I’m excited to share a little about Rachel, a new crafty business owner and the woman behind Dewberry Lane, an online shop for quilting notions and sewing supplies! She also blogs at Scrapendipity Designs if you’d like to say “hi.”
Rachel, welcome to Craft Buds! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
I live in New Hampshire with my lovely husband and awesome son. I have many interests, including Revolutionary War Reenacting, but my favorite hobby is of course quilting!! I learned to quilt 12 years ago, but really started being passionate about it in the last 4 years or so. Quilting is a wonderful creative outlet for me, and I am slowly learning my own style. I am a quirky kind of girl, so that often comes out in my quilts. Like many others, my to-be-finished pile is much longer than my finished pile, because I have more ideas than time.
Where did you get the name for your quilting notions shop, Dewberry Lane? How did you decide to get started?
Dewberry Lane was actually the name I thought of for another project. I was looking into starting a digital scrapbook store, and purchased the domain for that. The store never took off, but I kept renewing the domain anyway because I really liked it. When I purchased my longarm machine a year ago, my husband and I were talking about quilting and quilting as a business and I mentioned to him that I would love to own a quilt store. He asked me why I couldn’t, and that got me started down the path of opening the store. When it came time for the name, I knew Dewberry Lane was it. It was a perfect fir for the store, and I was glad I held on to it for all those years.
If you were stranded on a desert island with your sewing machine, designer fabrics, and only 3 other quilting tools, what would they be?
A small hand needle, freezer paper, and scissors. (And I assume thread, too?) I would use a hot rock as a makeshift iron, and go to town with applique. Although I love all kinds of sewing and quilting. If I was going to be stuck for years on end, I would choose to do applique because there is just such a myriad of design choices. Plus it takes so dang long to do, when the rescuers come to get me, I might be asking them for just a little more time!!
What fabrics are you loving right now?
I am not always up on the latest fabrics; it’s just not my forte. I believe in specializing in what you know, and I know tools. I love patterns, books, thread, special rulers, fusibles . . . anything that can make my life easier when quilting. I leave the fabric choices to other stores that can do it so much better than me. I personally love scraps. If I could have a store filled with scraps, and people wanted to buy that, I would do that in a heartbeat (hmmmm maybe there is an idea there).
My favorite thing is to get scraps from other people because I rarely buy quantities of fabric, so this allows me to get small pieces of fabric I would have never thought to buy myself (anyone want to trade??). But if I had to choose a line, I would have to say that I am totally crushing on last year’s Dr. Seuss fabrics. This has been one of the very few lines of fabrics where I bought every single pattern in the line. I have already made a few tops with it and have plans for a few more.
Giveaway!
Rachel is generously giving away a $30 gift certificate to her shop to one lucky reader! To enter:
- Leave a comment telling me one product you love from her shop. (one entry)
- Sign up for her newsletter (link in the left sidebar of this page), and leave a second comment. (one entry)
Rachel holds a free pattern drawing each month for newsletter subscribers! Giveaway is open worldwide, and we’ll choose one winner on Thursday, July 28th at 11:59pm. Thanks Rachel!
