Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textile Executive: A Touching Story From Quilt Market…please read to the end

I am back from the quilt market in Salt Lake City, Utah and it happily exceeded my expectations.  It also defied a lot of the pre-quilt market predictions which is a good thing too, but that is for another blog.  I guess that it was easy to exceed my expectations since they were pretty low. Did it exceed your expectations or not? The truth is that the the biggest challenge for me the entire week was getting acclimated to the time difference.  It was only two hours, but it was exacerbated by the ungodly hour that I left my house on Wednesday…4:30 am.
I am very pleased to say that the quilt market has provided me with lots of new ammunition to keep my blog full of new stuff to blah blah blog about. It was truly great to see old friends, meet lots of new people and make lots of new business contacts. Shockingly, after much of my blog poking and prodding, emails and phone calls, I am very pleased to say that Karey Bresenhan, owner of Quilts Inc. tracked me down to talk. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of an appointment when she visited so we didn’t have time to chat, but we made contact nonetheless.  You have to start somewhere.  On top of that, I was really happy to have received a follow up email from Karey, last night, about trying to make contact again soon. So good for you Karey for reaching out. Progress is a good thing.

I am hopeful that Karey and I can catch up in the coming weeks to have some meaningful conversations about adapting the quilt market format to the current environment of our industry. As you know, times they are a changin’. I guess we will see what happens. With that, I am asking all those people who have emailed me, called me or stopped me at market with reference to my blogs to say they agreed that the market needed some change to email scott@jaftex.com with some good and realistic ideas about making the quilt market amazing again for everyone (the owner, the vendors, the customers, etc.). I will be glad if we can bring all the issues to the forefront and discuss them in a meaningful way rather than just sweeping them under the rug.

Speaking of my blog, I always wonder if anyone is actually reading it because no one ever comments except the spammers. It is funny because just about every week, my dad says to me, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than write blogs?” All the comments that I hear at market, especially at this market, affirm that people are actually reading my blogs, so I am not quitting yet. Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textiles lives on. Enough of that.

So now let me tell you a really touching story from the quilt market that was stimulated by the new American Honor line by Tana Mueller of Western Denim & Dirt for The Blank Quilting Corp. Yeah, I  know this is the Studioe Fabrics blog, but it is my blog and you need to hear this. So while I was dazzling this customer (let’s call her S), that sells fabric in Illinois, we came upon the American Honor line. All of a sudden, I look up and this lovely young lady is starting to tear up and cry. I was totally baffled. Never had I seen a person cry about fabric.

After consoling S for a little, she calmed down and proceeded to tell my brother and I that this line truly touched her heart more than we could imagine. It really hit home. S told us that she and all her siblings (9 in total) were present and former military personnel. This one particular design really hit home for her. I am not going in to details describing the design because I can’t do it justice, but basically it was the image of a special formation of the gear of a fallen soldier (See below on the left). Wow! How powerful! Kudos to Tana for really getting the message across loud and clear. And that is my touching story.

With that, I would just like to say thank you to S and her family and to all those brave hearts that protect the amazing freedoms that we enjoy in America. Thank you for all you do from the bottom of my heart. That is just a little something for all my readers to think about this coming Memorial Day weekend and everyday. I know I will and I will make sure my kids are thinking about it too.

Lastly, I am going to call customer S later today and advise her that my family, on behalf of the Jaftex Companies, would like to make a $1000 donation in honor of soldier S to any military related charity of her choice. God bless you S, your family and all those who have lost their lives protecting this great country! God bless AMERICA, land of the free and home of the brave!

Amen To That,
Salute Our Soldiers Scott

PS…If soldier S allows me to reveal who she is, I will do that in the future. Moreover, I will also advise all my readers and social media followers the charity that soldier S selects in case you too want to honor soldier S and all the soldiers out there.