Welcome to
Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop

Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop is located on the south side of Fargo, North Dakota near restaurants and other retail shops. When walking through our doors, you’re sure to find inspiration in the over 100 samples throughout the shop. Rae-Bon is a modern quilt shop with a dash of traditional featuring premium quality fabrics from today’s hottest designers and manufacturers like Moda, Robert Kaufman, Ruby Star Society, FreeSpirit Fabrics, and more. We love finding the latest tools, patterns, and threads for all your sewing needs. In addition to quilting, we love making purses and bags and have a large selection of zippers and purse hardware for anything you dream up. If hand work is more your speed, check out our cross stitch department and full range of Cosmo Floss.

We offer the best sewing and embroidery machines on the market from Baby Lock, Brother, Pfaff, and Husqvarna Viking. We also provide onsite repair services by a certified technician and ongoing support following your machine purchase. A wide variety of classes are available for sewing enthusiasts of all styles and skill levels, in addition to a schedule of fun store events throughout the year. At Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop, we’re known for our unparalleled customer service, with a friendly, knowledgeable staff on hand to offer expert product advice, project encouragement, and personalized attention. Our shop was featured in Quilt Sampler Magazine by Better Homes & Gardens as one of the Top 10 Shops in North America (September 2022).

Welcome to Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop! I’m Sandy Beneke, owner of Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop. I’ve worked in or managed a retail fabric store for over 25 years, but owning my own quilt shop was always my dream. When the retail fabric store I managed in Fargo decided to close its doors in 2009 and my favorite local quilt shop went up for sale it was kismet. I jumped at the opportunity for this new challenge.

I’ve been sewing and crafting for as long as I can remember. I first started out making felt clothes for my troll dolls. When I was a bit older in girl scouts, I needed a costume for a rally that I just couldn’t buy in a store. One of my friend’s moms sewed, so she taught my mom and myself to sew and create the costume. I fell in love and continued sewing garments for quite awhile. In the 80s when I was working at Hancock Fabrics, calicos started arriving in the shop and the quilting craze began. I jumped right board taking a quilting class at my local quilt shop at the time with a friend and I’ve been hooked ever sense. In the early 2000s machine embroidery was the new thing and I loved adding that to my sewing and quilting arsenal. I love being in the quilt shop every day sharing my passion for quilting and machine embroidery with others. Bringing out the creativity in others, whether it’s a beginner just starting out on their first project or a seasoned pro who is finishing a more complex project is one of my favorite things.

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and have lived all over the United States. In fact, each of my four children were born in a different state. We moved to Fargo over 30 years ago and decided that was enough moving! My children are all still in town as well as my four grandchildren and eight fur granddogs. You’ll see the whole family around the shop helping out on occasion, especially for large events. A mention of my family wouldn’t be complete without mentioning my only kid still living at home – my adorable Westie, Daisy. She can’t come to events, but she’s definitely always helping behind the scenes in the sewing room.

See you soon!

Hello! I’m Jennifer McCall, Sandy’s daughter and right hand woman. I’ve been working with the shop since the first paper newsletter. From afar I handled the website, social media, newsletters . . . anything computer related. In 2019 (exactly 9 years to the day that Sandy purchased the shop), I moved to Fargo and joined the shop full time.

Growing up with Sandy as a mom, I’ve been sewing and quilting forever. Mom remembers my very first “sewing project” as taking the trim from the sides of dot matrix printer paper and designing patterns for clothes. I’ve always liked to work outside patterns and designed my own things, so of course my first quilting project was complex. I’d never made a quilt before but at the age of 12 decided I would make one for my mom for mother’s day. I gave each of my siblings graph paper and asked them to design a quilt block. With the help of my grandma I sewed up each of the blocks. It turns out making a quilt takes a lot longer than a weekend, so I had to wrap up the unfinished blocks for mom for mother’s day with a note that she had to teach me how to add sashing, quilt, and bind it. So a gift that required a little work on her part.

Working at a quilt shop is a perfect mix of my love for creating, research, and teaching others. I always want to know the reason for something: how do you pick a batting, does thread type really matter, etc. It’s been a joy to share all this knowledge with others through teaching, online videos, and chats in the shop.

I live in Fargo with my husband and my three “kids”: Iris (Beagle), Kayne (Beagle), and Cooper (Westie). When I’m not in the sewing room, I love walking the dogs and trying out new recipes.

Happy Sewing,

Mariann

Mariann’s bubbly personality will always brighten your mood. She has a story for everything and a memory for every story you tell her. She has a love of scraps and always has a great project idea to use yours up. Can you believe Mariann only starts one project at a time? That’s some amazing self control! Mariann was formerly an elementary school teacher and she shares that talent with all the budding sewers during youth sewing classes and camps.

Lisa

Lisa has an amazing eye for color and is a genius at taking bits of fabric and turning them into gorgeous kits for patchwork bags, potholders, and more. Her favorite sewing projects are purses and totes. Sallie Tomato is one of her favorite purse pattern designers. Lisa also loves hand sewing projects like cross stitch or hand embroidery. She has a lot of hand sewing knowledge to share from her days at Nordic Needle.

Diane

Diane is a retired librarian and you can see her teaching skills shine through in every class. She especially enjoys working with beginners of all ages teaching both youth classes and beginning quilting. Diane enjoys traditional piecing, bag making (byAnnie is her favorite designer), and counted cross stitch.

Kelly

Kelly’s warm personality makes her a joy to visit with every time you stop in the shop. She has so much knowledge to share with you across a range of sewing techniques from traditional quilting, serging, and machine embroidery. At home she loves sewing on both her Baby Lock Serger and her Brother Sewing/Embroidery machine, but she quicky becoming an expert on Pfaffs as well. She’d love to help you find the perfect machine for your sewing room. She loves to sew projects of all kinds: quilts, garments, machine embroidery, and bags. Her very favorite fabric designer is Sweetwater.

Melissa

Melissa has a wealth of quilting knowledge to share from her 15 years of experience as a longarm quilter. One of her highlights was quilting Darlene Zimmerman’s quilt for the Kona Color of the Year in 2017. She loves helping customers find all the coordinating pieces to complete old projects or to begin something new. Tula Pink is one of her favorite fabric designers. When traveling rather than purchasing souvenirs, Melissa always hunts for a local print or fabric that represents that location.

Steve

Steve, our repair technician, has a long history of repairing small engines like lawn mowers, snowblowers, and sewing machines. He’s not a sewer, so terminology may trip him up from time to time like calling thread in your machine, string, but you can rest assured your machine is in good hands. Steve has completed factory training for servicing Baby Lock, Brother, Pfaff, and Viking machines. He is also able to service many of the older machines of other brands. In his free time, Steve loves following NDSU football both at home and traveling for games.