Master Quilter Puts Marietta on Map

This Artists Among Us story also is part of Dispatches: The Changing American Dream, Marietta Patch's occasional series on the different ways people are adapting to life in the 21st century and pursuing success.

Who knew quilting for a living could be so much fun—and lucrative?

Stacy Michell, that’s who. She's a talented professional quilter in the Marietta community with the inside scoop. With a studio based in the , Michell occupies 3600 square feet with her fabric dyeing business, .

Her success shows that a college degree today often is less important than a family tradition, a knack for foreign trade, talent and tenacity.

Michell had a considerable jump-start on her competition growing up in a home where her mother, Marti, was a professional quilter.

“I grew up a trade-show brat,” Mitchell says.

Michell recalls her mother’s business growing and expanding at a breakneck pace to the point of having 175 employees, her father working in the business full time, and she also working for the business.

Her summers were spent in New York City or Los Angles around gift shops and trade shows, but Michell says she had fun with it all. There were the occasional international trips as her mother sought to improve her profitability by expanding manufacturing operations overseas.

Michell remembers a trip to Haiti in 1976 when she and her brother tagged along for a business trip with the folks. She says while her parents were conducting business arranging to have their quilts made at factories, she was under watchful eyes with limited activities.

Though Michell acknowledges she did "the college thing," she also acknowledges it wasn’t helpful in getting her where she is today.

“Some things are about timing. When I graduated, it was either go to work for Michaels and be broke, or be broke and work for myself,” Michell says.

Somehow, it worked out. She was a bright-eyed 22-year-old with a passion for an industry she grew up in. So Michell bought some dye and some fabric and made her designs. After attending a couple of quilting shows, she made her first sale.

“My first sale was $150 worth of fabric to a Japanese businessman by the name of Akio Kawamoto,” she says affectionately. “He gave me my shot, and we’re still going strong to this day.”

Indeed she is. Michell’s business has grown from a small space in Buckhead to the 3,600 square feet at ARC.

Still, she says the amount of fabric they dye—while a lot to the average consumer—is small for the industry as a whole. It’s the old "Samuel Adams vs. Budweiser" comparison.

Michell expanded her business into the Japanese market 10 years ago; she now kicks off her year at the Japanese International Quilting Show in January, followed by the Tokyo Show in March and about 15 other domestic shows scheduled throughout the year.

Stacy Michell welcomes visitors at her studio as she teaches classes on the art of quilting. The studio is available by appointment only, but she can be reached at shadestextiles.com for additional information.