Year 4 is another one where nothing too major sticks out. I think this was a good year of growth for us. When I think about the way we’ve grown I really appreciate the slow steadiness of it. We’ve never really gone viral or experienced an explosion in sales. Honestly I think it’s a good thing, I’ll take slow, steady, sustainable growth over giant bursts any day. Scaling is really challenging. You often have to take the leap and hire the person, buy the expensive machine, etc before you actually have the sales to warrant it. Year 4 was a steady year, we only brought on 1 more shop helper and 1 more instructor. I was still covering the shop 4 days a week. I feel like I really settled into my role and got way more comfortable steering the ship.
In November I finally got to meet my shop bestie Bailey in person! Bailey had reached out to me earlier in the year to pick my brain about opening a brick and mortar shop. We chatted for about an hour on zoom and then proceeded to send each other instagram DM videos almost every day. This was my first shop owner friend and wow what a game changer it is to have someone who knows exactly what you’re going through.
I was headed to Scottsdale for a bachelorette party and asked if she wanted to hang out for a couple days after. She drove all the way from Tucson to scoop me up and then nursed me back to health. I still feel a little bad that the first time we got to hang out in person I was so hungover that it took me two days to fully recover ha ha. But Bailey totally understood and I’m happy to say we are still good friends today and have made many more trips to see each other!
I think this year is the first year I taught the Wyld Whirl pattern as a class. I wrote that pattern to help sell fat quarters and didn’t really think much of it at the time but wow has it been such a big part of our business. I love seeing all the versions of it!
We completed the second year of the countdown calendars. This was arguably the most stressful year. I really tried to get on top of it by ordering and wrapping everything beforehand so we weren’t scrambling. It was still a bit of a scramble. I knew I wouldn’t be able to letter all the bags so I thought “hey I’ll just carve blocks for each number and we can stamp them!” While the stamping did go pretty quick I did end up having to call in back ups to help me carve a few of the blocks. Shout out to Maggie and Ashleigh for helping! And shout out to Remy who did a lot of the stamping and packing.
I got lucky and my landlord let me use an empty space he had in a nearby building for free. We set up an epic packing room and managed to get everything packed and shipped by the deadline. We haven’t done these calendars for 2 years now and I’m honestly not sure if I want to bring them back. They are so. much. Work.
I finished my epic Birds Hill quilt and hung it up in the shop. I did enjoy getting to humble brag and tell people that I did in fact free hand quilt it myself. This quilt has since been gifted to my step dad but it hung in the shop for quite awhile! This quilt was a true labor of love. It has over 1,500 HSTs. I completed the top and it sat in my sewing room for awhile, when I finally dug it out for quilting I discovered my cat had peed on it. I was not willing to let all the work go to waste so I threw the top in the wash and hoped for the best. I’m sure it will shock you to hear that about 30% of the seams came apart and I had to do some major repairs. In the end I just quilted it as densely as I could and honestly it was fine!)
In January we hosted the Just Fucking Finish it challenge. I had to go look and 2022 was actually the first year! JFFI (Jiffy and we call it) is one of my most favorite things that we do at the shop. I LOVE seeing all the projects that get finished and there’s always such a strong sense of community that happens as we cheer each other on. For 2027 I’m going to see if I can tally up ALL the projects that have been finished over the years. We’re already scheming on how to make JFFI2027 the best one yet!
We did another round of merch this year. Savannah from our Wyldwoodie group did the designs for us! I’m also realizing I should reorder some of these stickers!
In the spring I hosted a Powerpoint Party at the shop for my birthday. To date one of my favorite birthdays by far, it was so much fun! I gave everyone a beanie baby as their participation prize. My little sister ended up winning the whole thing with her “5 things I hate about Millenials” presentation. It was a roast and it was hilarious. Other notable presentations included “5 most traumatizing work experiences” “who I would cast in the ACOTAR films” (that debate was HEATED) and “Why red pandas are the superior panda” Highly suggest wrangling your friends into doing a power point party!
That spring I also completed TWO twin size Rocky Coast quilts for our bed. These have been on our bed ever since and get washed once a week. The metallic is completely gone and the binding definitely needs to be replaced. But I still love them so much! I think sometimes things become such a part of our every day that we can sometimes forget how special they are. I think it’s so cool that my house is filled with things I made with my hands! And my job is supplying people with materials so they can fill their lives with beautiful handmade things. It’s pretty fucking cool.
This is also the year that we got Printy! I did try to go second hand the first time around. I drove all the way up to Lake Stevens and picked up a behemoth of a printer. I spent a good couple weeks trying to get it to work and eventually threw in the towel. Luckily the sellers were pretty understanding and ended up giving me my money back. After that ordeal I decided to just buy a new one. Printy has been going strong for almost 4 years now! I’ve also found some fun other uses for it over the years. It’s printed DND maps, Bachelorette party banners, and our big window calendars.
That fall I made the first attempt at bringing garment fabric in as a collection. I planned out a color story and really tried to curate a decent selection. Overall I like the idea but in practice it’s challenging. We don’t really have space to warehouse anything so holding stuff back to do a “drop” was really hard. It’s easier to just bring things in and make them available as they arrive. I still try to order colors by season but collections just don’t make sense for us. A reminder that the garment fabric program is something I don’t feel like I’ve ever fully nailed down. Turns out it is really challenging to offer both quilting fabric and garment fabric!
We had branding photos done this year! Everyone got headshots and we got our first official team photo! I love seeing these shots of the shop.
As I was looking through the instagram posts there was a continual theme of just being so damn grateful. Post about how nice the morning light is in the shop, how cool it is that I get to work while listening to my friends teach people how to sew. I had a lot of things figured out at this point and that left a lot more space for me to enjoy it! I also noticed how silly I was, I think I still am, but a good reminder that I am a weirdo and I’m pretty sure that’s what drew a lot of you in in the first place haha.
Looking back through the photos I feel like you can see that the shop started to settle in this year. The shelves were consistently full, classes were happening all the time, I had a great team behind me. It also was the first year that I made an actual anniversary post! Still no pictures of the actual sale but hey maybe next year will be the year.
