Important Bits N’ Pieces Before We Hit The August Awesomeness

Hey Gang,

Hope you are loving this summer minus the ridiculous heat. I know that empty house Scott (me) & Laurie (my wife) are sure having a fun summer and really tearing it up with lots of fun adventures and experiences. We do miss the kids though…..a little.

As we approach the end of the month, the beginning of my shop owner video tour challenge and then the #scottsentme challenge (more on that below), I have a bunch to tell you before the madness begins. With that, I am bringing back my Bits ‘N” Pieces series with tidbits of info that you need to know to finish your summer off strong in fabricland. Let’s do this:

#1. With a lot of quilt shop owners looking for some exclusive lines or lines that aren’t available at every single quilt store and online shop, I have decided to offer an 8 piece bee quilting group to all the shop owners who are members of the retailer group associated with my @jaftexpresident Facebook page. If you are a shop owner and want to partake, it isn’t too late. All you need to do is join the group and you are free to get involved, but beware that the deadline for ordering is quickly approaching… Wednesday, July 24.

For consumers that like the Sweet Bee line, you should tell your favorite shop owner to join my retailer group and order the line. For any consumer that likes the line, but doesn’t have a local shop that is buying in, I will be posting a list of stores that will be carrying the line and you can reach out to them to order when the time comes. This line ships early next year 2020. With that , if you are a bee lover, this line is for you all the way.

If this proves to be a successful experiment, we will continue to sporadically offer these type of exclusive lines. Stay tuned.

#2. If you are a new follower of mine, you probably don’t know about my Jaftex Facebook Live Shop Tour Challenge. In a nutshell, shop owners create Facebook live tours of their shop for their followers and my followers to see. I share all the videos on my page and the winner is the one with the most likes in very early September. This will be the second year of the contest and I am expecting it to be way better than last year’s contest in that I am expecting a lot more entrants. Yes, you! shop owner! These videos are sure to be better than any Netflix series or otherwise that you are binging on.

Now that you know about the contests, I need to ask you to help me out so that we can make this challenge as amazing and exciting as ever. Can you please invite all your quilting friends to like and follow me on Facebook @jaftexpresident so they can watch all the exciting videos during the month of August? You can also help me by begging your favorite quilt shop owner to create a video and join the challenge. That would be a huge help to me to make this challenge amazing, but also it would help me continue to push to help our industry thrive and grow by spreading the quilt shop and fabric love. Don’t forget that we are all in this together to keep this awesome fabric industry afloat and flourishing for many many years to come.

If you are a consumer, a couple blog posts back I compiled a list of dos and don’ts in order to help you be a beloved quilt shop customer. By following these dos and don’ts, you will certainly help to contribute to the success and long term survival of your favorite quilt shop or shops. Ironically, some consumers suggested that I also write a blog post about what shop owners could do to keep their customers happy and coming back for more. With that, if you go to my @jaftexpresident Facebook page and scroll down, you can contribute your constructive criticisms if the suggestion hasn’t already been covered. Last I looked, there were almost 300 comments so I think we covered most of the bases. You can expect a blog from me on this subject in the next month or two. Stay tuned.

Also, if you are a consumer, I want to give you a heads up that we are going to have the second iteration of the #scottsentme challenge in September to end November. This year it will be more Instgram-centric as opposed to Facebook, but my team and I are still working out the kinks. Stay tuned here, on my @jaftexpresident Facebook page and on Instagram at scott_fortunoff for more details. The point of the challenge is to see how many quilt shops consumers can visit in a nearly three month span.

Lastly, if you missed the news, I just bought out the 200 remaining Eversewn Maker 200 machines for my sewing machine giveaway with all the money we raised from our fabric sample auction last year. This line of machines is being discontinued. At this point, I have given away 150+++ machines and when I am done with this batch, I will have reached 350+++. That is my way of doing my part in helping to spread quilting love and my #sewrevolution mission to keep quilting alive and thriving for the fifth and sixth generations of my Fortunoff family.

Those are my Bits ‘N’ Pieces for you today. Have a fabulous week and keep on quilting!

Peace!

Summer Fun Scott