Learn to sew with Bohemian Scrapsody owner Kelly Irvin

Kelly Irvin has a quilt she calls “Bohemian Scrapsody.” She says she had a lot of fun making it entirely from scrap material a few years ago while listening to the radio. For her, the quilt is a testament to the fact “you can make a silk purse from a sow’s ear:” It’s now the namesake of her quilt shop in Scott City, Mo.

A native of the New Hamburg, Mo., area, Irvin’s grandmothers and great-grandmothers sewed, and she says she still has the first quilt she made as a child with one of them. A stay-at-home mom while her four children were growing up, she says she began to get serious about sewing again in 2014, when her youngest son joined the Army and wanted her to find a hobby, so he wouldn’t worry about her worrying about him.

She began taking sewing classes at a local quilt shop, joined the River Heritage Quilt Guild, and worked at Golden Needle and Hobby Lobby, dreaming about having her own quilt shop. In Fall 2021, she decided to make it happen.

“For me, quilting is deep,” Irvin says. “It gave me something to focus and channel on. And if you’re somebody who needs something to focus and channel on, it’s a good place to go.”

At the shop, Irvin sells fabric, notions, books and patterns, as well as offers quilting and sewing classes. She enjoys nurturing her students, watching them find their confidence.

“Can you drive a car? [If so, then] you can sew. Because the concept is a quarter inch seam allowance, and as long as you can keep it between the lines and press the gas pedal [on the sewing machine], you’re good to go,” Irvin says.

Here, Irvin gives three tips for learning to sew:

1. Use a rotary cutter for precision.

Irvin says being precise when cutting pieces out helps them square up and fit together tightly. Other materials you’ll need for a class include a sewing machine, thread, seam ripper, scissors, templates, a marking pencil, bobbins and extra needles for the machine.

2. Practice ironing the quarter-inch seam down.

Irvin says when you get this down, “everything’s going to go well.”

3. Let your quilt be an expression of who you are.

Irvin says to remember the three e’s, the j and the q, which are the initials of her children’s first names: encouragement, excitement, energy, joy and quilting.

“Quilting can be quite euphoric, if you let it be,” Irvin says. “Yeah, you’re going to spit and hiss and cuss here and there, but to get [to] that final stage and sew that binding on and get that last stitch in, you’ve got something to show for your effort.”

1318 Main St.

Scott City, Mo

Hours of operation

Tuesdays through Fridays,

10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

(573) 398-9117

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