Sisters team together to make boutique fabric home accessories

Sisters Julie Halpin and Hope Ferguson would always visit a local fabric store every year when they would do a girls trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon, and somehow would always make their way to the boutique fabrics section of the store.

“We would always go goofy over it,” Halpin said. “One time, Hope said that she would make a table runner. Then she said, ‘Why don’t we turn this into a business?’ Now it’s an excuse for a business trip when we go.”

And so Touch of Hope, a company that sells place mats, table runners and more out of boutique fabrics, was born.

“It’s something fun we like to do,” said Halpin, a Puyallup resident. “It’s totally different from either of our vocations. I’m a retired school teacher and Hope is retired from human resources.”

Ferguson, who lives in Chicago, routinely flies out to visit, and the sisters also often talk business over the phone.

The inspiration for their company comes from their mother, who was also an avid sewer of jackets and coats that she sewed by hand.

“We would tell her she should sell them,” Halpin said. “But she never did because she said she would think about whoever she was sewing them for while she was making it.”

The duo would always sell their craft items at Stop, Shop, and Sip at Charlie’s in downtown Puyallup, but Halpin had to get crafty when it came to finding a new spot to sell their boutique fabric items.

“We decided to have a bazaar at church since Charlie’s stopped (the event),” she said. “There will be a lot of other handmade items for sale at the bazaar, too.”

According to Halpin, jewelry, fair trade coffee and chocolate, homemade marshmallows, handmade wooden cutting boards, and accessories made out of paper will also be on display at the inaugural Pilgrim Lutheran Church Christmas Bazaar.

“It’s really polished stuff,” she said.

Halpin and Ferguson will also have their booth with place mats, table runners, jewelry cases and more. The place mats are priced at $10 a mat, and the table runners are priced anywhere from $12 to $26.

“We do it terms of color,” Halpin said. “We have blue, green, purple and peach.”

This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 9:09 AM with the headline "Sisters team together to make boutique fabric home accessories."