“Wow! This is incredible,” a customer exclaims when walking into Glacier Quilts for the first time.  She continues with “all these bright colors, samples of inspiration and creativity with the bolts of beautiful fabrics are a bit overwhelming”.

With over 15,000 bolts of fabric, 200 wide back fabrics and thousands of books, patterns and notions to choose from, Glacier Quilts is a quilters’ haven.  Fabric choices include, but are not limited to, batiks, novelties, 1930s reproductions, flannels, wildlife, scenery, floral, wool, wide backs, and minkee. We are the exclusive dealer for the A Walk in the Woods pattern. The hundreds of beautifully finished samples on display create an instant inspiration for our customers.  For ease of shopping, many of our samples are available as kits.

“I love sewing and quilting,” says store owner, Susan.  “The Flathead Valley had limited resources for fabrics and patterns in 1997, so I was motivated to open a store.  My goal is to keep my customers sewing and successful with their projects. Our family style environment provides a warm and comfortable setting that encourages our customers to show and tell about their projects”.

Glacier Quilts’ has a talented and diverse staff of fifteen employees and 1 guest instructors, whose love of sewing and quilting have brought them together as our team. They have diverse backgrounds such as engineer, teacher, banker and database manager.  They have a love of sewing and quilting, and are passionate and innovative with a combined total of over 275 years of experience.  Recently some have branched out to pattern designing, which we proudly sell in our store.

Quality of customer service and knowledgeable advice are paramount in the store’s operation.  A full range of classes are taught in the store.  We are now a Judy Niemeyer Certified Store.  Our classes include paper piecing, traditional quilt piecing, machine quilting, basic embroidery, applique techniques, locker hooking, fabric painting and dyeing, watercolor pencil techniques on fabric and basic crochet and knitting.  Susan comments, “We offer rental of a long arm quilting machine for quilters to finish their projects.”  Panels and kits are posted on our website and new fabric is posted on Facebook.  It is not unusual for a customer to stop in, decide to do a project and schedule a lesson that same day.  The classroom always has Babylock and Elna sewing machines set up for use, with staff ready to help with any questions or problems.  We truly want our customers to be happy and successful with all of their projects.
Glacier Quilts is located in Hutton Ranch Plaza on a main highway with easy access and a large parking area.  The store is in the center of the newest and busiest retail area in Flathead Valley.  It is a dream location, just across the parking lot from a large sporting goods store and within walking distance of Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Star Bucks, Cold Stone Creamery, Wal-Mart and Costco.  This is the perfect location for the quilter to browse while their family explores other shopping opportunities.  The one level building is 5800 square feet packed to the brim with endless delights and inspiration for any quilter or quilt lover.  The light-filled classroom can be cozy for a small class or expanded for a larger class.  Throughout the store, quilts of all sizes, shapes, and colors decorate the walls.

We are approximately 40 miles from the west entrance to Glacier National Park.  The peaks of Glacier National Park can be seen from our classroom door.  Columbia Falls is the western gateway to Glacier National Park.  Kalispell, the county seat for Flathead County and the major trade area serving northwest Montana, sits in the center of the beautiful Flathead Valley.   To the north, the resort village of Whitefish nestles below the Whitefish Mountain Ski & Summer Resort.   Bigfork, Lakeside, Polson, and Somers frame the south, east and west shores of Flathead Lake.  These communities offer shopping, galleries, fine dining, festivals and special events.

The people who shop at our store are more than customers, they become family.   Our friendly, relaxed atmosphere allows them a feeling of ease when they bring in their project for help, whether or not they took the class or purchased the fabric here.  The quilter is here now and needing our assistance.  We do our best to help resolve their problem and keep them sewing.  We have a sense of pride in helping our customers finish their projects.  Service is the foundation of our existence.  We do our best to meet our customers’ needs, which sometimes includes a ride to a local restaurant to meet a husband, borrow jumper cables to get their car started or the use of a small screwdriver to put their glasses back together.  They are our family!
Even our small customers have space.

Through our Hugs program we donate quilts to the local quilt guilds for special community projects, the sheriff’s department and highway patrol for children removed from their home, and to victims of house fires. An on-going project is furnishing quilts to local veterans.  Last year, thirty-seven quilts were made from the blocks constructed by our 3rd Saturday demonstration group were delivered to the local Veteran’s Home. Red, white and blue quilts are donated to the Quilts of Valor program. Everyone deserves pampering with a quilt hug!