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.
In 2012, we launched our first website (no online store yet, just a website). We weren’t in love with the sewing machine logo we inherited so it seemed like the right time to change it up. We brainstormed for awhile about what was unique about our quilt shop. So many people used thread or sewing machines in their logo and we just wanted something different. Around this time the landlord at our Main Avenue location was replacing the door and asked if we wanted it painted a color. Sandy of course said red and “Open the red door to inspiration” was born. Since we’ve moved locations we no longer have a red door, but we still love the logo.
In December 2012, we offered our first Year of Savings Coupon Book. That year we printed a limited number of books. You would of thought you were at Best Buy on Black Friday. Customers were camped out before any staff even arrived waiting to get their coupon card. Jeff Vorhees (Claudia’s husband) dressed up as Santa and Lauren (Sandy’s daughter) played the part of Ginger the Elf. They passed out hot chocolate and kept customer’s entertained while they waited for the doors to open.
April 2012 was the first newsletter that was available solely online through our website and email. Because we were publishing electronically we were able to switch to a monthly release and be a bit more nimble in our class offerings. The newsletter would also feature “Snippets from Sandy” which most of the time were written by Sandy. All though sometimes Sandy would be too busy and Jennifer would grow impatient and just write it herself and sign Sandy’s name.
September was the first Demo & Dessert. I think this was the longest running event at Rae-Bon. Every month customers would come in to check out everything new that had arrived in the shop. Sandy (or the local grocery store) would bake up something tasty to enjoy while watching the show. Sadly COVID and Facebook Lives made this obsolete, but it sure was fun while it lasted.
Looking through our history it’s been fun to see how many our programs have changed over the years. In 2013, was our first club focused on getting your unfinished projects accomplished. We called it PhD Study Hour (From PhD (projects half done) to Ph.inisheD). Everyone submitted a list of 10 projects they were going to complete for the year. For every project they accomplished they earned 5% off for an item at the end of the year. The discount could be combined so you’d receive up to 50% off something for all your hard work.
The first Brother ScanNCut was also released in 2013. It’s amazing to
see how far that machine has come. The built in scanner was a game
changer when it first came out, but now they’ve improved it even more
with a better quality scanner and an auto cutting blade. Did any of you
own the original ScanNCut? I recognize many of the faces from that very
first ScanNCut class.
Becky’s Bakeshop was one of the new clubs that year. It was a year of
using precuts to make up a variety of projects from trivets to bags to
quilts. The advertisement for this club has always been one of the ones
Jennifer was most proud of. Particularly now as their wasn’t the easy to
use design programs like there are now.
The biggest milestone of 2013 was the launching of the point of sale system and our online store. Many of you may remember Jennifer with her office chair, little table, and laptop rolling around the store as she found pictures and entered product descriptions for every single item we stocked in the shop. Who knew we carried so many different items? Jennifer remembers many of the regulars tracking her progress as she moved through the store over the course of a few months. Everyone was excited when she finally moved downstairs and the end was in sight (Jennifer most of all!). The point of sale system made it easy for us to track customer purchases and launch our loyalty program. This program continues just as it was when it was launched. For every $500 you spend in qualifying purchases you earn a $20 off coupon.
Claudia loves Halloween! So she came all decked out in 2013.
Joan Friedrick visited for the first time. Here she is teaching everyone how they can crochet on their Baby Lock Serger.
Youth Sew students worked on a block of the month this year. A couple of them even entered them in the Fargo Quilt Shop when they were complete.
Pajama Party sewing, PhD Study Hour, Bag Lady Brunch, Jelly Roll Races, Stashbuster Sewing, Simple What Nots Club and sew much more! We always love a chance to get together and sew with friends (or just hang out) Rae-Bon hosted so many fun events in 2014!
In April, we had a Cocktail Party featuring Sealed with a Stitch Designs. We had a ton of embroidery samples while enjoying mocktails and hors d’Oeuvres. Plus everyone got to stitch out an Easter towel to take home.
At another event, Jan Blixt & Connie Rodman shared all of their long arming knowledge. An educator from Brother visited to help get started with an embroidery business. Plus we hosted the biggest event in our history, the Stitchin Sisters. This of course had to be our featured project for 2014, so scroll down to hear more about this event.
