The Glass Thimble
3434 N. High Street
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Phone: 614-267-9566
Fax: 614-267-1795
Toll Free: 800-323-1725
The Glass Thimble - Setting the Standard for Quality
Quilting Fabrics, Notions, Classes, Bernina Sewing
Machines, Gammill Machines, Customer
Service, and FUN in Central Ohio!!!
Since we get so many questions about what it is like to own and run a quilt shop we thought that everyone would enjoy reading some of the questions we get. Therefore, we sent out an e-mail and told people to ask any questions they had, so here are some of the questions we received and the answers to those questions. The question that was submitted is black and our answers are blue.
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How many hours to do you work in a week? The shop itself is normally open about 48 hours every week and one or both of us are almost always here. In addition to those hours when the shop is open, Jamie is usually here a few hours every day before the store opens and also spends time working on things almost every night. Justine also spends many hours at home almost every day working on sewing samples and class projects for the classes she teaches, which is usually about 20 classes per quarter. In addition to those hours, there is the occasional trip to the shop at 2 or 3 in the morning when the security alarm goes off for various reasons. What are your favorite colors? Jamie – I have found that color is very dependent on how it is used in the fabric. Overall, my favorite color is probably blue, but as I look at different fabrics, I find that based on the pattern in the fabric, there are some really good blues and some really bad blues. Justine – I love them all except for maybe purple and yellow. Do you have time to make quilts? Outside of shop samples and class samples, there is really limited time for “personal” quilting projects.
What is the worst? The worst thing is that you have very little control over what happens in your store. You are reliant upon the fabric, book, and pattern companies to produce things that quilters want, and you are dependent on customers to buy what you have available. You can have a shop full of fabric and ideas, but if nobody likes them, they will not sell. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Is it hard picking out fabric? It may sound silly, but picking out fabric is the simplest thing, whereas picking out fabric that customers will buy is a lot more difficult. There are always fabric lines that will sell because of who the designer is or because of the color, but there are many more that we really need to ask ourselves if it will sell before we decide to buy it. There seem to be more and more fabric companies all the time, and after a while, everything seems to run together, so it does get harder to pick out which fabrics we will buy and which fabrics we will not buy. Most often, fabric selections are based on what has sold well in the past and what we like. It is very hard to sell something if you do not like it yourself, so unless we know that something will definitely sell, we have to like it ourselves. Then again, just because we like it, doesn’t mean that the customers will buy it. This often happens with fabric that Jamie likes and thinks is “cool”.
Why are you so mean to your wife? Gee, I wonder who submitted this question? How do you go about finding fabric to sell? Most of the fabric companies have traveling salespeople who visit and show samples of the fabric lines that are available. Each store makes its own decisions as to what fabrics they will sell. What method do you use to find out trends in fabric, patterns, etc? What keeps a quilt shop on the cutting edge of what is current in the fabric/quilt world? Most of the fabric we order is not delivered until 3 to 6 months from the date we order it. Some companies have fabric lines available at the time of seeing samples, but most often what you are seeing is not available until months later. You get a pretty good idea of what fabric trends are coming after meeting with a few of the fabric vendors and seeing what lines they have coming out. New books and patterns are shown to us by different vendors, and we also see lots of new things when we attend Quilt Market in What is the most challenging aspect of owning a shop? The most challenging aspect of owning a quilt shop is having the energy and ideas to keep the shop fresh, inviting and original so that customers keep coming back on a regular basis. You need to constantly come up with original and unique ideas for classes and events. In addition, we try to spread out our fabric deliveries so that new fabric is arriving every week. If you go too long without getting any new fabric deliveries, customers will stop coming in and will go to shops where they can see “what is new”. Why are bolts of fabric always sold out and you can't get anymore? More and more fabric companies are only printing a certain amount of fabric and when it is gone it is gone as they move on to printing the next collection. There have been a couple occasions when we order a collection and the fabric company does not get enough orders for that fabric line, so all or part of that fabric line does not even get printed. So how does that work - spending each and every day, all day long with your spouse????? To be completely honest, there are some good days, and there are bad days, but most of the days are pretty good. When you go to markets etc do they have classes along with material so you can learn new ways to piece or quilt? The day before Quilt Market opens, we spend all day at Schoolhouse. Schoolhouse consists of various 15 to 30 minute sessions that start around 10 AM and end about 6 PM. There are anywhere from 10 to 15 different classes to choose from per session and several are repeated during the day so that you have a chance to attend just about anything you want. The sessions are used by fabric companies and designers to promote their new products and give you ideas to take back to your shop. No, you cannot return fabric. Once it arrives, it is ours. And, hopefully, it will someday be yours! Obviously, the more often you are here, the more apt we are to remember your name, but Jamie prides himself on trying to associate a person’s name with something about them as this helps him remember their name. While it usually works, it does cause problems sometimes. He really struggled with one of our customers for a while because for some reason he wanted to call her Velma, like the girl on Scooby Doo, and he really had a hard time getting her name right. We were never sure why he associated her with Scooby Doo, but whenever he saw her, that was the first thing that came to his mind, but he is over it now. He even asked her one day if she had any idea why he would associate her with Velma, but we couldn’t figure it out. How can you look at all the new fabrics and not want to buy them all? It takes a considerable amount of self control to not over-order. We try to make a monthly budget and stick to it, but it never seems to work very well, which is good for you! What is the strangest request you have had from a customer? Probably the strangest one we get, and we get it quite often, is if we can still order a fabric that they bought 5 or 10 years ago because they are just getting around to getting the project done. I