Let's Visit "The Fiber Co-op" in San Angelo, Texas. It's an Amazing Store!

[Music] [Music] hey everybody hi it's becky from power tools with thread and i have got a treat for you today this is vanessa evans hello and this lady is an implant to the united states where are you from i am from london england okay came here in 1917 not 1917. 1970 right right and uh i've lived in the south southwestern uh section of the united states the whole time okay new mexico arizona and now texas so when i walked in i said this is an intentional drive to get to this shop she told me she was like 12 minutes and that's from that side of san angelo so her shop is northwest of san angelo texas which is west texas middle of nowhere y'all you know i love the town as i was driving here because we're staying at the fam camp the good fellow air force base recreation camp down by the lake as i was driving around the town it reminded me of san antonio about three and a half million people ago just really a nice nice town yeah san angelo seems like it also reminds me of albuquerque from the 70s okay about the same population it was when i went there i lived in albuquerque 92 to 93 i was stationed at kirtland yes nice place so vanessa um tell me your your you raised alpacas yes okay so what's the story with that i was working and one of the women i worked with was on the internet during her break one day and i said what are you looking at she as well i'm buying this property with land and i need to get animals but she she was a single woman she i need an animal that i can handle you know i don't want cows or anything and they said well what about goats she said i've had goats and they're still fast so they're hard to catch and stuff so the ads that just started on tv for the the ad win i love alpacas and it was i love alpacas.com and it was the national registry that was advertising alpacas to get people interested in it so of course i went home went online fell in love with those lovely teddy bears and told my husband and we lived in a house in uh y'all just hear jerry going you want what yes and luckily he's one of these husbands that goes okay didn't you you you had a love of knitting already i i was here um yes i love knitting and and that was the whole reason why the animals intrigued me because they were furbearers and they were going to provide me with fiber i was not a spinner or i do not have a loom i never wanted to get into weaving but knitting and crocheting was my love and so which automatically transitions into spinning which uh once you learn it it's it's kind of like learning to swim you think you're gonna drown you think you're gonna drown and then all of a sudden everything clicks together and you're swimming a lap you know and spinning is like that so once you get it i the only way i can relate to how calming it is it's like watching a fire burn so you told me that you moved you used to live in abilene so you you needed more land for the alpacas so you came here yes okay and you're you're kind of isolated out here okay and there were other quilt stores in san angelo there was one okay and and then so i come in here and this looks like a little tiny shed from the front and i walk in and you guys she's got more fabric it's amazing it's just incredible how many bolts you have and all of your color options are just lovely and this is just the beginning right right there's more okay so before we get started let me fin let me do this i frequently have people tell me that oh i want something from that shop and their first question is do you ship overseas i will okay yes so she will ship overseas i have a website okay but not everything as you will see not everything in the shop is on the website i now specialize in backing fabrics because i i was out of quilting for 20 years then i moved here and started because i was dying fiber i started getting introduced to the quilters that were would come in the court shops and i kept telling my husband i he says oh so now we're going to do quilting as well and i said probably no i said no i'm not because i don't have a stash i said it means starting all over again you can't buy everything from one place of course now we have the internet but uh you have to be in the shop it's got to be with touchy feely with our fabrics and i i i was definitely one of those and so i said no no no no i'm not getting into one more thing i've dabbled in so many things in my life all sorts of arts and so um famous last words here i am there you are surrounded by fabric she is yes okay so how approximately what's your inventory how many bolts i have over 300 bolts of backing fabrics a backing fabric just backing oh my goodness and then i'm probably about 2500 in fabric okay so worth the trip it is people will when you say that i it looks like a little shed from the outside right i will be you know in here and even when i was just this section and you would see people open the door like well you know there's probably nothing there right we probably won't even step inside two jelly rolls and a layer yeah and then you hear oh my god you're a real quilt shop so people beware when you come here you're going to stay a while so when i open the door and i'm hello hello is anybody here hello i was in the room for about a minute before she finally came from the back that's how far back it goes and i'm really excited to show you guys all of this so are you ready to get started