The first part of this post was originally published on April 19, 2010.
OK, I know it's a cardinal sin but I really don't like my local quilt shop.
When I first moved to my new home I thought it would be wonderful to have a quilt shop less than 5 minutes away. How handy it would be when I needed inspiration or had a little money burning a hole in my pocket.
I can't tell you how disappointed I was the first time I went in. It's not that the place is particularly terrible, it's just that it isn't the kind of quilt shop I'd hoped to find. The selection of fabrics is the main reason. I rarely ever find anything there that I want to buy. I don't know if it's that the store buyer and I have totally different tastes, or if my tastes are out of the mainstream of this area. It's probably a little of both.
I suspect that a lot of it has to do with me being out-of-sync with the other quilters in my area. I'm probably a bit of a quilter "freak" wherever I go, (here she goes again, complaining about not fitting in....), so it could be mostly my problem. However, it doesn't take away my disappointment that I can't enjoy my LQS. It's a real bummer.
At least my experiences there have only been disappointing in a fabric selection kind of way. I've had some experiences in other stores that have made me swear off of them forever. There was one store over in the East Bay that's very popular. When it opened years ago I had a nasty experience with one of the owners. I was waiting patiently in line to have my fabric cut and he ignored me completely, taking several customers ahead of me who it turns out were his "regulars." They had long drawn-out discussions about all kinds of subjects while I was waiting, and when he took another customer instead of me for the third time I piped up that "I was next." He looked right at me and said that I was mistaken, that this woman,(who had entered the store after I started waiting in line),was before me. Well, that was the final straw. I told him that I had never been treated so rudely in my life and left the store vowing to never return. Which I didn't do for several years, not until I heard that he had sold the business to someone else. What a difference! The new owners are friendly and helpful to everyone.
I've had experiences while traveling where I've been ignored in favor of "regulars." That seems to be the most common complaint I've heard from other quilters. It's like the store is more social club than retail enterprise. Some times when I hear quilt shop owners complain about the chains and the online stores taking away business I want to ask them how they treat ALL of their customers. Do their clerks chatter on with regulars and family members while other customers are waiting? Are they welcoming and helpful? Do they treat their jobs seriously, not just as a way to make a little extra cash or get an employee discount?
There are many well run quilting shops here in Northern California, shops where I can walk in every few months and be treated like they really want me there. The good shops keep going because of their customer service and the other services they offer. Fabric is cheaper online and at the big chains. Shops have to work at making going to the quilt shop more about the experience, and that means making sure their customers are having a pleasant one.
This phenomenon isn't just a female/quilt store thing. My husband is a fly fisherman and many fly shops have the same mentality. They have their regulars and ignore new customers. He's put down many an item and walked out for lack of service.
Update
First of all, the local quilt shop I wrote about back in 2010 closed a few years later. I went in a few times after my post because I didn't want to drive 20 miles to pick up some thread. The service was just the same, terrible! Once I waited and waited while the owner ate her lunch. I let her know I was there and she ignored me. Really? It wasn't surprising when it closed. It also didn't help that a Hobby Lobby opened nearby.
After that I did most of my fabric shopping online unless I happened to be near one of my less local favorites. When I moved up to Oregon four years ago I was excited to discover that there were two quilt stores in my new town, and one not too far away. It took me a while to get the time to check them out. One was rather small, but they had a nice selection of things I liked, and the clerks were super friendly, Win! The other store was larger and fancier, also with a nice selection. However, it had the same kind of aura around it as the one in my old town. There was a large group of ladies in the workroom, where a lot of the best fabrics were displayed. They were decidedly unfriendly. Frankly, I got the very strong impression that my shopping was disrupting their gossiping. I didn't stay long.
During this time I was in the process of building and setting up my studio so I wasn't doing any sewing and didn't need to buy any fabric, (I also was a little freaked out by the 45 boxes of fabric and supplies I'd brought up from California...Yikes!). Not too long after we moved into our new house, my mother came to visit and I took her to our quaint downtown to do some shopping. We went into the not so friendly quilt store because my mother wanted me to restore one of her mother's quilt tops and get it quilted.
It was a "Round the World" quilt with teeny tiny one inch squares, some hand and some machine stitched 1/8 " seams. Now, my grandmother was a wonderful seamstress, she was actually trained as a tailor and for years worked in fabric and drapery departments of major department stores. She was not a quilting novice. The quilt was made with scrap fabrics, many of them from her children's clothes. It was in amazing condition considering it's age, but needed to have all of the threads clipped and quite a few squares replaced where they had frayed. It was my intention to repair the quilt and have it machine quilted in a loop design that was big enough to hold the fragile squares in place so they wouldn't shift or get damaged further. I also knew that the quilt would not be used on a daily basis, but that the repairs and quilting were to preserve it for the next generation to enjoy.
My mother and I had picked out a solid fabric for the background and we were discussing the costs and time frames to get the quilt finished when the owner of the store came over and started giving us her unsolicited advice. Now, I'm pretty patient, but she really stepped in it with me when she flat out told me that I didn't know what I was doing.
She insisted I quilt it by hand. Now, normally that's what I do. However, in this case it was going to take me forever to finish restoring it, (by hand), and I did not want to take even more time hand quilting it when I felt it would be better served to be more densely quilted by machine. I also knew my grandmother. She would have been the first one to buy a long arm, as she had multiple hobbies she enjoyed and wouldn't have wanted to spend too much time hand sewing. She was a very practical woman.
Anyway, the owner became quite angry with me when I told her that I was not going to hand quilt it. She accused me of not caring enough about my grandmother's work, and said that I obviously didn't know what I was doing. Now, by this time I had told my mother to sit down on the other side of the room. She's a typical Mama Bear and was turning red with rage. I then proceeded to tell this woman that I had been quilting for 46 years and had won multiple national and international awards and that I knew what I was doing, and how dare she tell me what to do. I told her that I had never been spoken to in that manner by anyone, and I certainly wasn't going to stay and take any more of her abuse. My mother had already paid for the backing fabric so we took it and left the store. I have not been back there since.
From then on whenever I would meet other quilters I would tell them about my experience. Every single one of them had had a similar experience with her interfering and being very rude. One knew someone who worked there who said she'd run off more customers by being nasty, and they couldn't understand why she just couldn't shut up. Later on I mentioned the experience to an elderly friend of mine and she told me that the woman was known in town as a world class bitch and had always been one. She was notorious!
The saddest thing is that her store survived the Covid lockdowns, while the other shop with the nice clerks closed permanently. I miss them!
We had moved to a small rural community a couple of years before and they have a small quilt shop not too far from my house. Their hours are not regular, (which is a pain), but they have a great selection and are super friendly. I took my grandmother's quilt in to them, and they gave me a better price to machine quilt it, and thought that would be the right thing to do. Now, I just have to finish restoring it!
When I originally published the first part of this post in 2010 I got a ton of comments and similar stories from readers. Feel free to share yours!
Happy Stitching!
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