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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

Local quilt shop Sew Charming once again claimed the title of best quilt shop in Alabama during The Local Quilt Shop Contest, but added best shop in the United States and the world to its accolades this year. Hosted by byannie.com, the contest was created to showcase local quilt shops around the country, and to show people what they are designing and creating on a daily basis. The contest is voted on by the general public, and each state names a winner who gains the highest vote tally. The 2025 contest marked the third consecutive year that shop owners Emily Hand and Penny Smith won the Regional Title for Alabama.

“It is amazing, I do not know how else to say it,” Smith said. “It makes us proud, we love what we do and we get to do what we love. For us to be recognized for all of the work that goes into it … You cannot put it into words.”

This year’s contest was the biggest yet with a 13% increase from 2024 in total votes cast to a total of 60,563 with 2,322 stores entered to win across 14 countries. Sew Charming set new heights for the contest by breaking the record for number of votes with 2,893. The nearly 3,000 votes claimed the United States Grand Prize for Sew Charming. While there is not a world title handed out formally, with the most votes amongst any of the 2,322 stores to enter, there is no denying Sew Charming was the top store in the world in the contest for 2025. A quilt shop can only win the United States and world recognition once, so 2025 was Sew Charming’s time.

Sew Charming had votes come in for the store from nearly every state, and also international votes from Australia, Canada and South Korea. The shop’s YouTube channel has stretched far and wide for many years, and word spread fast on the internet to get votes in for the local Clanton shop.

“If I had to guess, I would say at least 90% of our customers are people traveling through going to the beach or traveling from the north down,” Smith said. “We had one lady come in the other day that drove from Indiana just to see us and the shop.”

Hand and Smith both thanked the voters for all of their votes and for making the recognition possible.

“It is an honor, and the biggest thing to us is the recognition of it and our long hours (being worth it),” Smith said. “We start in the morning between 5-6 a.m. … And we are putting in really long hours, so the recognition for that made it (worth it).”

Hand and Smith will travel to Chicago from May 7-9 where they will be formally recognized.