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Clad in heels and holding a bowl of chocolate, Sophie the Thimble cutely captures the two sides of a new female-owned business.
She’s the logo-symbol of Chocolate Thimble, which opened Aug. 1 in Huntertown and celebrates the sweeter things in life.
And nothing says sweet comfort like chocolate … and quilts. Yep, the owners sell their homemade chocolate candy plus offer sewing and quilting classes. (They don’t sell quilt fabric.)
“Quilters love chocolate – they go together,” co-owner Susie Hoot says. She’s standing in the showroom with the candy display, a corner filled with fabric handbags made by another local woman and shelves holding delicate teacups that can serve as candy gift “baskets” for customers who want something unique.
Quilters and chocolate go together so well that the shop’s four owners can barely keep up with demand. In addition to their high school intern, they already have four other part-time workers and might need to add more for the holidays.
This despite the fact that the shop is “in the middle of nowhere,” the company Web site isn’t finished yet and the owners have done little advertising.
“Who knew?” says Jenny Draper, taking a break from stitching a customer’s quilt on the large quilting machine in a room next to the kitchen. She has a pile of others waiting for the same treatment. The large room also features several tables with sewing machines for students in the shop’s crafty classes.
Draper and Hoot opened the business with their sister, Jill Western, and Hoot’s daughter, Amy DeBolt.
It was a chance for all of them to combine their passions and work together, although they all have other jobs and DeBolt has four young children. Hoot, who has been making candy and giving it away for years, also sits on the Allen County Plan Commission. The other family business, NU Insulation, is across the parking lot from Chocolate Thimble.
“I pushed my mom into doing it; they’ve talked about it forever. Finally, I said one day, ‘You’re not getting any younger,’ ” DeBolt says. “Now it’s kind of overwhelming, but we’re having fun at it. We’re learning a lot as we go.”
The store’s showroom holds a pink display case filled with the day’s bounty: mints, caramels, creamy nut clusters, molded chocolates, lemon bark, Buckeyes, truffles, toffee bars, pretzel rods and chocolate-covered cookies. A basket of caramel apples (each covered in chocolate or white chocolate) sits on top.
“You can do just about anything with chocolate,” Hoot says, and “you can eat your mistakes.”
She started making candy about 40 years ago, when her children were small. She took one class from Country Kitchen SweetArt; the rest she learned by trial and error, getting ideas from magazines or whipping up her own concoctions. She’s made thousands of pounds of chocolate for friends and NU Insulation customers – so Chocolate Thimble had a potential clientele the day it opened.
Originally, the women thought the business would produce candy only for private events and wouldn’t be open to the public, but customers wanted a retail space where they could walk in and buy treats.
“I think people are feeling they want to purchase locally and support a community business,” Western says in an e-mail.
And they offer a quality product at an affordable price, Hoot says.
Part of their success is because of their collaborative approach. They make all business decisions together, voting if necessary – and the loser doesn’t pout, Hoot says.
They have similar personalities, Draper says, which means they’re usually in agreement anyway. When they’re not, they don’t argue, and all of them know they can freely express their opinions. And on the days when three or four of them are working at the shop together, they try to stay out of one another’s way.
Despite their busy schedules, they plan to grow the business.
Next year, they’ll offer more sewing classes. They also want to participate in more community events – they already offer a fundraising program for schools, 4-H clubs and Scouts – and get out to more quilt shows.
“Folks are always happy to buy chocolate,” Western says.
“We don’t know where it will go,” Hoot says. “We’re tickled pink.”
