More space. More Space.

“You need more space.” I have been hearing it from those of you who like to kid with me, as you watch the pallets roll in. I’ve heard it from customers who are too cramped. I hear it from my husband, from Jessica, from Sarah, and of course, from my own brain. Constantly. Every day.

Well, we have needed more space in our fabric warehouse. However, there was no place to go until an unsuspecting couple walked into our showroom one day in December and asked an innocent question about some fees “for a unit that’s for sale in this strip center.”

I had no idea there was another unit for sale. We’d already tried and been unsuccessful in buying our next door unit.

So, we had learned to be content with the 3000 square feet that we’re using for our fabric warehouse, figuring we’d have to figure out how to be still more efficient!

Smelling a space solution, we decided to hop down and look at it when we found out which unit it was. After some haggling, we decided to buy it, even though it was several doors down, and we closed on it on Dec. 29 of 2020, just 3 weeks ago today (Jan. 19, 2021.)

 It is just the same size as my current Chop Shop.

So, we’ve decided to move my Chop Shop down there, and I can cut packs uninterrupted on my 27 foot table, with undivided attention, and we can open the current Chop Shop to retail space.

(The following picture is really a gallery of pictures. Be sure to click through it to see the progress, of how the paint went from yellow to gray throughout the unit.)

 Things have progressed fairly rapidly, at least for us!. We closed on the unit on Dec. 29. On Dec. 30 we started removing some unnecessary walls. Shortly thereafter, the guys removed the old flooring and painted the interior walls with a beautiful gray that matches our current showroom/warehouse, and on Jan. 8, 11 and 12th of January, they put in the new flooring. Ken found the curtains for me and installed them, so I could keep plugging away at my projects!

On Tuesday through Thursday they (Michael and Peter) built shelving. (Michael is my son in law, and Peter is my son.)

Then on Friday, just 2 weeks and 3 days after we became owners, we started moving some of the fabrics from the Chop Shop! We are stoked at the quick transformation of the space!

 On Monday, (yesterday) in lieu of doing a Ken and Rachael show, Cheryl and I opted to move fabrics into the new space. Ken and Peter had already moved about 50% of what you’re seeing. However, it was getting to the more difficult stuff, and it was important for ME to do it.

The move is critical for me, that I keep the fabrics organized and put them onto the shelves in a way that I can find things, and be able to cut more packs from the fabrics as soon as I need them. Cheryl and I were both hurting by the end of the day, but we did have a pretty wall of fabrics!

I’m not sure how long it’ll take us to get moved over there to the new Chop Shop, and the grand shuffle of fabrics made to turn the “now” Chop Shop into sales floor, but we’re hoping to alleviate having fabrics lined up in the hallway, and be able to open up more space for our $9.99 fabrics and our color areas.

The back of the store is not Showroom ready, by any means, but we’re just letting you know that we’re making progress. It’s slow progress, because, like everything else in life, we’re trying to keep all the other juggling balls up in the air while doing the move. So, imagine watching a juggler already handling 5 balls, and then someone throws them a jump rope and expects them to jump the rope at the same time!

So, we’re trying. We’ll get there. It’s a fun and exciting time, but we sure are missing our snowbirds who never came down, our Canadians who weren’t allowed out, and our home bound, who haven’t made it in this season! We had our very first group of the season in on Monday (yesterday). We were commenting that last year this time we had had several groups already here in January with an almost full calendar of groups coming in during February through March, until the cancelations started coming around March 18.

Of course, we love having you order online, and we count on your doing that. We love doing the Ken and Rachael show, but wanted you to know what we’re doing.

Progress is fun, but it’s also painful.

So, bear with us as we have a mess at times, and we might not know exactly where something is as we do the grand shuffle.

We’ll keep sharing pictures, so you can be “in the know.”

This is the final picture of the new chop shop on Monday night at 5:30 p.m. as I walked out of the room, exhausted, hurting, but happy with one great wall of fabrics finished! I did NOT have any energy to show you the Current Shop that now looks like someone has taken a bulldozer to the room! That’ll come in time as we prepare that room to open to the public!

Now to get more shelves built for the other side of THIS room, so we can finish moving out of the Chop Shop and INTO the new Chop shop! And THIS is why we could NOT have a Ken and Rachael show, as well as the fact that Ken went to a conference and wasn’t here!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Stay safe!

Be sure to check out what we have for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!