Brooklyn General Store: Quilt Shop With $17.50 Fat Quarters

Brooklyn's best answer to a quilt shop near me search is hiding inside a former department store on Union Street. Brooklyn General Store, at 128 Union Street, sits on a quiet commercial block west of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill and north of Red Hook. Inside the old Frank's Department Store, preserved floor-to-ceiling shelves and rolling ladders hold quilting cottons, Liberty prints, pattern books and notions, and a back classroom full of BERNINA machines hosts quilting, sewing and mending classes for small groups.

The building is half the experience. The shop's own history says the block used to be a thriving shopping street for food and goods, and the store moved into the former Frank's Department Store without faking anything. The vintage interior is not reproduced, just uncovered, cleaned and painted: the tall wooden shelves, the rolling ladders and the old wooden floors are original. On a slow afternoon it feels more like a country general store than a city fabric shop.

That feeling is intentional. Founder and owner Catherine Clark, who has also worked as a midwife serving women in Brooklyn for 25 years, created the store to supply high-quality materials to devoted makers and to promote making things by hand through inspiration and education. The shop's mission describes a quick trip for a yard of fabric that turns into an hour of sharing, teaching and encouraging, and that is exactly how most visits go.

The staff are makers first. Shop manager Yamil Anglada has practiced fiber crafts for more than 20 years, and staff member Jessie Barker learned sewing, crochet and embroidery at Brooklyn General 15 years ago before joining the team. Trudi Roach, who works on the floor, once launched a modern quilt company. Ask any of them for help pairing a background fabric with a focus print and you will get an opinion.

For quilters, the fat-quarter table is the first stop. The shop's online catalog lists curated fat-quarter packs at $17.50, including Flower Patch, Rustic Garden, Spring Fling, Cottage Garden and Squirrel and Friends, and a five-pack of Spooky Solids at $15.00 for Halloween blocks. Seasonal packs such as Nordic Holiday sit at $20.00, which makes it easy to build a small table runner from a single bundle.

Liberty is the splurge. A Liberty fat-quarter bundle called Fanciful is listed at $39.00, and Liberty of London Tana Lawn remnants appear in the sale section, with a one-yard Cactus remnant at $32.45. For textured quilts and jackets, Merchant and Mills quilted cotton jacquards such as Polly Gingham and Carnival are $60.00 by the yard, a heavier option than standard quilting cotton.

The book wall is unusually strong on scrap quilting. Scrap Quilts From Crumbs, Strips and Strings by Emily Bailey is $24.99, and Alice's Wonderland Sampler Quilt, with 100 blocks for building skills, is $26.99. Quilters who love small details can add Haulin' Hoof wooden buttons shaped like quilt blocks, such as the Ohio Star and Bear Paw singles at $9.95, or Sullivans Quilter's Choice applique pins at $3.99.

Brooklyn General teaches knitting, sewing, quilting, felting, spinning, rug hooking and embroidery, and keeps classes small so each student gets individual attention. On the quilting side, the catalog lists Quilt the Beasley Hollow Quilt Pattern with Melissa Fitzpatrick at $350, the most substantial quilting listing on the schedule and the one to watch if you want a teacher beside you for a full quilt.

Beginners usually start with Beginning Sewing Boot Camp with Melissa Fitzpatrick, a single three-hour class for $125 held on the second Sunday of each month and open to students 18 and older. You learn to thread a machine, wind a bobbin, set stitch length and width and sew straight and zigzag seams, and you leave with a drawstring project bag, which is the right foundation before cutting into quilting cotton.

Read the class rules closely. Materials have to be bought in the days before class, because students cannot shop on class day, though you can order online for local pickup and collect it the same day. No refunds are offered within one week of a class. The shop is also an authorized BERNINA dealer selling sewing, serging and embroidery machines plus bernette models, and studio time on the classroom BERNINA machines is available for people who need a machine without buying one.

Brooklyn General Store opens Tuesday through Sunday from 12 pm to 6 pm and is closed on Monday. Class sessions are scheduled on weekend mornings, so weekday afternoons are usually the easiest time to get a staff member's full attention at the cutting table while you plan a quilt.

The shop's directions are precise. Take the F train to Carroll Street, exit at the back of the train, walk one block north to Union Street, turn left and continue five blocks to No. 128. Drivers coming off the BQE use the Atlantic Avenue exit and Columbia Street, and the store notes that street parking is easy with two-hour meters on the block.

The walk from the subway is a tour in itself. Union Street runs through the brownstone blocks of Carroll Gardens, known for the deep front gardens that give the neighborhood its name, and Carroll Park, a small neighborhood square with benches and a playground, sits a short detour south between Court and Smith Streets.

West of the store, Columbia Street leads into the Columbia Street Waterfront District, a small strip of restaurants and cafes close to the harbor. Keep heading north along the water and you reach the southern end of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where the piers offer wide views of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, a fine place to admire your new fat quarters in daylight.

Brooklyn General Store is at 128 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231. Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 12 pm to 6 pm, closed Monday.

Subway: F train to Carroll Street, then a five-block walk west along Union Street. Class materials must be purchased before class day, local pickup orders are ready the same day, and class refunds end one week before the start date.