An Easier Way
By Kate Hofstetter

                        When Smith Mountain Lake resident Kim Deneault saw her mother, an experienced seamstress, struggling with her first quilt, she said to herself, “there’s got to be an easier way.”
                There is, and Kim figured it out, landing her a spot on HGTV’s show Simply Quilts. She’d been making her quilts less than a year when she appeared on the show, produced for women who have been quilting for years, if not decades.
                “They only gave me six weeks notice that I was going to be on the show,” said Kim, whose background is in graphic arts, not sewing. “That definitely didn’t give me enough time to lose all the weight I wanted,” she joked.
                “Don’t worry about weight,” advised an acquaintance who had also been on the show. “The cameras will mainly be shooting your hands.”
                This wasn’t good news for a woman who likes to garden without gloves, is always exploring various art techniques (including mixing paint and scraping wood with glass to produce colors she likes), and who doesn’t hesitate to sort through salvage for something eye catching. For example, she has pipes, mounted on wood, from San Francisco’s original sewer system displayed as art.
                Kim’s studio, open to the public in May, June and July, is in the Village Store in Old Moneta, the building featured in the hit movie “What About Bob?” She offers several items for sale, including 17 quilt patterns she designed, art objects from Indonesia where she lived with her husband, an engineer with SCR Tech, and many items from personal collections. This summer she will feature a display of old signature quilts that will serve as a backdrop for her quilts, titled “Raggedy Reverse Appliqué.”
                In the fall of 2007, Kim’s first book of quilt designs and patterns will be published. This busy mother of two college-age children has spent more than 20 years volunteering and working with kids. She taught several schoolchildren from kindergarten through 5th grade how to make Raggedy Reverse Appliqué pillows. She even taught a blind boy to design and make one. He picked colors by using textured paper, developed in Canada. Kim said it was the first time, to his delight, he “felt” color.
                Sponsored by The Home Sewing Association, Kim was the impetus for getting 5,000 kits for pillows to 250 girl scout troops across the U.S. Thanks mainly to her efforts, all the material and Fiskar scissors were donated, local Girl Scouts helped put the packets together and The Home Sewing Association paid shipping costs. Textile Creations donated the material and Fairfield pillow gave discount coupons for the pillow forms. The fabric for the kits weighed almost a ton.
                Twice Kim has been acknowledged in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has appeared on PBS in New Mexico and this summer she will be filming five half-hour segments for the kidzsew.com. Stop by the Village Store. You’ll love Kim and her quilts, which, she says, she can teach you to make in five minutes.