okay so in the front here this is just like your color wall right i start with my colors and all my fabrics are sorted into color groups and so the colors continue in the other room okay and the backings are in the other room and if they see something they want they can call or email you and ask you about it yes okay and um i would suggest if they can get a snapshot of of what was on the video okay that would help that's a great idea so take a screenshot of the of the video yes and then email it to you and say this is what i want correct okay good yes and i will warn people i am a creative shopper when it comes to quilting fabric so that i can keep my prices down so one question i get is no i cannot get more of most everything you see okay and two when it's gone it's gone right well yeah that goes hand in hand so let me start here when i when i come in the door everybody and i will show you we walk in and you had your own license plate for uh row by round yes i have three or four of them actually so here are uh the interface interfacings and whatnot oh that is really neat look at that it says quilt the way it's folded how cute it's called book folding book folding that's brilliant i love that [Applause] i've never seen anything like that she's got batting she's got bosal steam a seam by the box full oh that's an adorable tote up there that bag is so cute let me get up here and show you guys this it's just gorgeous stuff the blackbird is one of my designed pin cushions is this like aboriginal fabric that is a a friend of mine died and left fabric to me and it was a grouping of uh small pieces of african fabric love this this is your pin cushion design here yes the black bird look at that isn't that you are so creative look at this one this book stitch very very cool [Music] you've got lots of dmc for those hand-dyed silk ribbon hand-dyed silk okay not just any dmc these all these are so cool these are the block boards like laurie holt makes right but i make them myself okay and they're in groupings but then i had an idea uh to put them into a book so that they could make them portable and these are on a much thinner backing than the others and this um these are totally removable so if you go to class and you're building blocks you put them on these and then you put them back in the cover and take them home wonderful and everybody loves them but then i went one step further i had a brain wave in the middle of the night you know how we always have our brain waves in the middle of the night and so i decided that let's make it more versatile so we still have the the blocks and then we have pockets so that if you're doing a project and you want to take all your tools with it and you can see through that and if you don't use this oh it comes out and you can just again take your blackboards to class so this is a design that i've put together over time and um i love that and the cover on each one did you put the hexis on yourself are they handmade english paper pieced hexis by an english woman of course who never heard of english paper piecing until a couple of years ago and i do paperless paper piecing and i'll show you more about that later so let me just put this back together that is just brilliant and i used to make these as smaller versions for handy hand embroiderers and so it's just an extension of what i've been making for years and then i just have a variety of colors okay then um we start with a um i keep all of my grays and blacks and my background uh beiges in this room because for some reason people never seem to be able to find it and i just moved all my solids in here i this is my wall of notions and it's three-sided grids so really uh you are a fully stocked quilt shop i try to have unusual things if i didn't make it myself then i try and find it and source it wall down there i have i've hand eye wool and you'll see that all over in the corner here uh this little display is full of this is my my wool my yardage my hand dyed walls and my wool velvet felt [Music] oh my goodness that was one of my wool row by row designs it's beautiful and then i now i'm carrying all the supplies for purse making bag making as well which is why i have all these beautiful colors of zippers and vinyl and cork okay there's all of her purse making supplies yes beautiful stuff and all this will eventually be on the website since it's a one-man band it it's just what i'm in the mood for that day that's right this is my thread room i make wow every single skein myself i don't buy skeins of of thread and um and then dye them these are all hand-dyed it starts with cotton and it's pearl cotton and it's in different weights and then i've got six strand cotton which is equal to dmc and then i've got uh number eight silk and something i make that i haven't seen anybody else with is chenille this is rayon chenille that's all hand dyed by me wow and that's great for needle pointers as well as embroiderers this is all hand embroidery thread yeah you know this isn't my thing right and then i've got i respect so much the people who can do this this is just incredible where is your dying station at it's in the garage it's two microwaves it's all done in the microwave or not even in just in a pot and sits for the day this is fascinating i i am just fascinated by this and she has all of her wool pen cushion kit these are yours yes and i'll show you the actual finished pin cushions i saw a pile of them back