
Welcome!
We're so glad you stopped by! After lots of work and seemingly endless
nights, The Quilting Barn opened its doors on December 1,
2005, in Arlington, TN. We want to take this opportunity to welcome
you to our barn and tell you a little about ourselves. As most of you
know, we are two sisters (the only siblings in our family), Lynda Hoskins
and Shelia Medlin. We owned a quilting shop 25 years ago when our children
were small, and as Shelia says, "our children won the battle."
We never got quilting out of our hearts and now that our children are
grown, decided to open another shop. We searched for the perfect location,
even considering building our own building until one afternoon Lynda's
husband came home and said, "If you really are interested in opening
another quilting shop, I've found the perfect location." The rest
is history as we went the next day and gave a deposit on our barn, one
of the oldest buildings in Arlington. We decided that we could build
a new building but we could not build in old charm. The building has
been refurbished and updated to meet modern county codes and we feel
very blessed to have found this most ideal spot.
These two sisters knew about the work it would take to get everything
up and running but werent quite prepared for some of the challenges.
One joyful challenge was working closely together again as we had forgotten
how very much alike we are in some ways and how different in others.
Working with those differences can sometimes take some juggling, understanding
and grace but most importantly, lots of love on both sides. For instance,
the simple task of rearranging the classroom area. Being the bookkeeper
partner, Shelia sees everything in black and white on graph paper! Everything
is measured first and sometimes even tiny little pieces of furniture
are designed to move around on the paper. Lynda is right the opposite
- she cant see much of anything on paper - she has to move the
furniture and then move it again...and again. Needless to say, stressful
for both of us. Shelia plays with her paper. Lynda wears herself out
(and her sweet son) moving furniture but the end result is always just
right. Weve had to rethink several things to make the best
use of our space. We havent quite learned how to say the little
two letter word no yet. Every sales rep, every magazine
we open, every pattern we see, is a new thing we want to share with
you, our quilting friends. So, instead of learning that word, weve
consolidated, rearranged, built new cabinets, rearranged again - whatever
we could do to inch out more space.
I love the example Shelia used in one of her classes. When we were growing
up we sang in church together. I sang the lead (soprano) and she sang
harmony (alto). Alone, neither of us were professionals but put us together
and we sounded really sweet together. She laughingly says that separately
we can do a lot of things, but together, were willing to tackle
almost anything. Thats kind of what makes our shop run smoothly
and we think its a pretty good combination.
But, most importantly, barn days are running smoother each week, were
settling into a groove and were loving The Quilting Barn and each
other through it all. We want to send out a sincere thanks to you for
all your support, kind words and enthusiasm upon the opening of our
Quilting Barn. We hope we have a long relationship with
all of you. Thanks for being so sweet to us and helping to make this
a fun place to be. We have more ideas than we can process right now
with lots of classes on our schedule. Our desire is that we both live
long enough to accomplish everything that is in our hearts and heads!
We so look forward to a lasting relationship with all of you. Blessings
to you and yours, now and always.
We love you all.
Lynda
and Shelia