Wow! Your LQS needs you!
Hey everyone - hope you all had a very merry Christmas and everything that you deserve was under your tree this year. I am the owner of Stitchin' Heaven in Mineola (thank you Quilter 65 for that awesome testimony!) and have been in the business of providing a quality operation where you can purchase your fabric for over 16 years. It has not been easy.
There are many hard-working women and men who have put their heart and soul into their local quilt shop business. Internet makes the times what they are I realize and if our consumers of fabric are content to shopping at places like fabric.com we cannot compete. It is just simple: if we don't have the sales we cannot pay our expenses and that equals out of business.
Fabric.com is owned by Amazon.com and it puts them in an entirely different category. Your local quilt shop does not have the volume purchasing power to go head to head with these companies. In our world Internet and big box companies are taking over leaving us with vanilla choices and not much personality. Your local quilt shop is one place that is different from all the rest. A place where you can get a sweet greeting and good service. I know you may think "if I shop at a place like fabric.com every once in awhile it won't hurt anyone..." but it does. Your local quilt shop needs every nickle it can get to keep the doors open - literally.
So please tell me how you feel and I ask this in the most sincere way possible. Do you want your local quilt shop to survive? I ask that question and ask you to answer it honestly. No reprimands. No judgements. If you don't then perhaps the lqs owners of today should be earnestly be evaluating the future of their stores and whether or not they should try to continue.
Would you like to live in a world without quilt shops?
Your friend in quilting - Deb Luttrell, owner of Stitchin' Heaven, Mineola, TX