I’ve been spending the last few weeks organizing and minimalizing, both my sewing space and my online store. I’ve had a blast selling fabrics online for the last 10 years. (Where has the time gone?) But as I’ve been hinting over the last few months, it’s time to change directions.
Teaching FMQ techniques – gotta love it!
I’m not necessarily having an all-out going-out-of-business sale because I am most certainly not going out of business. I’m just shifting my focus, and modern quilting is to blame, but in a good way.:-)
So here’s the thing: I thought I would be content to run my little online shop forever, selling all styles of quilting cottons to whomever would buy. I stocked calicoes and batiks, fun novelty prints, some solids and big name designers, plus a few modern lines.
However, it was a joke around here that “Christa Doesn’t Quilt” because all I did for several years was cut fabric and package orders. Mind you, I was very content doing this. It was a small scale thing and something I could handle in my spare time. But I wasn’t quilting (after taking up the hobby nearly 20 years ago).
Jason helping to set up my new workspace so I can sew to my heart’s content!
Enter the modern movement, which has totally rocked my world! All of a sudden I was pumped up about quilting again and I wasn’t the youngest one in the (quilting) room anymore. All these fresh sewers were making these amazingly bold and simple quilts that I wanted – no, needed – to make!
They were using solids that showed off their beautiful quilting and they were coming up with original designs that appealed to me big time. Not only that, but they were blogging, setting up modern groups left and right, sharing their work, and getting published. I simply had to be a part of it!
Reading the email notifying me of my MQX honorable mention for String of Pearls. What a happy day that was!
So, I quickly and somewhat painfully sat down with Jason and we had a big chat about my “quilting future”. I finally came to the conclusion that what I really wanted to do was design and make quilts! Using our accounting backgrounds, we crunched some numbers and decided we could go one of two ways.
(1) We could either find warehouse space and get really big and not work from home anymore and hire managers and become a huge online store. (2) Or, we could clear out all of our store yardage (which is labor intensive to cut, package and ship) and find other ways to supplement our income.
Meeting with fabric sales reps at home. Yes, I love orange shirts!
We I chose the latter. I started designing, teaching, and showing my quilts again, and I’ve never been happier. In addition, I took the bold and scary move to start submitting my work for publication. And it’s started working.
All of this backstory is basically to tell you I’m having a huge clearance sale so I can clear out my entire inventory of yardage and fat quarters (plus all patterns, gifts and notions). I’m sure it will take several months to sell out and that’s fine. We aren’t going anywhere, so it’s not like it all needs to be gone this weekend (though that would be nice).
I love to sew – don’t you?
I thank you in advance for your support, and I really appreciate that I can blog on a more personal level than what I can express in my weekly store email. Blogging for me has been very therapeutic and has enabled me to articulate my quilting vision and share it with others. 🙂
Click here to view my entire clearance section – about 600+ items are on sale (over half the store), anywhere from 20% – 50% off the original prices. It includes FREE US shipping, too!
Thanks for reading and happy shopping!
Christa Quilts 