yeah i can't i pulled those look at that little agora goat pin cushion kit and then there's a ball gold on this side that is just adorable oh my goodness we have an armadillo hedgehog hedgehogs fox skunk and a mouse this is my hand-dyed silks and some of them are variegated these are barricades it's obviously um they're just beautiful okay you uh you hand stitchers this is your spot and crazy quilting it's great for crazy quilting oh my goodness it's just gorgeous and stitching with silk is like stitching with butter it just goes through so beautifully you do a lot of work and my prices are very very competitive my silk is 3.98 a strand and my cottons are 298 a stranded 10 yard skeins wow so um it's very competitive okay let me come into the big room so you offer classes here i do i haven't um you'll see why i'm not offering any right now but this is probably going to be a little offering where i'm going to do little one day two hour classes and teach them each one of these objects okay they're made with a placemat i thought it was pretty clever yes pioneer woman yes yes and then begins on the wall here begins the backing fabrics that i specialize in because i know i've been to so many quilt shops and they have four maybe six offerings of backing fabric and it goes all the way around to the batiks wow and i as i was telling you have over 300 probably 350 volts now of backing fabrics and i'm i'm constantly getting new ones in and i try very very hard to get a variety so that there are some nice masculine fabrics that don't look frou-frou as the women call them yes wow look at this so these are all her 108s right yes and some 118s i've managed to find a company that does 118. okay which really works great for um the bigger quilts these are my pre-cut stands and i have four of them right now and i make my own pre-cuts i make jelly rolls charm squares and layer cakes these long rolls are the layer cakes this is an autumn version 10 inch squares of 10 inch squares and these are on my etsy shop oh okay so you have an etsy yes okay and what's the name of your etsy shop it's it's not the fiber co-op like my shop it's fiber co-op without a hyphen okay it's a little complicated but i will yes it is like fiber coupe okay um i think they wouldn't allow hyphens in shop names or something years ago when i started it so anyway that's what it is if somebody's interested in something that they uh see i'm more than happy to just take a phone call and complete an order that way or a tech email there's lots of information on my website on how to contact me okay i'll have all of the information for this shop below the video in the description box if you want to get in touch with vanessa she's got a big cave section here recognize that stuff yeah hard to miss very very we added this room on a year ago okay and i've already outgrown it and so the classroom is going uh because i need more space for fabric and then we'll build we were building on um a month ago and then the price of wood tripled so i'm just waiting for it to go back down again and um these will be all moved out and my husband who built all these displays will build me some more right jerry built all of these display cases in the front and the back and boy what a job mass producing these things just to give them an idea of how much fabric there's 75 bolts of fabric on each of these this is one display okay 75 volts in wow yeah in one go 25 to a row basically 75 150 yes so 300 just in this row right here wow i hope i'm not moving too fast for you guys so that you can see what all is here and i keep taking i keep making my batiks homeless in order to accommodate more backings lots of reds for you red girls and guys i have a lot of gentlemen who watch my channel that's my laurie holt section over there and i over i was overflowed um i had to put fabrics back in the color groups because i couldn't get all the lorry holt type fabrics right in one spot right because i know that's extremely popular right now very much yes um i do want to point out all the little squares that are up on the wall here are samples of our fabrics but they are also samples of the missouri star disappearing blocks oh okay and i have designed a ruler that makes making these quicker oh show me more easy show can you i can do a demo when we get back in the other room that sounds great it's it's just the best thing since sliced bread and it i did a disappearing nine patch quilt for my son and it was miserable they they were and i was doing one and that eighth inch that you have to keep looking for on the ruler it just doesn't show up when you have to wear glasses right i talked to jerry and i said i have this idea for a ruler will you cut one for me because he knows how to cut plastic and so i made a prototype and tried it and it worked and i was so excited and i sell them like hotcakes here in the shop you have a long arm back here yes okay and so do you do the long arming or do you hide it out no this is my play area sometimes i'm much more happier with all my sewing machines oh show me your pin cushions over there okay before we go there let's let's look at this okay this is my first attempt into a wall hanging in english paper piecing and look at this no paper my no paper whatsoever it is they're made that way they're stitched that way this is from catcher's quilt shop in canada she offers a free quilt every year and she posts the free patterns you do have to