Island Quilter hummed with activity last Friday morning as a group of women bent over sewing tables in the front of the store, caught up in a class, while a steady stream of customers came to shop. Store owner Anja Moritz’s news — that she expects to move the store off the island at the end of April — circulated among those gathered, and many expressed shock and sadness.

Sandy Crossland, a longtime customer from Tacoma, was silent when she learned.

“Well,” she said, finally, “we need to find someplace else for y’all.”

Sandy and her husband have been shopping at Island Quilter since Moritz first opened a much smaller shop in her house in 2007. Since then, they have come faithfully to her stores in the heart of town, first to her shop across the street, and, for the past three years, to her current location, which includes a gallery, classroom and sewing space, and room enough left over for thousands of bolts of colorful fabric.

The award-winning shop has drawn luminaries from the quilting world, including internationally known textile artist and author Kaffe Fassett, and has hosted monthly shows with quilts from local, national and international quilters.

“I can’t think of any place I would rather be than at this quilt shop,” Crossland said, looking around the store.

Now, however, the quilt shop is moving because the building is being sold. Islanders Kelly Straight and Zabette Macomber are purchasing it from longtime owners Chuck Robinson and Bob Hawkins. The women say they decided on that building after consulting a real estate agent about properties for sale. It will house Straight’s exercise business and include an as-yet-to-be determined independent retail space in the front, Straight said.

John L. Scott owner Ken Zaglin, who represents the sellers, said those involved have tried to make the transition as easy as possible for Moritz.

“The sellers and the buyers have worked as diligently as they could to provide both compensation and extra time to accommodate, with the best of intentions, the quilt shop, so that they have both the resources and adequate time for relocation,” he said.

However, the realities of moving such a large store are complex and extremely costly, Moritz said. And Vashon’s lack of available commercial space means that, barring an unexpected turn of events, she has no options but to leave the island. Moritz noted that she walked through the former Nirvana space carefully, but she does not believe the layout — and its smaller footprint — would work for her business.

Moritz and her partner Paul Robinson, who is Chuck Robinson’s brother, have looked at some places off-island, but so far have not found anything suitable. They have tasked a real estate agent with helping them to find a large, affordable space anywhere from Seattle to south of Tacoma.

“It is not looking all that grand,” Moritz said of the possibilities so far.

The store has struggled over the years, and Moritz has at times talked openly about considering moving off the island. Last month, however, was the strongest January the shop has had, Moritz said, and she wondered if they had turned a corner. She was poised to sign a new one-year lease when she received word that there were serious buyers interested in the building.

Word began to travel, Moritz said, and customers stepped forward with offers of financial assistance to help her buy the building, but it was too late.

“There has been an outpouring of support,” Moritz said, “and there have been tears every day in the shop.”

Indeed, as news has traveled of the store’s impending departure, many are talking about the store’s benefits to the island business community as well as what it has meant to people in sometimes deeply personal ways.

At the chamber of commerce, Executive Director Jim Marsh called Island Quilter a “marquee business.”

“We get a lot of calls about it,” he said. “They bring in a lot of visitors that like to spend a weekend or however long they can on the island. Several businesses — restaurants, lodging, stores — they notice when quilting people come.”

The event that has brought the most people in the shortest amount of time is the Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop. In the last two years, Mortiz said, the event drew between 400 and 600 people to the island over five days. She was signed up to participate again this June, but had to withdraw because of the impending move.

Barb Jansen, a longtime customer of the store who lives on the island, noted that many quilters like to frequent a variety of quilt stores and explore the surrounding communities.

“Quilters are shoppers and eaters,” she said, stressing, like Marsh, that downtown businesses will feel the effects of the store’s move.

Speaking personally about the store, Jansen said she has come to relish the time she spends there, particularly because it is difficult for her to leave the island.

“I am devastated by the loss of the store,” she said. “Island Quilter is my happy place.  I can leave the house for an hour and spend time with people I love and look at fabric I love.”

While many of the store’s customers are older women, not all are, and employee Christine Millican said she believes she has helped teach 50 to 60 people to sew in the last three years. Her youngest pupil was 4, and the oldest were in their 70s. She has also worked with some young people with special needs, teaching them to sew and providing a sense of belonging.

Currently, one young boy whose mother died comes to the store for lessons,  determined to learn to sew on his mom’s machine, Moritz said.

“Some days he wants to talk and sometimes he wants to just fix us tea, like his mom would have done, and we appreciate his ‘helping’ us and are giving him support,” she added.

Vashon has a large quilting community, with an active quilt guild and the American Hero Quilts nonprofit, run by Sue Nebeker, who has provided roughly 18,000 quilts to those injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nebeker credits Island Quilter with considerable support over the years, noting the store serves as a drop-off and delivery space for American Hero Quilts and hosts sew-ins there once a month for the project. She added that several quilting groups in the region rent buses to come to Vashon, then shop, deliver American Hero quilts to her and have lunch at The Hardware Store.

“It is going to be much more impactful than people realize,” she said of the store’s departure.

Looking ahead, Moritz said it is the sense of community — of knowing their customers and their stories — that she and Paul will miss most in a city. She added that she typically likes a good challenge, but this one presents daunting unknowns. In part, Moritz said, it is not clear to her what community she should move to, if they are lucky enough to find a few affordable options, as she routinely draws customers from Seattle, Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula, and many of them are seniors who are more comfortable getting on a ferry than managing I-5. Also, she said, the store has a reputation she wants to maintain.

“In the quilting world, people commonly know us now. That did not come by accident; that came by a lot of hard work,” she said. “Now trying to think where else we can move, we cannot be half of what we used to be. For me, I could not have someone come in and say, ‘Is this it?’ I would rather not be in business than not live up to expectations.”