it isn’t the same quality as what we have. The thread count and how they are printed are different. It lasts longer.”

Finding the right location to house their new vision for the merger became the next challenge.

“Sages Creek Quilt-shop was about 3,500 square feet,” Loynd said. “The other store that we were looking at didn’t have even a third enough room to combine us. This one at the Westwood Mall is about 7,000 — almost doubling the size of both stores. It gives us room to grow and do so many things we couldn’t do before.”

All-Star Sages Creek will offer at least 30 percent more fabric choices. They will increase the number of classes and events on quilting, embroidery and special projects. The larger building can house more students and up to 60 event participants. Before, Loynd said they had to rent space when they brought in educators or hosted other events. Now everything can remain in-house. Longarm quilting services will also be available.

To celebrate their grand opening, All-Star Sages Creek will be hosting the Portneuf Mother’s Day Quilting Competition. Participants can send in pictures of their quilts until April 30. Finalists will get to display their quilts in the store until May 19 when grand prize winners will be chosen by a popularity vote and Renee Haddadin, the owner of Quilts on the Corner in Sandy, Utah. They hope to make it an annual event.

“There are people who say sewing a dying art, but that’s not true. It’s growing,” Loynd said. “Interestingly, the demographic that is growing the fastest, is men — men who retire and start quilting. … The other growing demographic is young people who like Comic Con. They like to sew their own costumes.”

Loynd and Fairbanks have secured a Comic Con material and pattern supplier and plan to teach classes on creating the costumes.

“For Comic Con sewers who really get into it, their costumes look identical to what they are supposed to,” Loynd said. “A lot of them do professional-level costumes.”

Loynd learned to sew from his mother when he was 6 years old because he was home from school often due to sickness.

“She says she taught me for my sanity because I was started going crazy,” Loynd said, “but as I get older, I’m pretty sure it was more to keep her sane.”

Loynd’s focus will now be more on management of the business—something for which his accounting degree and many years of owning laundromats will be useful. Fairbanks will focus on repairs and teaching classes on how to run the technical machines such as Brother’s ScanNCut.

Loynd and Fairbanks met and became friends in 2000 in Washington. Loynd said that he and Fairbanks had always worked well together and had wanted to open up some kind of business together.

In 2014, Loynd had gone to visit Fairbanks in Logan and the two stopped into Sperry’s to pick up a sewing machine part Loynd had ordered. While talking to Penny Sperry, Loynd asked her what it took to become a Brother sewing machine dealer.

“She just stared at me and her jaw dropped,” Loynd said. “I wondered what I had done! Before I knew it, we had talked over everything that needed to be done for us to take over their dealership. … Alan and I talked about it all the way back to Logan. I wasn’t even to McCammon before I knew that’s what we were supposed to do.”

Fairbanks eventually became Loynd’s business partner as well as his son-in-law.

When asked what it is about sewing and quilting that continues to draw people to it, Loynd said, “My mother is an expert seamstress, but she hated quilting — which is why I didn’t learn to quilt. She loved clothing. … Sewing was her way of relaxing and letting everything go for a while.”

Loynd said that during a difficult time in his life when he was working 60+ hours and had 9 children at home, he chose to take up machine embroidery to deal with the stress.

Pat Peyton, All-Star Sages Creek’s quilting instructor, said, “We live such busy lives as women. There’s always been this deep satisfaction to take fabric, cut it apart, assemble it and have work that remains rather than just washing dishes and clothes. It puts us in this joyful, peaceful place that we feel good creating.”

“I have three gals right now in my classes that coincidentally all have children with brain tumors who have to have repeated operations,” Peyton continued. “They come here to just forget the strain of that for a while, create and just have fun. It’s as much about community as it is about creating. It’s something that has brought women together from the very beginning — women around a quilt frame sharing their lives.”

For more information, All-Star Sages Creek customers can call 208-232-2208 or 208-232-0709.