Chatsworth Quilt Shop With $5 Fabric: Quilting for Community

Quilting for Community is a quilt shop with a mission attached. The Chatsworth nonprofit, known as Q4C, runs a fabric thrift store and a classroom studio side by side at 21706 Devonshire St, where donated quilting cotton sells from $5 a yard and beginners can sit at a machine for a $10 Quilt Lab. Every sale and many of the quilts made here go back into the community, from hospice beds to family shelters.

The organisation's own story starts with a lesson. Lizz Leral, now Q4C's executive director, writes that she had just spent a month navigating the senior health care system while her father's health declined when a teacher named Mrs. Dwiggins offered to show her how to quilt. Leral accepted because she needed a healthy escape, and Mrs. Dwiggins helped her turn a sketch of a walrus into a small art quilt.

From there Leral moved on to free-motion quilting, thread painting, hand embroidery and, months later, patchwork. Through Mrs. Dwiggins she met Ms. Donna, whom she describes as a MacGyver of quilting. The question that followed shaped the nonprofit: if people who had never quilted were offered a free, no-pressure space with all the tools provided, would they try it, and might they find it healing? Quilting for Community was the answer.

Everything on the thrift store shelves is donated by community members, and the store says that 100 percent of proceeds support Q4C. The fabric section mixes quilting cotton, garment fabric and scraps. Yardage starts at $5 per yard, and a fill-a-bag deal for scraps starts at $10, which is a bargain for anyone building a scrappy quilt or practising on fabric they do not mind cutting wrong.

The racks go beyond yardage. There are vintage and modern sewing machines for sale, discounted notions from rulers to thread, buttons and needles, and craft supplies such as yarn, felt and beads. Look for the quilt tops: you can buy a top on its own, take it home to quilt yourself, or pay for Q4C to quilt it for you. Patterns and craft books round out the stock, with prices and styles that change as donations arrive.

Because the stock is donated, it turns over constantly, so regulars drop in often rather than waiting for a sale. The store also takes donations of fabric, tools, notions, batting and thread during open hours, which keeps usable scraps out of the landfill. If you are clearing out a sewing room, this is one of the few places where a box of leftover fat quarters will be put straight to work.

The Q4C Design Center next door is the teaching side. It offers low-cost sewing space, quilting machine rentals, specialised classes and discounted fabric sales, and the organisation describes it as the hub of its community work. The headline program is Quilt Lab, pitched as perfect for beginners: you learn to quilt and use a sewing machine for $10 per session, and the finished quilt is donated to someone in hospice or a family shelter.

Finishing is covered too. Alongside the thrift store and the classroom, Q4C lists a long-arm suite, a dedicated space with a professional long-arm quilting machine for finishing quilts with speed and precision, and its homepage is currently raising donations toward a new long-arm machine. The organisation is supported in part by the LA County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, as part of the Creative Recovery LA initiative.

The rest of the calendar runs from first stitches to art techniques. Beginner Sewing I costs $30 and teaches machine parts, threading and straight stitching on the studio's Husqvarna machines, with all machines and supplies provided. Block of the Month sessions cost $25 and move intermediate quilters through one new block at a time, building toward a full quilt. Pattern Lab, at $35, is for sewists who need help starting a project they have already bought the pattern for.

Seasonal and specialty workshops fill the gaps. This week's calendar includes a $35 Monster Bag class on Friday, October 23, a Pattern Lab dedicated to costumes on October 24, and a four-session linoprinting workshop with quilt artist Lauren Austin for $85, limited to eight people. A Fabric Pet Portraits class with Alyssa, at $40, turns a line drawing of your pet into a fabric portrait on November 1.

The thrift store is closed on Mondays. It opens Tuesday from 10am to 5pm, Wednesday from 10am to 6pm, Thursday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and Sunday from 11am to 4pm. The studio keeps its own schedule, set by the class calendar, so sign up through the online class calendar, since many sessions are small.

Wednesday is the long day, with the store open until 6pm, which makes it the best choice for an after-work fabric hunt. Saturday mornings are lively because classes and drop-in shoppers overlap. If you are bringing donations, bring them during store hours so volunteers can sort them on the spot.

Chatsworth sits at the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, where the Santa Susana Mountains break into piles of sandstone boulders. Stoney Point Park, a famous bouldering spot, and the trails of Chatsworth Park South are a short drive from Devonshire Street, and both make a good walk after an hour of digging through fabric bins.

Train fans have Chatsworth Station, a stop on the Metrolink Ventura County Line and the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, which makes the neighbourhood reachable from downtown Los Angeles without a car, with a bus or rideshare for the last stretch. Combine a Quilt Lab with a picnic among the rocks and you have a full Valley Saturday for very little money.

Address: 21706 Devonshire St, Chatsworth, CA 91311. Store hours: Tuesday 10am to 5pm, Wednesday 10am to 6pm, Thursday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 11am to 4pm, closed Monday. Fabric: from $5 a yard, scrap bags from $10. Classes: Quilt Lab $10 per session, Beginner Sewing I $30, Block of the Month $25. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for more quilt shops in the San Fernando Valley.