Once upon a time I had a life and a terrific hobby, quilting. As most dedicated quilters I prided myself on my "itty bitty stitches" and my wondrous completed quilts. Family and close friends that received my handiwork were delighted and knew that each stitch was a statement of love. My quilts were coveted by many who began to encourage me to do more, say perhaps opening a small quilting shop. Foolish girl that I was I did so believing that I could spread joy and warm thoughts through out the community by having a small shop where other quilters could gather and share their own stories and display their beautiful handiwork.
Quilted Expressions, also known as QE to those in our sewing family, opened its doors the spring of 1992 in Lynchburg, Virginia off of Old Forest Road in a small but quaint house. Being a relative small store we started with a little more than five hundred bolts of fabric, assorted books, sewing notions, and featuring Pfaff machine products. Quilters, and wannabe quilters came with unparalled enthusiasm for miles around to visit our shop. By the time our 1st anniversary rolled around my newly extended quilting family had thoroughly educated me on the quality of fabric and necessary notions to make "the perfect quilt". Through these loyal customers I learned of our communities need for high quality fabric and "top notch service". Thus, the mission of QE was born along with the idea of recruiting some of our top and talented customers to join our quilting family.
The first to join our family, in 1993, was Carol Canard. Carol has proven to be my right hand helper and all around Girl Friday. Thanks to her, or maybe not, our business has taken off in many directions leaving me with even less personal time to stop and smell the roses. One of the many schemes we came up with a couple of years ago was joining the show trade circle. Annually, we would pack up our QE trailer with lots of goodies and hit the circuit by March of each year and continue to travel throughout the summer.
Norma Slezicki was the next quilter to join our circle. You will find this trusted old friend in our machine area selling Pfaff and Bernina products along with teaching a couple of great classes. By the time that Norma joined us we were already beginning to feel the first twangs of our shop becoming a bit too small to meet the needs of our customers. The long and arduous search began for the "perfect quilting & sewing machine store". This was especially true when Jerry, my son, had begun his training on sewing machine repairs and sales. With the repair and sales portion of our little 2nd home beginning to really take off it was quickly noted that we were now an expanding business and simply needed more space.
1998 brought with it an abundance of good cheer and the coming home of our daughter Tamera along with her husband, Joe Ehlinger and son JT. Joe had been running a very successful high end vacuum sales and repair business in New York. What a son-in-law! Not only did he bring home our delightful grandson and daughter he also brought with him a goal of building a strip mall to house his new business in (House of Vacuums) and the new and improved Quilted Expression and Sewing Possessions. 1999 came in with a flurry of construction and buying trips to fill our new stores and of course our new grandson, Parker.
July 1st, 1999 heralded the grand opening of our new store located in the newly built mall. QE finally had room to grow and boy did we ever! Joe also opened up his new House of Vacuums next door along with finally moving lock, stock, and barrel to our fair town with our beautiful grandchildren (what a bonus!).
The new and improved Quilted Expressions and Sewing Possessions had over 3000 square feet giving us the ability to dedicate a large room to hold numerous classes which have greatly expanded to meet the needs of our customers. Our sewing machine trade had also expanded to such a degree that it begged for a shop of its own not only to supply machines but to repair and service those that could not get local service. The new building also gave us room to now carry two lines of superb machines with a wider range of price points. Bernina stepped up to join Pfaff offering customers a greater selection of sergers, sewing machines, and the new embroidery machines. These new computer friendly machines opened a new world to many when we expanded our software lines to help you to quilt and sew with flair and precision. Our machines and embroidery programs now encouraged the quilter/sewer to create stunning creations and to allow their creative juices too flow.
We now had a quilting shop that we were very proud of, along with our customers. Not only did we have room to house over 4000 bolts of fabric, hundreds of books & patterns, and tons of notions, which we have been told, "fulfills a quilters dream", we had available a large room downstairs waiting for another grand idea. Jerry now had a machine sales and repair business and Tamera, our daughter, was soon to enter the picture since her move from New York. My original idea of having a fun shop to enjoy quickly was taking on a life of its own as we were challenged to meet the needs of our expanding customer base. The big surprise and payoff for me was that my little shop was quickly turning into a family business.
By 2001 we had settled into our new store and began thinking more about all that wasted space downstairs. Everyone had many great ideas and one in particular stood out from the rest. The only problem was that we had no one to commit to the rigorous training and time commitment this new project would require. Tamera was ready and able to step up to the plate and soon began our Machine Quilting business using our new Long Arm Machine. Now for those quilters who love to quilt but do not have the time to put it together now could turn over this taxing task to Tamera freeing quilters to move onto another quilt top.
As Tamera has become more involved in the business, it has allowed me to follow another passion - my grandchildren! Jerry now has the sewing machine department under his control at CREATIVE STITCHES while Tamera now manages QUILTED EXPRESSIONS. Since they have it covered, I can now do the only thing that can take me away from quilting - play with my grandsons.
Stop by and enjoy what we have worked so hard to achieve - we'd love to see you. Say Hi to Tamera and Jerry and if you see two munchkins running around, I must be out of town!!
