Every month The CARON Collection features one of the outstanding shops who so ably provide stitchers with not only supplies but guidance, technical expertise, and inspiration. We hope you'll support your local shops and browse through our extensive SHOP LISTINGS to find a shop near you.

The Pepperell Pepper Patch Works
in Pepperell, Massachusetts
by Rita Vainius

The first time Vickie Tobin spotted a crazy quilt, she realized that it was the perfect blend of everything she had sampled in the past, combined into one irresistibly beautiful package. She now uses her first crazy quilt project, a stocking, as her logo and trademark for her business, the Pepperell Pepper Patch Works.

When Vickie began to pursue crazy quilting, she was not able to find an adequate assortment of embellishments. Shops offered only modest selections of colors and thread varieties. Beads, charms and silk ribbon varieties were similarly limited. She states, "As I loved working with beautiful threads, ribbons, fabrics and beads, I decided to open a shop focused on providing embellishments to needle artists worldwide. Initially, the Pepperell Pepper Patch (PPPatch) was an Internet shop, opened online almost two years ago.

Much as she enjoyed her website shop, Vickie knew that, not too far down the road, when the right time and place came together, she would open a "brick and mortar store." That conjunction of favorable elements came together late last summer and Vickie seized the moment. The retail shop made it's debut on November 4, 2000.

Located in the heart of downtown Pepperell, MA, the Pepperell Pepper Patch is in a light, airy space directly on historic Railroad Square. Upon entering the shop, you glimpse Vickie's wonderful antique wicker rickshaw, surrounded on all sides by a riot of color. One wall serves as a gallery and features a rotating display of both modern and vintage crazy quilts and quilt blocks. There are many comfortable places to sit and stitch, peruse a new book, or just listen to the soft sounds of one of their fountains. Vickie adds, "It is a pleasant place and I am finding that more and more often we have shoppers who stay in here for 3 to 4 hours -- shop, then sit and stitch, then shop some more. The back portion of our shop is our classroom, set off by a picket fence, garden arches and lots of plants."

Even though the PPPatch has grown from an Internet only shop into a full-fledged retail store, Vickie's focus is still on providing great products to their world wide customer base. Items unique to the retail shop are the extensive collections of vintage laces, rayon trims and threads. The store is also the only distributor, outside of the U.K., for Farne Designs Crazy Quilt kits

The PPPatch offers full line selections of many types of threads. "Naturally," Vickie emphasizes, "we offer the beautiful Caron Collection threads...and we supplement them with many other thread lines, wonderful specialty fibers and a host of other threads." The PPPatch currently offers the full range of colors in five Caron Collection thread lines: Watercolours, Wildflowers, Soie Cristale, Waterlilies and Rachel. The shop also stocks YLI silk ribbon, Petals Silk Ribbons, Hanah/Artemis bias silk ribbon and a variety of vintage trims and threads. In beads, they inventory an extensive collection ranging from seed beads in many sizes, to crystals and natural stones. Their vintage lace department has been described as "irresistible." The PPPatch offers beautiful fabrics in the small cuts preferred by many crazy quilters. A full line of charms in raw brass, gold or silver plated pewter, sterling silver, and natural materials is also available. Vickie has recently introduced the PPPatch's own exclusive line of hand dyed ribbons, fabrics and threads.

The PPPatch website store has a mascot: Parker, the Pepper Patch Parrot. Parker is actually a real, not just a virtual pet! He is a peach-faced conure and was Vickie's 25th anniversary present. Vickie has an outdoor cage for him and will be transporting him to and from the "real" shop. She asserts, "He may even greet visitors with a cheery "Hello!" occasionally. Online, reminiscent of a sideshow barker, Parker harks the shop's wares, squawking away, "I'm your site guide to the PPPatch. Some folks think I am waaaay too chatty. I don't. I just have a lot to say about a lot of things. If you want to read some of my musings, called "Mmm ... musings from Parker," there I'll be, at your service."

Kit-of-the-Month Club Selections

The PPPatch offers an Embellishment Kit-of-the-Month Club featuring a new theme monthly. Everything needed to embellish your own block is in the kit, including full, color-illustrated instructions on how to recreate the sample block. These can also be purchased individually while supplies last.

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Little Bits Kits

There are also "Little Bits" Kits. Want to try a quick, easy project? A kit that comes complete? Well, Pepperell Pepper Patch's Little Bits Kits are perfect for you! These kits are designed to be easy to do and come with almost everything you need. And the result can be spectacular! The PPPatch Victorian Series Club features an every-other-month delivery of a beautiful kit for creating a 12 inch block. The series will continue for 16 kits, after which you will have the "makings" of a beautiful throw. These kits include fabrics and embellishments, some of which are vintage, and full-color illustrated instructions on how to recreate the sample block.

