Cardinal Quilt ShopIn Honor of Helen Hounshell

Her Story

From Feed-Bag Fabric
to a Shop Full of Dreams

Helen Hounshell grew up in Bennington, Indiana, in a household where nothing went to waste. Her mother sewed the family's clothes from feed bags — a practice more common than not in that era — and it was in that humble, resourceful tradition that Helen first learned to love fabric. She picked up a needle and thread at age nine through 4‑H, and she never really put them down.

In 1965, Helen bought her first quilt blocks and brought them to Helen Demaree to be quilted. That simple exchange planted a seed. By the 1970s, quilting had grown from a pastime into a deep passion — one she would spend the next four decades perfecting. Through it all she stayed busy: raising seven children, including six daughters, for whom she made their clothes and every prom dress. Every single one.

In 1998, after her children were grown, Helen became a registered nurse. She loved her work deeply and especially loved caring for patients in nursing homes. Then came the diagnosis — cancer. It would have slowed most people. Not Helen. The day she was released from treatment, she asked her doctor how soon she could return to work. She went back the very next day. She later reflected that the experience gave her a keener sense of what her patients were going through — and made her an even more compassionate caregiver.

After retiring from nursing, Helen turned her full heart toward quilting. In 2016, she opened Cardinal Quilts & Fabrics at 108 W Pike Street in Vevay — a shop that quickly became a destination. People drove hours just to walk through the door. The store was larger than it looked from outside, packed floor to ceiling with beautiful fabric at $5 a yard. And in the back, Helen worked her long-arm quilting machines, surrounded by over 30,000 patterns, ready to bring any quilt to life.