have a book lovely yeah and so i just have it up here i have i just plopped them up a couple of months ago because i want to make it go from purple to pink to red and i haven't rearranged anything but these are um you can see on a close-up they're all hand stitched by me i do my stitching normally like any english paper piece so i'm sure the stitches aren't showing up that's how tiny they are yeah i was i i've always since i started as an embroiderer i've always i was taught by my mother to do tiny stitches the tinier the stitch the tinier the needle you use the the more delicate your work looks and i will be once i can get the camera and the computer to coordinate i'll be doing a youtube video on how this is done i want to get more into it into what products i found worked best right for oh i'm just technique so that that will be coming very interested in that and now i've put it on record i have to do it and this again was some english paper piecing that i was dabbling with so cute isn't she talented look at that i could not do that in a million years i do it in the evenings in front of the tv couldn't do it i a lot i have to be doing something with my hands at all times i guess because i do because you're a stitcher yeah that's what you i'm a manufacturer at heart this is jerry the the maker of all of the wooden the builder of this building hi the builder of the building the builder of the cabinets and the racks and all of that so okay so these are these are your these are my patterns the kits are available i don't sell the pattern individually but the kits are 14.95 so you get the wool you get everything you need to make a pincushion and um i've taught these classes you can make one of these most all of these pincushions uh can be made in three to four hours okay promise i've taught classes everybody went home with one this was the little guy that started it all i call him my counting sheep oh and i've always loved the counting sheep in the certa ads and so um yeah he looks like a certain thing this one is a mod you can tell this one's a mod scottish sheep or maybe english gentleman we have to call it this one's a scottish sheep but um it is fun i play around with them this is this year's models the the fox and the skunk and the armadillo but i think the angora is the most loved especially because western texas raises a lot of ignorant yes used to look at the armadillo you guys oh with little spools do the spools come with it as part of yes i saw what yes supposed to come with the kids armadillos feeding sticking up on the side of the road right oh and they get uh a set of my handmade uh pins in the kitchen oh look you made those yes then polymer clay and they're very big variety because i don't make the same ones all the time so there's no guarantee in what you'll get two little owls that's in one kit wow you are so creative i am impressed the cardinal yes that's a popular one they're all over my house i have cardinals everywhere wow so they are lots of fun adorable so you want me to show you how to how i do the disappearing blocks sure let's do a demo let's go up front here's all her little handmade pins yep look at that those it's still pretty darn good i believe it they're just yeah but they're unique that's just awesome i try to find things that are unique or that i know the box stores aren't selling at all because when you're a small shop you have to pick your fights and i just want to offer quality products this is my disappearing quilt block ruler that i designed after making a couple of disappearing quilts and found it so frustrating to find all the little 1 8 marks in my yellow ruler that i really had trouble seeing and so luckily i have a husband that knows plastics and i said can you make me a ruler 16 inches long two and an eighth inches wide and he said yeah i can cut that for you so here's my original my prototype i put this on just because if i put it in a drawer i would never remember what it was for so this is the disappearing block ruler it's 16 inches inches long so that it can reach the far corners of your 10 inch squares disappearing blocks generally are made with 10 inch blocks or a layer cake this is a two 10 inch squares one is solid and one is a print and you put together face together and i just had the lines drawn so you can see you're going to stitch a quarter of an inch on each side of your square it doesn't matter if you pivot in the corners or you go right off it doesn't make any difference you're going to cut it up anyway so that is your first step and if you have a layer cake you'll be doing this 40 times because you will have two layer cakes a solid and a print if you do not want to use a layer cake and do a two color like i've done here you can buy two and three quarter yards of each fabric you are going to use so we have our 10 inch squares we take the ruler and from corner to corner you're going to rotary cut across turn it to the other two corners and cut it and then you'll have four right separate blocks right four half square triangle blocks turn into half square triangles now depending on the design you have picked to make in the disappearing blocks you will either make an hourglass or a pinwheel out of these four blocks they're all cut the same every time you stitch those together and again you have your block you are then going to take your ruler and you um are going to cut two and one-eighth inches from the center seam