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Special Edition Kits

But that's not all! Another kit series is the PPPatch Special Edition Kits. A few times a year, the PPPatch creates a really special kit. These are gorgeous: extra special fabrics and loads of embellishments; perhaps even a Victorian Silk replica. About her crazy quilting passion, Vickie explains, "I was always compelled to work with my hands. Even when I was very, very young, I wanted to work with very tactile materials...I just wonder why it took me so long to realize that stitching was what I wanted to do in life!"

On almost every weekend, you will find a class underway at the PPPatch. Included are crazy quilting, thread embroidery, silk ribbon embroidery, tatting, beading and jewelry making. Recent workshops have featured a weekend Christmas Stocking Workshop with guest instructor Betty Pillsbury and a weekend workshop, "A Bead in Hand," with guest instructor Leslie Levison. Coming later this summer will be Carole Samples. On the last Sunday of each month, PPPatch offers a real treat: an afternoon tea and assisted open stitching time. And scheduled for the fall of next year is a Crazy Quilt Conference. Plans are well underway for this gala event, which will be hosted by Vickie and held in New England in October of 2002.

Vickie is a founder of CRONES (Crazy Royalty of New England Stitchers), a group that grew from a handful of crazy quilting enthusiasts to a membership of nearly 50 over the last 18 months. Vickie elaborates, "The CRONES are a wonderful group of friends who meet at my shop every other month to share a pot luck lunch, enjoy a show-and-tell of member's work and have a good time. It is my great pleasure to know these wonderful stitchers."

For the time being shop hours are somewhat curtailed as Vickie works as a Program Manager on a Government contract at a local Air Force installation. She quips, "Unfortunately, there is not much call for stitching on that job!" She has managed, however, to arrange her schedule so that besides weekends and evenings, she can open the shop every Monday. Moreover Vickie informs, "These hours will be changing soon. I have given notice at the day job and will be open more hours during the week... And, of course, the online web shop is open all the time."

Pepperell is a beautiful, semi-rural town of some 12,000 people and is located about an hour northwest of Boston. Just around the corner from the Patch is one of Pepperell's local landmarks-- the Pepperell Covered Bridge, which is reported to be the only covered bridge in Massachusetts east of the Connecticut River.

For more information or to sign up for the PPPatch Newsletter and be the first to know about new additions, specials and other goodies, contact Vickie at:

Pepperell Pepper Patch Works
152 Main Street, Pepperell MA 01463
Phone: (978) 433?3377
Fax: (978) 433?3373
E mail: Vickie@pppatch.com
Website: http://www.pppatch.com

Current Shop hours are:
Sat-Sun-Mon 10 a.m. till 9 p.m.
Tue-Thu-Fri 7 p.m. till 9 p.m.
Closed Wed

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(For previous month's features)

Sunflower Samplings - Crystal Lake, Illinois
Web of Thread - Paducah, Kentucky
Needles & Niceties - Upland, CA
Needle Nutz ­ In Colorado Springs, CO
Yankee Cross Stitch - in North Hampton, New Hampshire
Fireside Stitchery ­ Frazer, PA
Needle Nook of La Jolla
Fiddlesticks ­ Honolulu, Hawaii
Linen Ladies ­ Sidney, Montana
A revisit to: Hook-n-Needle in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Old Town Needlework & Framing in Scottsdale, AZ
The Yarn Barn of San Antonio, Texas

The Sampler in Plymouth, MA
Abecedarius in Marietta, Georgia

Witchery Stitchery of Mt. Horeb Wisconsin

City Stitcher of Chicago, IL

L'Aguja Loca in Mexico City

Ruth's Stitchery, in Colorado Springs, CO
Mrs. Titchett's Eye, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Pocket Full of Stitches, in Lubbock, TX

Sophisticated Stitchery, in Carteret, New Jersey
Hardanger House, Stettler, Alberta, Canada
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Needlemania, in Cranston, Rhode Island

The Country Cross-Stitcher, Woburn, Bedfordshire, UK

Amy's Golden Strand, Memphis, TN

Needle in a Haystack in Alameda, California
Tri Thy Needlecraft Centre, in North Wales, UK
Fils Du Temps in Strasbourg, France
Stitchery Source International / Rainbow Picture Framing in Miami, Florida
Nettie's Needlecraft in glamorous Beverly Hills, California...
Island Needlework, Key West, Florida...
The Summer House Needleworks, Oley Valley of Pennsylvania
Evening Star Designs, mail order specializing in Quilting supplies
Ginger's Needlearts and Framing, Austin, Texas
The Needlewoman East in Falls Church, Virginia
Hook-n-Needle in Fairfield County, CT
The Needlepointer, Everett, Washington
Haus Tirol in Williamsburg, Virginia
Crafty Lady in Macomb, Michigan
It's A Crewel World in Salem, Massachusetts
Exclamation Point!in Saratoga Village, California
Thistle Needleworks in Glastonbury, Connecticut