where everything is coming together....
This morning I posted on Carly's, my Facebook page for Carlys.net, a post about my husband and I leaving for Market in Houston TX in our RV. Quickly, there was a response from Janet wishing us safe travels with an invitation to meet somewhere when we are in the area.
Janet and I go way back. Actually she and I go so far back, she is one of my oldest customers. She bought fabrics from me in the basement of our home in 2002, before I had a shop. She reminded me today that the Moda Marbles were $6.00 per yard in those days. Fat quarters were $1.50!
In August 2002, she needed 50 fat quarters for her friend Kathy's 50th birthday. Kathy and Janet were close friends and sewing buddies and celebrating her milestone with a big stack of Moda Marbles, which was in those days a very popular line, seemed a great gift. I'm not sure how we ended up talking about boxes, but what I do know is that I made a custom box for her, big enough to hold all those 50 fat quarters. The fabric was made by Benartex and had lovely quotes of friendship on it.
Years passed. Janet bought 10 extra fat quarters for Kathy's 60th birthday as she hadn't used her 50 stack (by now they are all used for a gorgeous star quilt!). All the time, Janet and Kathy kept sewing and purchased many of their fabrics from me, in the shop and online.. Life happened: they both moved out of the area and Janet ended up in Alabama. Every time when I was driving my big truck to AL and made a post of that on Facebook, Janet asked if I could stop. I never had the time.....
Last year Janet and Randy moved to Johnson City, TN from Alabama. Closer to the grandkids :) She had told me this earlier, but this morning she said it again: can we meet? I looked at my husband.... do we have time for this? We need to be in the park in time for the night. Parking a RV in the dark is no fun and some of those campgrounds are pretty dark. We had time and decided to meet at Heavenly Stitches in Kingsport, TN. Janet's embroidery machine was ready for pick up any way.
So we did. At 4 pm, Jan and I pulled on the parking lot and saw Janet and her husband Randy. We entered the shop and started to chat a little bit about our grandchildren, sewing and other important facts of life. We recalled the box for Kathy and Randy asked if I had a picture of it? No. Randy had one and would mail it to me this evening....
Then, a new customer is coming in and I turn around to make room for her as we were kind of blocking the entrance. "Carly?? Webfabrics?? Is that you? What are you doing here in this quilt shop?" It was another old customer, Mary Ellen, who had moved from Fairfax to Johnson City. We recognized each other immediately. Such a small world! Mary Ellen and Janet started to talk about local quilt guilds... yes there is so much to do in this area. Many great shops and many active guilds.
