Jenna Guest, owner of Carpenter Quilts, is on a mission to share sewing and crafting skills with the next generation through the supplies, classes, and support offered at her Damariscotta shop.
“This is what I feel like I’m called to do,” she said in the shop, surrounded by quilting cottons, yarn, patterns, sewing notions, batting, thread, and items made in Maine. “I’m here to pass knowledge on about something that’s been around forever.”
Guest was always interested in opening a business, but was not sure what kind. Before Carpenter Quilts, she worked as a bank teller, a bookkeeper for Hall Funeral Home, and managed NAPA Auto Parts stores in western Maine with her husband Jason, now a director for Hall Funeral Homes.
The passing of her grandmother, who taught her to hand-sew quilts, was “like an alarm going off,” Guest said. She worried about who would teach the next generation of quilters and took up the mantle herself, running the quilt business out of her home for about a year once her four daughters started school for the first time.
Guest opened her physical location at 521 Main St., next to Subway, on Feb. 1.
Carpenter Quilts hosts monthly sewing classes, all of which are sold out, and Guest hopes to collaborate on future offerings for embroidery, knitting, and crochet with customers who have offered their specialties.
Working in a group, like in a class, takes the fear out of being a beginner, according to Guest. Though the internet is a valuable resource, she feels it doesn’t replace the experience of learning from someone face-to-face.
“If you need some help, bring it in. I want to help others,” she said.
While she charges for involved projects, like help finishing a quilt, she said she is happy to consult on sewing machine troubles or other questions.
Community response has been “amazing,” Guest said, with customers bringing in their projects to show her and ask advice.
“I’m excited to see where this goes,” Guest said.
Local quilting groups make up “little centers of activity all over the place,” Guest said, and customers drive up from southern Maine or stop in on vacation.
These groups, and her classes, reflect the historical nature of quilting as a way to socialize, Guest said.
Over the centuries, community groups have often worked together on their own projects and collaborated on quilts to give others for life events like getting married or going to war.
“It was one of the ways they had that camaraderie,” she said. “I’m hoping to bring some of that community back by having this.”
The work itself is a way to build relationships too, according to Guest, offering something to bond over.
She prioritizes the community side of her business, and one thing she loves in her own quilting practice is making something for other people to use and enjoy.
“Creating joy for someone else by making something is pretty irreplaceable,” she said.
When working on a project at home, she said, she announces the last stitch. Before she knows it, the quilt is out of her hands and being used by one of her four daughters.
While gifts from quilters are often met with the desire to preserve it, Guest said making things for others is all about the object being used.
“We want you to wear it out,” she said. “We’ll make another.”
Handmade items are living things to Guest, carrying the person who made them. A hand-sewn tablecloth she is repurposing for a customer brings to mind what the maker was thinking and feeling while she stitched it, what she might have been listening to on the radio or watching on television.
While quilters may work together, each demonstrates their own style in the patterns, fabrics, colors, and decorative details they like to use.
“Everybody writes a different story with the same tools,” Guest said.
These individual styles are reflected in each quilt shop based on the owner’s style, too, Guest said.
“Buy what you like, because that radiates to other people,” she learned from a sales representative.
At Carpenter Quilts, tastes lean to florals and natural fabrics. A selection of fabrics are Oeko-Tex certified, meaning the materials are free from a number of chemicals.
“I try to be conscious of that in my purchasing, because I appreciate what they’re doing,” she said.
Along with her product offerings and community events, Guest has connections for sewing machine repair, scissor and rotary blade sharpening, and long arm quilting work to sew the parts of a quilt together.
Carpenter Quilts is a drop-off and pickup site for 207 Longarm Quilting in Jefferson. Customers wait together for their projects to be returned, Guest said, and have a show-and-tell of finished quilts, one of her favorite things.
“There’s always room for you,” Guest said of her shop. “If you think you want to try it, there is room for you.”
Carpenter Quilts is open from 8:30 to 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday; 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday; and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday, with classes held on Saturdays.
For more information or to order online, go to carpenterquilts.com.
