15th Anniversary Celebration
On July 1, 2010 Sandy purchased Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop (well it was Rae-Bon Quilt and Sewing Center then - we’ve done a little name modification along the way).
That's a decade and a half of dazzling fabrics, legendary events, eye-popping projects, and the most fabulous customers ever!
We're beyond excited to celebrate this milestone with you, so we thought, "Why stop at just one day?" Over the next 15 days we want to take a little stroll down memory lane with you. Each morning at 11 am we’ll be live on Facebook to look back at a year in our history. We’re bringing back many of the amazing staff members you all miss seeing in the shop. We’re revisiting some of our favorite projects over the last 15 years with a new spin. And we’re reminiscing about some of our favorite memories. We’d love a live studio audience so swing by the shop each day at 11 am. If you can’t make it, you can always check our live or the replay on Facebook to see what shenanigans we're up to!
Back in 2010, Rae-Bon was located on Main Avenue with a little different name and a different logo. Our shop at that point was two levels with two entrances. All of our sewing machines, notions and most of our fabric was upstairs. When you went downstairs you’d find the large batik section, our classroom, and sewing machine repair.
In 2010, we began carrying Moda Fabrics. They quickly became one of our most favorite. We love the wide variety of designers they work with and their amazing quality of fabric. To top it off they are just a really great family owned company. Sandy and Jennifer have had the opportunity to visit their warehouse three different times over the years. On each visit, they have been continually impressed with how well the company cares for the staff at every level including putting in special ventilation to make sure all the fabric lint stays under control to protect the lungs of the warehouse staff. This care even extends to the mills Moda works with oversees. Moda signs exclusive contracts with their printing mills and precut mills. This allows them to have more say in the production process and working conditions.
While at the Moda Warehouse, Sandy and Jennifer hand selected a number of fabrics (100 to be exact) just for you. Sandy is putting these out at a special price of $8 per yard for our Anniversary Sale. These bolts were just put out in the classroom today and are available while quantities last! Sorry no phone orders, this special is in shop only.
We couldn’t take a walk down memory lane without revisiting some of our amazing projects over the last 15 years.
Let's Revisit Pine Tree Valley
In 2010, Sandy launched Rae-Bon's very first embroidery block of the month, Pine Tree Valley. Embroidery block of the months have become so popular we've lost count of how many we've done.
Pine Tree Valley was originally made in a more primitive color palette with lots of browns and golds. For the revisited quilt, Sandy picked a brighter more contemporary color palette. For a little extra texture, a few of the embellishments are made of some newer materials we didn't have access to in 2010 like cork and OESD Luxe Sparkle Vinyl.
Rae-Bon was still located on main avenue in 2011, but the shop was expanding. The barber shop next door left and Rae-Bon was able to expand into their space. This added three additional rooms including a dedicated wool space and a space just for kids fabrics. We also took the wall down between the two spaces. All the extra windows really brightened up the space.
2011 was Rae-Bon’s first foray into youth sewing. We let the kids pick from a variety of projects to sew. What were we thinking? We’ve streamlined those classes a lot since the early days.
We were just starting to ramp up email collection, so we mailed out hard copies of our newsletters quarterly. Jennifer started pattern writing pretty much from the beginning. Each newsletter this year included a different seasonal tree mini quilt.
The embroidery block of the month was such a hit in 2010 that we decided to do another one. This year, we selected Goose Tracks by HoopSisters. Both Sandy and Jennifer stitched up a version so there were two color options and two size options.
Interesting note this year, there was a global cotton shortage and fabric prices all took a jump.
In September, we started “I have a Notion . . . to learn to use all these rulers”. Each week we had a featured ruler and customers could come in for a demo and see a project utilizing that ruler. In honor of “I have a Notion”, we’re running all Rulers 10% off today.
Where You a Member of Sweet Pickins Club?
In April 2011, the Sweet Pickin's Club launched. Each month, club members received “The Pickin’ News” with recipes, sewing tips, and info on quilting tools & gadgets. At the monthly club meeting, members picked up their exclusive pattern for the month and a mystery block (for a complete quilt at the end of the 8 months). The classroom was also open on Pickin’ Thursday so members could work on their project together. Plus we made up the newsletter recipe to snack on!
The Clutter Keeper was one of our favorite projects from that club. We've tweaked the pattern a bit to feature ribbon rather than a strip of fabric. Yo-Yo flowers were in 2011, but we thought we’d do a fresh take for 2025 with an adorable felt envelope on the side.