We were sew excited to have enough interested kids that we could offer two session of youth sewing camp. In 2014, I don’t think we would have ever believed we could fill 7 summer camps in 2025.
A couple of big announcements were made in 2014. When browsing back through Facebook, Jennifer saw we ran a contest to guess one of the announcements. We posted a new clue each week until someone guessed it. As she was reading the clues she couldn’t figure out what it was. 😆 One smartie pants customer had it on the second clue though. We started carrying Viking Sewing Machines.
At the end of 2014, came the big announcement. . . . Rae-Bon was moving in January 2015!
The Move is Complete
The biggest news of 2015 was Rae-Bon’s move to the current location! We found some pictures from just before we opened and it’s so fun to see how different the layout looks now. I definitely like the starburst layout of the fabric racks now better than the rows.
We reopened in this location on January 22 with a slightly new name Rae-Bon Sew & Quilt Shop. Our Grand Reopening Celebration was held on February 13 & 14.
There were sew many less sewing machines when we first opened this location!
This Creative Grids rack might be the only thing in the store that hasn’t moved to a new spot. It has been moved to vacuum though. ☺️
Our wool selection in 2015 included much more primitive colors. This whole section of the store is filled with everything you need to make bags now!
Sew much Ric Rac!
Row by Row was such a big part of our summer for so many years. Quilters from all over traveled to collect row patterns from different shops. 2015, was the first year we participated. The theme was water, so Sandy created a row with flood waters and the Fargo sign.
Our 1st Favorite Things party was held in December. Everyone brought one of their favorite things to trade with the group. It didn’t need to be sewing related, just anything you loved. It was a fun time to hangout with everyone around the holidays.
The first Edge to Edge Quilting Class using your embroidery machine was offered in September 2015. I can’t believe we’re still regularly offering that class 10 years later.
We were a little surprised to see 2016 was kind of a slow year for Rae-Bon, but as we reflected a little more we realized there was a lot going on in our personal lives. Sandy moved to a new house. Well actually she moved twice. She had to move to a temporary rental house until her house was finished. Jennifer also got married in 2016 which meant a lot of DIY wedding projects. So there just wasn’t time for all the fun events at Rae-Bon.
We did pack a few fun events into the beginning of the year though. Deborah Jones brought her Club Ed program to the shop in February. She has written many books on embroidery techniques. She shared with us how to stitch on difficult fabrics like the plush tummy of a stuffed animal, knit shirt, and small lettering to name a few.
For National Serger Month, we did a number of activities. The serger clutch (still on display) and ruffled serger quilt were popular classes. We had a make-n-take day to come in and test drive a serger. Customers learned about the serger and went home with a zipper pouch they made.
Even though it was National serger month we had a fun embroidery event in April. Sheryl Burnette from DIME wowed us with Embroidery Techniques from A to Z. The event was held in the shop. The landlord had not warned us the parking lot would be under construction at this time. Since parking was very limited, customers parked across the street in the Sanford lot and Cindy shuttled them to and from the shop.
Kimberbell started a new program - Demo December. After attending four
demos customers received the design to make a cute snow globe pillow.
This was back before Kimberbell did all embroidery, so this design was
created with traditional applique.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch our Live video on Facebook today, head over to watch the replay. Chris joined Sandy live to reminisce about some of her favorite memories in the shop.
2017 was back to SEW many activities in the shop. We launched our first of many ByAnnie’s clubs, Let’s Get Organized. Over the course of the year participants made (or just collected) 12 byAnnie’s patterns. They could attend a monthly lecture/demo and/or a hands on class to make that month’s featured bags. We started with pretty easy byAnnie’s bags and worked up to more complicated. Annie Unrein continues to be one of our favorite bag designers and just one of the sweetest and most generous ladies you’ll ever meet. Her passion for supporting local quilt shops is inspiring.
2017 was also the first year we carried Tula Pink’s fabric. Our first line was Spirit Animal. That year at Quilt Market we discovered Renaissance Ribbons. We quickly fell in love with their quality and fun designs. We’ve incorporated all three, byAnnie, Tula Pink, and Renaissance Ribbon, in our look back project today, the Ditty Bag. Scroll down to checkout that bag.
