Featured Sponsor - Crafty Girls Workshop

Anna from the Crafty Girls Workshop has popped in today for a chat. Perfect timing really as Anna has some great Jelly Rolls on sale, it is not too late to join the quilt along!

FQ: Tell us a little bit about how you came to have a fabric store?  My shop is online only for now. I hope to eventually open a place where I can teach classes on a full time basis. The focus of the shop will be on learning and teaching.

Mostly the online shop started because I am a fabric-a-holic! I decided to open the shop and open some accounts with wholesale companies (such as Moda and
Michael Miller) and once I was able to buy wholesale I couldn't go back to retail, but I've always wanted to provide high quality fabrics and patterns along with some information about them.

My blog is meant to support the website, if I get something new in the shop and I see a great idea online of what do make with our new items, I'm going to create a post about it and tell my blog readers. I don't want people to just buy fabric to collect it, they should buy it to make beautiful children's clothing and cute tote bags and gorgeous quilts.

Also, since I work full time in a day job, I'm busy so I really LOVE the pre-cut fabrics that Moda offers. Now there are a wide array of patterns to go with them. I also just added a large selection of PDF patterns that will be mailed to you within 12 hours of your payment.

FQ: What does a normal day entail? Usually get up to get ready for work, check my shop e-mail, work at my day job all day, go home, check shop, e-mail and cut fabric and get it ready to ship the next day. My wonderful mom is helping with the shipping department at the moment.

FQ: What are the best parts about running the store? Interacting with new people who love to sew and teaching new people to sew has been awesome. Of course, since I'm online it's slightly difficult to reach through the screen and teach someone to sew but I've started a local group that meets once a month and I'm teaching them to make easy quilts we're going to donate to a local shelter for homeless families. I get so inspired when seeing how people choose their fabrics and put them together.

FQ: Are there any aspects of the job that you don't enjoy? Dealing with shipping problems is very difficult. Luckily we haven't had too many but it's always a debate if the post office loses something and it can't be recovered. Now I've added the option to purchase insurance on your shipping so that should help in the future.

FQ: When do you fit in time to be creative/sew? I guess a lot of my creativity is expressed when I write a blog post or an e-mail newsletter. Unfortunately there aren't enough hours right now to do all
that and sew! I get to sew at my Crafty Girls meeting occasionally. Usually I feel like I need to sew the project before the meeting to have something to show the class. I really want to work in more sewing time in the future though. Maybe when my personal life settles down a little.