yes on all four sides so you're going to place your edge of your ruler ignore that line and you're going to cut you're placing it on center seam and cutting okay okay and then you don't have to measure the ruler is the right size correct okay so then if you have a rotating mat this is great right a bigger one uh and again you turn it you're on the on the center seam yes turn it again and you do that four times so basically you've cut out a nine patch yes and then you spin those then you're told in your pa in the pattern or on the tutorial which pieces of the blocks are going to be turned and i found just from making so many this one always gets turned because you you basically are never going to have and i may be not totally correct on this but you'll always have a printer solid next to one another not solid with solid right stitch that together and you have your disappeared block and what i want to point out that's the most exciting fantastic thing jenny doan and her team ever did there is not you'll never get a full patch that they don't meet at the point right you'll never get a triangle that doesn't have its points everything is perfect this i have discovered for my customers this is the best beginner's quilt a beginner quilter can make really this is so that was one of my very first quilts that i made from my son and my blocks were so wonky because i couldn't find the i think i guess i guess that's it i don't know you know but i was a beginner quilter and my seams may not have been right either that's that's the one thing i mean you really you can get away with a little bit of discrepancy and you nearly always have to square off your blocks and squaring off is where you take a ruler and you can use this ruler and just make sure all your little uh you know if it's if it's longer here and shorter here just you know make sure that it's all nicely trimmed off before you go to sew the blocks together it's lovely and this is what this quilt with four blocks would look like and of course this is the repetiti and i don't know if you'll notice there's a star here oh yeah it's it stands out and once you see it then you see the star when you look at the quilt it's very pretty so that is my disappearing block ruler available only from the fiber co-op they're 9.95 oh and then i forgot to tell you the reason i have these marks here is because if you were to pick up this ruler it looks like two one inch spaces you know you just you could mess up where you put it on your block when you're putting it on your block to do your cutting if you don't ha this is um just for the four patch i'm sorry i should explain myself better this line is for the four patch but that's also to remind you what sizes they are and on the four patch you cut a one inch border here on the on the uh center seam oh so that's what the black line is for that's what the black line is for on the four patches there's only a couple of four patch patterns and as far as i know i've made the nine patch and my my ruler does not work for the nine patch it's just different totally different unless i'm wrong i don't like to know no you had a nine patch back here yes but there's a nine patch disappearing where you make a nine patch and then cut it up i'm tracking and i'm not i haven't made another one so this one is is specifically for the ten inch squares yes pretty and the four and the four inch and okay um it it works for 18 of the disappearing blocks that jenny doane has come up with wow the satisfaction when you finish it because everything fit together so perfectly right it gives you the impetus to try something different or another disappearable i could make this a clearing blocks for the rest of my life and be a happy girl because they are so pretty and depending on the fabrics you choose you're going to get a different one every time right so it's fun try it that's awesome so vanessa thank you so much this has been a lot of fun you have an incredible shop here i just love it it's just it's bright and it's happy and it's fun and there are so many things in here this is so you you've personalized it so much with your patterns and your designs and your dyes and your threads and i i just have never seen anything like this so this has really been a treat to find she's a true artisan she really is you're going to see one of those little pin cushions in my my studio i don't know when i'll make it well we're on the road now so maybe i'll do that while we're driving yes sometimes oh thank you i need it yes i've done that to a lot of people that are on the road and they go i could sit in stitches oh i don't have needles no problem here's a needle to go with it they're sweetheart anyway well thank you so much thank you been great this is i am so excited i love your youtube videos and um i just hope people enjoy hearing us converse and right visit so be sure to look below the video in the description box i'll have all of her contact information if you saw something here that you want maybe you want to get some threads and support this small business just give her a call send her an email we'll have all that information below and we will talk to you soon can you say it with me go say something let's go sell something what's fun you

Channel: Power Tools with Thread

Views: 16,639

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Id: FthcSWeS9J8

Length: 35min 19sec (2119 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021