Dear friends,

When Walt and I opened the Calico Cupboard in March of 1978, we had forty bolts of fabric, a secondhand cutting table from a store in Ames that was going out of business, and a cash register that stuck on the number seven. Walt said we'd give it two years. Well, it has been twenty.

Walt retired from the co-op two years ago, and I promised him I'd follow him before too long. My eyes are not what they were for matching thread, and our grandchildren in Omaha are growing up faster than I can make quilts for them. It was time. It still doesn't feel like the right time, but I suppose it never would.

I have been thinking about all the things this little store has seen. The first rotary cutter that came into the shop, back around 1980, which the Tuesday night ladies would not touch for a year. The Double Wedding Ring quilts we made for more brides than I could count. The raffle quilt for the volunteer fire department, every single year, which paid for a good share of their new pumper. The flood summer of '93, when the basement took on water and we carried every bolt of batting up the stairs by hand, and half the town showed up to help without being asked. The little girls who made their first doll quilts at our Saturday classes and came back years later to buy fabric for their own babies' quilts.

You kept this store going through the farm crisis and the big stores opening out on the highway, and you did it by choosing us, week after week, when it would have been easier not to. I will never forget that.

Thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart.

Arlene Lemke

• The Tuesday Night Stitchers will keep right on meeting, Tuesdays at 7:00, in the fellowship hall at First Lutheran. Bring your own light. The coffee is still free.
• Class deposits for the spring classes have all been mailed back. If yours hasn't reached you by April 1, please e-mail me.
• Gift certificates: We sent a check for every one we had on record. If you find one in a drawer, e-mail me and I will make it right.
• The last of the fabric went to the county 4-H sewing club and to the hospital auxiliary for their baby quilts.
• The building has been sold. We hear it is going to be an antique mall, which Walt says is fitting, since we are antiques ourselves.

"I bought the fabric for my very first quilt at your counter in the fall of 1978. It was a Log Cabin in browns and oranges and it was crooked as a dog's hind leg, and you told me it was beautiful. I have made thirty-one quilts since. Every one of them started at the Calico Cupboard."
— Loretta H., Council Bluffs

"My daughter took the Saturday doll quilt class when she was eight. She is twenty-two now and she cried when I told her. We will miss you."
— Judy and Amanda K., Wexford Mills

"Where am I supposed to go on Saturday mornings now? Walt, keep her busy."
— Ev S., Wexford Mills

"Found your page last year when we were looking for Ohio Star patterns. We drove two hours from Minnesota for your last sale and it was worth every mile. Best wishes in your retirement."
— Carol and Gene M., Albert Lea, Minnesota