Award-winning Native star quilt maker opens storefront

A grand opening celebration is planned for later this year for the new South Dakota shop

When Bonnie LeBeau returned home to Eagle Butte, South Dakota from serving in the Navy she initially took a job as a bus driver. One day between drives, LeBeau decided to stop in and visit with her grandmother Marcella LeBeau. Walking into her grandmother’s house, LeBeau was surrounded by star quilts, between 10 and 12 of them, all in different stages. Quilts were strung out across the dining room, on the couch, on chairs and on tables.

Confused, she asked her grandmother what she was doing. To which the Cheyenne River elder responded, I’m just getting ready for Uncle Dan’s giveaway.

“I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I need to help her.’ So I did, I just started helping her,” LeBeau said.

While she’d been sewing since she was eight, this was the first time the Cheyenne River Lakota and Diné woman had made a star quilt. Now, over two decades later, LeBeau is an award-winning quilter with her own quilt shop.

LeBeau has opened the Bonnie LeBeaux Quilts storefront at 1575 N Lacrosse St. Suite J, not far from Interstate 90 in Rapid City. She said the storefront has an “x” while her last name does not. The store has been open for about a month; however, the grand opening will be in October.

LeBeau’s quilt shop is one of a handful of Native-owned businesses in Rapid City and one of the only Native-owned stores offering Indigenous print fabric and quilting supplies in the Black Hills.

The back of the store acts as a sewing space for LeBeau while the front will offer a variety of fabrics including Native-owned brands like 49Dzine.

“I’ve always done my quilting out of a basement, and the basement is getting remodeled this summer, so I thought, ‘I’m either going to have to pack up my equipment and put it in storage or I’m going to have to find my own space,’” she said.

Since she first began helping her grandmother quilt, LeBeau has made countless star quilts. If she sat down and made an entire quilt in one go, it would take her about five hours, she said, but that never happens.

For Lakota people, a star quilt is an ode to their origins, LeBeau said.

“A long time ago when the missionaries brought the lone star pattern our people were losing the buffalo at a rapid rate,” LeBeau said. “When this star design was introduced it clicked with our people because essentially our creation stories tell us that we come from the stars. There are probably half a dozen different creation stories that relate our past to the stars. So when this design was introduced we adopted it into our culture.”

Now, star quilts are a way to honor someone or their accomplishments and life events. The quilts are usually presented as gifts. LeBeau often makes quilts for these occasions or giveaways just as her grandmother had been the day she taught her.

“To me, it represents an honoring comfort,” LeBeau said.

In addition to running her storefront and working as a realtor, LeBeau will still be making quilts for others and helping with quilts.

Despite the grand opening happening in October, LeBeau will still allow shoppers to come in whenever she’s in the store sewing so shoppers can purchase what they need.

LeBeau will also sell her handmade jewelry and her daughter Ryia LeBeau’s leatherwork out of the store.

This story is co-published by the Rapid City Journal and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the South Dakota area.

Dateline:

RAPID CITY, S.D.