Did you know February 18, 2017 was Sandy’s very first Live Video on Facebook? She was attending Kimberbell Academy in Utah to become a certified Kimberbell instructor. Everyone was encouraged to do a live video on Facebook while they were there to show off the projects they made at the retreat. Who would have thought we’d become such Facebook Live regulars?
This was also the year Rae-Bon partnered with Jane at Bob 95FM to host a monthly Sew What? Each month a select number of people who commented on Bob’s Facebook post would be invited to do a free sewing project at Rae-Bon. This was a fun way to get some new people sewing.
In September, we started our first GE Design club, Fast & Furious Runner Club. Each month, there was a new project for table runners, toppers, and placemats. Everything old is new again as we started a GE Club again in 2025.
For embroidery club this year we worked through OESD’s School of Embroidery creating a variety of in the hoop projects. For those who like to paper piece, Joan B. hosted a Fundamentals of Paper Piecing Club. Each month there was a mini quilt all created via paper piecing.
After
many years, Al decided to retire in 2017. Chris had always enjoyed
tinkering with things, so she decided to train to be the service tech
instead of working the floor. With Chris moving over to service, we were
again able to offer scissor sharpening which we continue to offer
today.
In 2018, we rolled out a new look to our newsletters. This new version
was filled with more content than just our classes, but also
informational content - ruler of the month, book highlight, preview of
upcoming fabric, and more.
We held our first 5th Saturday Challenge. Customers purchased a mystery package of fabric. You could make whatever you wanted from the fabric, but all the fabric had to appear in the finished project (even if you only cut a teeny tiny square). You had until the next fifth Saturday to complete the challenge (usually about three months). We then displayed all the entries and anyone who came in could vote on the winner. I think this is a challenge we might need to bring back. It was so fun to see everyone’s creativity!
2018 was Jennifer and Sandy’s first trip to the Moda Warehouse. Moda and
Martingale Publishing held an event for shop owners. We thought our
cart was so full after we shopped the warehouse during that trip. Now a
cart this size was just our walking around cart and we emptied it into a
larger cart many many times over.
Have you ever attended a quilt shop book club? In 2018, we tried one at Rae-Bon. Each month we highlighted a different sewing book. Normally you would read a book to prepare for book club, but in our book club everyone sewed up a project from the book to share during discussion. I’ve included a few photos from when we discussed Moda’s Merry Makers.
Moda Fabrics held a dinner at Quilt Market and it was carnival themed, so we got to meet monkeys. This really has no bearing on the history of the shop. But how could we not include a photo of Sandy with a monkey?
SewBusy Box Launched
In 2018, we launched SewBusy Box. This was a monthly subscription box that included everything you needed to make a complete project. Click on the video below to watch our fun advertisement. Jennifer wishes she still had endless amounts of time to create fun videos like that.
SewBusy Box ran for there years and included some amazing projects. Many of the patterns are still available to purchase in the shop.
Do you have a copy of 50 Little Gifts on your bookshelf? I think we made 15 or more projects out of that book. You guys loved the book and the many kits available making it one of our most popular selling books. We were constantly sold out in 2019!
We also offered our first Quilt Market Finds Box this year. We presold a mystery box of 10 items. They were a mystery to you and us when you purchased because we picked out our favorite 10 new items at Quilt Market. This box was a lot of fun to put together but also a little stressful to find fun new things but also stay in budget!
New Owners Classes became one-on-one classes in 2019. We always offer free new owners classes when you purchase a new machine at Rae-Bon. Previously these classes were done as a group so you might have people in your class who had a similar class of machine but not the same one. Or maybe someone in your class took up all the instructors time and you’re still left with questions. In 2019, we decided that just isn’t conducive to learning and we switched to one-on-one classes. Christal took on this task of learning all the machines and did an amazing job of teaching these classes.When she retired, the baton was passed to Kelly and the class is still just as amazing. I don’t see us ever going back to group classes.
