How long have you been quilting? I started in 1980 when my Aunt Terry visited us. It was a simple project using a pre-printed panel of a duck, layered like a quilt, stuck in an embroidery hoop. Loved it for years but I think it ended up in the trash after several years.
Several years later, quilt shops began to pop up. I'd go through the big city telephone directories-- yellow pages, of course--- to find them. What a sleuth I am! It was a really big disappointment to find these addresses-- remember there was no such thing as GPS back then-- only to find that the quilt shop had already gone out of business.
Later, the quilt shops began to take hold. One of my favorites was The Quilt Depot in McKinney, Tx. Loved it: all the fabrics, the patterns, the notions! Oo-la-la! And in 1995, Patsy & I took a plane trip to Houston to visit the Internation Quilt Festival. Talk about Heaven! We bought stuff just because we were afraid we'd never see it again. After all, quilt shops were still few & far between...or at least they were in the big cities, not in our town. I still have some of those purchases- they're keepsakes!
Ever since then, I've dreamed of having my own quilt shop. And every time we'd drive down Main Street in Ardmore seeing yet another building empty, I'd wonder if a quilt shop could make it. DH said having the shop wouldn't be as much fun as I thought: retail is a lot of work! Like shelf maintenance, for example.
And marketing. And figuring out how to "stage" things on the shelves. It doesn't come naturally!
I have much more fabric to stock on these shelves. I thank DH for moving the regular stock so I could have more shelf space. My Moda Rep, "MODA GENE" stopped in one day to make suggestions & for some reason, hubby was suddenly more cooperative about this! (Thanks, Gene!) And all of a sudden, I have a Quilt Shop! Sort of.... it's inside our grocery store but we sell lots of things: great Meats, Stan-wiches, bulk veggie seed, organic soil amendments, local honey, and now QUILT stuff!
One of the things Gene mentioned, besides having lots of fabric, was turn around. To have turn around, ya gotta have customers. Think "advertise". Well, I thought, how about starting with a sign out front? So today I made one. Didn't cost me a thing because....well....you should see my sewing room. There's plenty of stuff in there.
Several years later, quilt shops began to pop up. I'd go through the big city telephone directories-- yellow pages, of course--- to find them. What a sleuth I am! It was a really big disappointment to find these addresses-- remember there was no such thing as GPS back then-- only to find that the quilt shop had already gone out of business.
Later, the quilt shops began to take hold. One of my favorites was The Quilt Depot in McKinney, Tx. Loved it: all the fabrics, the patterns, the notions! Oo-la-la! And in 1995, Patsy & I took a plane trip to Houston to visit the Internation Quilt Festival. Talk about Heaven! We bought stuff just because we were afraid we'd never see it again. After all, quilt shops were still few & far between...or at least they were in the big cities, not in our town. I still have some of those purchases- they're keepsakes!
Ever since then, I've dreamed of having my own quilt shop. And every time we'd drive down Main Street in Ardmore seeing yet another building empty, I'd wonder if a quilt shop could make it. DH said having the shop wouldn't be as much fun as I thought: retail is a lot of work! Like shelf maintenance, for example.
One of the things Gene mentioned, besides having lots of fabric, was turn around. To have turn around, ya gotta have customers. Think "advertise". Well, I thought, how about starting with a sign out front? So today I made one. Didn't cost me a thing because....well....you should see my sewing room. There's plenty of stuff in there.
I got the idea from the Billboard Quilt on the blog Oh Fransson . Go check it out, I'll wait! It's a cool quilt. So when I was in Hobby Lobby, I found in the scrapbooking section some chipboard letters. I was going to piece them like the Billboard Quilt but I got in a hurry.
Our store has a red floor so why not a red sign? The patchwork blocks are I-dont-know-how-old. Found them in a drawer. It'll work!
2 comments:
WOW! Big changes at Key Grocery!! I wish you lots of success and FUN at the new venture!!
Yippee, Glad to hear ole Stan gave it up !!!! Can't wait to come down and see ya.
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