Island Quilter, which closed its doors in April with plans to move off-island, will reopen on Vashon later this month.

The store will open as soon as this weekend in the former Vashon Family Practice building on the southern edge of town. In the midst of renovations last week, owner Anja Moritz spoke about possibilities there.

As the space is considerably smaller than the store’s former home, she is unsure if she will be able to hang shows, and she will carry only about three-quarters of the considerable amount of fabric she previously offered. However, the space will allow her to hold quilting retreats, complete with accommodations for people to stay overnight, a plan she hopes will help cover the higher rent, and enable the business to remain on the island.

“I think it is going to be really gorgeous,” she said. “I think it is coming together quite nicely.”

Moritz and her partner  Paul Robinson, who works in the store, are trying to open in time for the Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop, a five-day event that typically brings hundreds of people to the island and last year provided nearly 10 percent of their annual income, Moritz said. The dates are June 24 to 28, and Moritz expressed reservations about being able to complete the renovations in time, making it impossible for her to advertise that they will be open, but she said islanders will know when they are ready for customers.

“Whenever our ‘open’ flag hangs out, that is when we are there,” she said.

A grand opening is set for July 11.

Earlier this year, as news traveled that the building Island Quilter was located in had been purchased and that the store would be moving off the island, many people expressed a desire for it to remain on Vashon. Although Moritz wanted to stay, she did not believe any of the few commercial spaces available on the island would fit their needs, and in January, she and Robinson began working with a real estate agent to find a suitable commercial space off-island. They found few possibilities, and when the store closed at the end of April, they still had not secured a new space.

They ended their time at the former store with a party, and Moritz said that the support of islanders, including the owners of Zombiez and May Kitchen + Bar, who provided the night’s refreshments, only strengthened her desire to stay on the island.

“I told Paul my heart was not in it to leave,” she said.

Robinson looked — for a second time — at another space on the island they had considered and re-confirmed it would not work. And then Moritz called Sjardo Steneker, who owns the former clinic. She was familiar with the inside of the building, she said, and had felt that it would not work, but decided to try.

“Sjardo’s was the very last thing on the island,” she added.

During a walk-through, she thought it would be too small, she said, even with renovations. She was on her way out the door when the idea of hosting retreats and using the treatment rooms for overnights guests occurred to her. By doing so she would create a different kind of quilt business to help cover the higher rent, she said, and it would be entirely different from her former, expansive store, which she could not replicate.

Initially, she wanted to use all the spaces on the property, she said: the former clinic space, an upstairs apartment and the building next door, where Island Cure, a medical marijuana dispensary, is located. She did not want to force either tenant to leave, though, she said, and they both are staying on for now.

When either tenant leaves, she would like to expand into the vacated space, which she said would enable her to host larger retreats, but she believes she will be able to accommodate 8 to 10 people just in the store itself.

It has been a very difficult six months, Moritz noted, and she and Robinson are not sure the new business model will work. Still, it’s a time in her life she has become grateful for, she said, because of the outpouring of support that has come to her and Paul and the new friendships that have formed.

“We have experienced so much love and support,” she said. “Money cannot buy that kind of love and support we have received.”