Mariann joined Rae-Bon in 2019. I must say both Sandy and Jennifer were a little nervous when she joined the staff. Could they really handle that much talking for 8 hours a day? It did take a little bit for her to grow on us, but now we can’t imagine Rae-Bon without her. In fact when her hip was really bothering her she tried to quit, but we convinced her she should just work one day a week.
Everyone Macramed our Day with their “ugly” Christmas Sweater Ornaments
Jennifer started working for Rae-Bon way back in 2010 when Sandy purchased the shop, but she was working remote with another full time job. Every year her job just kept growing and in 2019, she decided she just needed to move to Fargo and make this her full time gig.
One of her first events was to hold a Making It Premier Party. Making It was a crafting competition show made even better by it’s use of crafting puns. We held a Premier Party for their second season premier and even had a little crafting challenge of our own, making ugly Christmas sweater ornaments. One of the frequently said quotes on Making It is something I think we should all remember: “The Real Prize is a Job Well Done.”
Everything doesn’t always work out quite as planned. In 2019, youth camps took a bit of a downturn. We tried including a sewing machine with camp and planned to work through the book, Everyday Essentials by Noodlehead. Unfortunately only one adult signed up for that Youth Camp. You’ll notice we’ve added an age cap to youth classes now.
Customer Appreciation Carnival
In 2019, we held a customer appreciation carnival. Customers earned tickets through purchases in June and July. The tickets could then be used on various carnival games.
We had a Rubber Duck Pond, Fat Quarter Cupcake Walk, Lucky Key to Open a Red Door, Ring Toss, Bean Bag Toss into a Sewing Machine, and a Kissing Booth. There was even a Petting Zoo where you could buy food for your machine from a thread vending machine. It was a full house of carnival games!
We also created a number of special kits with a carnival theme. There was a cute little paper pieced fish quilt. But what really took it over the top was the packaging - it looked like a little goldfish in a jar.
Another favorite was a popsicle mini quilt packaged in a push pop. We included Kraftex, a sewable material with a paper like texture, for the popsicle sticks. We decided to revisit that project and turn the popsicles into a set of four placemats.
I think we all remember the big news of 2020 . . . . COVID.We closed the shop for quite awhile and went to phone orders only. I think everyone who worked during that time period would tell you they’ve never worked that hard. It’s a lot more physically and mentally taxing to do all the selection of fabrics for every customer! Many of us still carry a store phone on our back pocket everyday because we got used to that during the shop closure.
It was a weird time. As I looked through Facebook there was so many posts about elastic - was it in stock, was it gone - so many posts. Plus I found the gem to the left- we were so excited about having black fabric in stock we posted about it. Who would have ever thought black fabric was exciting?
I remember Mary G. had to take some time off and when she came back after a number of weeks one of the first phone calls was inquiring about white thread. She said of course we have white thread in stock. We quickly caught her and said actually we’ve been out of stock for awhile and have no idea when more is coming in. All the basics were difficult to keep in stock and like most places inventory shipments were delayed.
This period also really helped clean up our online website. People found the strangest things that had been long gone. We thought for sure they had been removed from the site, but customers found them.
We’d done a few live videos but we really ramped that up during COVID. We had tutorials, live sales, and even a few classes. We’ve dialed it back a bit - five days a week was just too much for us to maintain, but I don’t think we would be doing so much with video if it wasn’t for COVID.
Sew many orders from our online sales. I don’t think we were the mail mans favorite stop. .
When many of these machines arrived, they had already been sold. Entry level machines flew out the door. It’s too bad more of these people didn’t fall in love with sewing enough to continue it when the world started back up.
We had such a fun product launch planned for Embellish. We’d been sewing up a bunch of samples and planned Make and Takes for party, but unfortunately COVID foiled our plans. Instead we did a big Facebook Live and showed off everything we’d created. But we sure missed being able to share the excitement with all of you in person. Embellish Matte thread remains one of our favorite things to embroider with. It gives a much more modern look than traditional shiny embroidery thread.
Prior to COVID, we hosted a super fun event. A gal came in and taught us how to arrange flowers. Then we stitched up a matching table runner and quilted it on the Sashiko. Everyone went home with a floral arrangement and a finished table runner.
