1 post from August 2009

            I am sitting in one of my favorite coffee shops in Northampton situated about a block from where I live.  Up until about a month ago there was a fabric store next to it that was very dear to my heart.  I can still remember the spring day that I went in and as I was paying for my finds the lady at the counter mentioned that they might soon be looking for part-time help.  At the time I was busy finishing up a year of teaching, but thought that maybe in the summer this might be ideal.  I remember how this idea metamorphosed in my head on my short walk home and how perfect the idea sounded by the time I reached my front door. 

            At the time I was working a very hectic full-time teaching job consisting in Latin, English, Child Development, and typing.  Was certified in only one of these subjects, and had only a year to complete pass one of the most difficult MTELs I had every experienced.  Needless to say, it became apparently more obvious that I needed a job for the summer.  My only stipulation was that I go home to visit my family for two weeks whom I only get to see twice yearly.  This turned out to be grounds for concern for me being a dependable worker at Valley Fabrics.  A New England school year already goes until June 20^th and to add two weeks onto this was half the summer gone by, but gradually this was conceded as I agreed to work some of evening shifts during the school year and one Saturday per month.  I was in!

            And so my love affair with fabric was increased and refined.  To say that I didn’t already have one going on would be a blatant lie, but to say that it didn’t rise to a new level, that my taste in fabric didn’t become more refined, that I didn’t learn and grow to love name brands in fabric, or feel the difference in the quality of the cotton, or acquire a more discerning eye regarding reproduction fabric, or learn by osmosis how certain techniques were done, or sign up for as many straight out technique classes where I learned how to quilt would be further from the truth.  

            I enjoyed every minute of being in that shop!  Being a highly visual person who adores pattern and color, there was always something new to contemplate whether it be new fabric, a new quilt or quilt block, or, when there was a little extra time, from one of the quilt books on the shelf.  I found that the more time I spent with the fabric, the broader my appreciation grew.  Folding fat quarters or cutting fabric for someone that I hadn’t really considered before would make me reconsider.  If I could sum up the essence of the shop in one word it would be “bright”, and bright was something that I learned to appreciate more and more.  There was something so happy in the quilts that incorporated some bright fabric that I could never bring myself to condemn.  Polka dots and stripes took on a versatile role and batik and Asian fabric were microcosms of their own.  I was the most smitten, or course, by the medium colors--some would say pastels—that have always been my favorite.  I am also a great aesthete of 1930s style quilts with their bright and varied patterns on solid backgrounds of white or yellow or green.  We would periodically get in a selection of these charmers and I would eat them up.  The Civil War era fabrics were also interesting, far more geometric and funky than one would suppose, but overall too bland to be very tempting.  Although, it must be said, these were thought to be my favorite by the owner of the shop the entire time I worked there. 

            A world of fabric: a world of fun.  I even enjoyed (with few exceptions) interacting with the more demanding customers either of the “tell me what I like” or “tres indecisive” variety.  It was enjoyable to me to discover how everyone fit so differently into this fabric universe where the walls were bolts, and the decorations were quilts and the eye candy at the register were fat quarters and six packs and little pins made of felt.  It was a world of ideas, where the only thing stopping you from completing your project was finding the right fabric for it.  It was a world that existed outside of time, and, although concessions could be made to the element of time within the shop, but they weren’t truly believed until one was thoroughly outside and on the sidewalk again.  It was primarily a woman’s world where plastic bags were refused on the grounds of husbands, “If I just slip this fabric in here (pointing to a purse or a plastic fabric carrying device) my husband won’t have to know,” I heard many times and from many different women. 

            My own ideas for my still hypothetical business flourished here.  And with my employee’s 30% discount the fabric quickly followed the thought.  It was a common joke among the employees (all fabric-minded women) that it was hard to earn actual money that didn’t go directly back to the shop through purchased fabric.  This was definitely true for me, but I didn’t really mind.  I guess I must have had enough saved up from the year to pay my rent and utilities and I looked at the fabric job as an investment.  It’s not that I haven’t acted on my impulse, either.  I have preshrunk and cut and calculated so many cuts of fabric in the past year and labeled it and put it into separate little zip-lock baggies ready for sewing that I feel about half way there.  I have also acquired some quilting skills that I previously lacked which will be essential for my business, and formed a friendship with a lady who will answer my questions for me if I get stuck.  Valley Fabrics is gone now having fallen on hard financial times and I am greatly saddened, but the way it came into my life and filled the void between desire and ability in terms of quilting, business, and design skills was indisputably fortuitous.  The time for purchasing and planning is over and the time for sewing and selling has come.  I do not need to be tempted by more ideas, but ought now to go for my dreams.  Thank you, Valley Fabrics, thank you and adieu.