frequent a few quilt shops for the different offered classes and different fabric choices based on the projects I might be working on, I get the feeling that the quilt store business is dog-eat-dog; is this there? Is there a high competition between the stores? I understand everyone has to meet their bottom line but isn't there enough to go around? Yes, the quilt shop business is very competitive. That said, there are some shops that we will refer customers to if we know that the other shop has or may have what they are looking for, and other shops will do the same for their customers. There are many shops in the Central Ohio area, possibly too many, and as you said, everyone has to meet there bottom line, and in the current economy, that bottom line gets tougher to meet all the time. Our goal is to have happy customers, so occasionally that means losing a sale on something we do not stock or we are currently out of, but we think that if you find what the customer is looking for at another store and help them out, they remember the service you provided and they will be back. Do you have a preference for sewing machines? Yes, Justine has a preference for sewing machines. She loves Bernina and has been sewing on one for about 25 years. Jamie really likes the Berninas too. Is the economy hurting the quilting industry? Yes, definitely. No matter what you hear, the economy has had an effect on the quilting industry, just as it has on almost every industry. Many customers used to come in and buy fabric just because they liked the design on it. While there still are customers who buy fabric just because they like the design, many customers are buying just what they need for a specific project and maybe a little more, but not an extra few yards like they used to. Do you guys go in the kitchen and laugh about some of the awful color choices we make? Or make a face after you see some of our blocks that don't quite match up? Or wonder why on earth we decide to make a certain quilt? We would never laugh at the fabric choices anyone makes. We might question them at first, but we all know that you never know how something will look until you get it put together. We all make fabric and color choices that someone somewhere does not like, but hey it is not their quilt, so they have no say in the matter. We are always willing to help you pick out fabrics and colors and offer our opinion, but ultimately, the final decision is yours, because you are the one who has to work with it and make the quilt. We often get someone who brings in a half done project and says that they were talked into a certain fabric or color and they really didn’t like it, so they never finished it or got part of the way through it and now they need to pick a different fabric so they can finish it. How often do you buy additional bolts of sold out fabric? It really depends on the fabric and if we think that we can still sell more of it and most importantly, if it is still available from the manufacturer. What are the pros and cons of using social media like Twitter and Facebook for quilt shop owners? What are the hardest and best things you have faced in owning this shop that you didn't anticipate? As we said before, the hardest thing is trying to be creative and original and come up with new ideas all the time for classes, events and products. The most unanticipated and disheartening thing we and probably other shop owners face is seeing unique ideas copied by other shops and hearing some of the things that customers are told. We occasionally get calls from people asking if a fabric is still available to order and sometimes it is, but they were told by another shop that it was no longer available. We try to be honest with everyone as to ordering more fabric. Sometimes it is available and sometimes it is not, but just because it is, does not mean we will order it. We cannot order an entire 15 yard bolt of fabric for a customer who just needs one yard, but we try to be honest with you about it. Creativity and originality is a very important part of quilting and we try very hard to come up with original and new classes and events all the time. We try to keep informed of what other shops in town are doing and it is always good to see what others are doing, however it is disappointing to see someone else copy an original idea that another store came up with. It also continues to amaze us when customers come in and ask us a question or make a statement that is completely false. It is really disheartening when we find out that those false statements were made by other shops to make themselves look better at the expense of another shop. We understand competition and enjoy it, but when people make false statements about other shops to try and gain a competitive advantage, that is very offensive to us and I am sure it is to other shops also. From your perspective what fabric manufacturers supply the best quality in fabrics? From our viewpoint, there are several things that would be considered “quality” of fabrics. There is the feel or “hand” of the actual fabric itself which means how good it feels just to touch it. A fabric can have a very good hand, but sometimes even more important than how it feels is how it looks or the design on it. You can have the most gorgeous fabric design, but if the fabric does not feel good, that will usually keep it from selling. In addition, if a fabric has a good hand to it, but the design does not attract you to it, it probably will not sell either. From the perspective, defining quality of fabrics as both a good feel or “hand” and a good design, there are several that are near the top. Moda and How has your view of the world (I know pretty big concept) changed since owning a quilt shop? The biggest thing that has changed is our knowledge of what it takes to get fabric onto a shelf and available for sale. Neither of us really had any idea of the process of getting fabric from the artist’s concept to actual fabric on the shelf. What was your background prior to owning the Glass Thimble? Jamie was a CPA in public accounting for almost 20 years before we bought The Glass Thimble. Justine worked in the Treasurer’s office of the If an error is defined as continually doing something that doesn’t work over and over without learning that it doesn’t work, then the errors are few and far between. However, if an error is defined as doing something that doesn’t work and learning that it doesn’t work after a couple tries, then there have been way too many to list here!! Everything is always for sale for the right price! What is the most difficult thing about owning a quilt shop that may be different from other retail establishments? The most difficult thing about owning a quilt shop as opposed to another retail store such as a grocery store is that people have to want to come to a quilt shop. We try to provide everyone who walks through the door with a great experience that makes them want to come back. We know the names of most of regular customers and try to get to know them on a personal level, as we want to consider them as friends, not just as customers. It is no different than when you go out to a store to buy something and you have the choice of more than one place that has what you need. You will go to the store that knows you and treats you as a friend, not just someone who needs something that they are selling. |