Welcome Fabric Fans!

Will you be my Valentine? That is, if you aren’t already taken! And if you are taken already, let me wish you a fabulous day with your loved one/s. You surely deserve that! In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I wanted to present to you some of my favorite Valentine’s Day fabric lines from my companies. Let’s start with FreeSpirit Fabrics. Unfortunately, they don’t have any Valentine’s lines per se this year, but they do have the exploding heart quilt that uses Kaffe Fassett Fabrics. Below I am showing the Parakeet colored version. Don’t you just love it? Moving on to Studio E Fabrics. My pick is Color My Valentine…

I hate surprises. As such, I don’t like to surprise other people either. This is especially true when it comes to business. Between my blogs, my various social media posts and my weekly talks with retailers on the private Jaftex Retailer’s Group, I really put a lot of information out there related to what’s going on in our business and in the entire quilting and fabric industry. I am not one to beat around the bush or sugar coat things either. I tell it how it is. I find honesty is the best policy and being forthright in business is the only way to go. That is how I gain…

WHO: This challenge is for any quilt shop or online retailer in the domestic United States who sells Jaftex fabrics (The Blank Quilting Corporation, FreeSpirit Fabrics, Henry Glass Fabrics, Studio E Fabrics or 3 Wishes).  You must be a Jaftex direct customer to participate i.e., not buying through a distributor.  Canadian Retailers who are FreeSpirit customers may participate too. WHAT:  This is a challenge for you to create an unboxing video highlighting your Jaftex fabrics as soon as they arrive at your place of business. Your video should be about 5-10 minutes long, but shorter is typically better to maintain interest. Once you film your video, you will then need to…

Quilting is having its moment in the world of fashion. Pinterest’s annual Predicts report claims a four-fold increase in searches, year over year, for quilted clothes in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. It’s nosurprise since quilted fashions have been donning the runway of such well-known designers as Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Coach, Burberry and more since 2018. Suddenly, it seems that the elite world of high-fashion has honed in on what we in the quilting worldhave known all along. Quilts are cool! They provide freedom of creative expression. Each is unique inconveying what lies in its maker’s heart. And, behind every stitch, there is a meaningful story. All this quilty-ness…

Over the last 3 or so years, team Jaftex has been sponsoring the one or two Shop Hops that were organized by Shop Hops Inc. In 2022, Koleene Herlocker & Jen Gasper, the brains behind Shop Hop Inc., have really stepped things up and put together 6 shop hops. Yes, 6! This is going to be awesome! Here’s a list of them all. You can click on each to go to the respective Facebook page: Kansas & Nebraska in April & May. Minnesota in April & May. Iowa in June & July. Illinois in August & September. Missouri in September & October. North Carolina & South Carolina in September &…

It’s a New Year, 2022! I am confident that we picked up lots of new and creative Jaftex fabric fans over the last year as the popularity of fabric has exploded with the Covid….and that is a good thing! The fabric part! Welcome to all of our new fans and thanks for hopping aboard with team Jaftex (named after Jacob A Fortunoff “JAF”, my great grandfather). With that, allow me to introduce myself and all my companies too. I am Scott Fortunoff. I am the President and one of the 4th generation owners of all the Jaftex Companies, a 92-year-old family business, which currently includes: A.E. Nathan Co., Inc., The…

As we kick off a new year called 2022, like many of you, I am of course thinking about New Year’s resolutions and hoping for a good year ahead. However, right now, I am struggling to put my resolutions onto paper. Like most, I have enough on my plate already just dealing with Covid, life, work, family and getting by. In years past, I vowed to stop drinking soda, work out more and not eat red meat among other forgettable resolutions. With the exception of a few, most resolutions have faded to black and have become nothing more than failures. Who needs that nonsense? The thing is, we don’t need…

We had such optimistic plans to head back to our New York headquarters in the New Year full-time. Unfortunately, Covid version 2.0 Omicron contributed to derailing our plans yet again. Fortunately, we are able to fully function with everyone working from home. Things got bad so fast that just last week we decided to close the office altogether for the rest of the year. It wouldn’t be fair for us to keep having all of our employees travel through the Manhattan madness. This is especially true in light of the holidays and the city being at peak crowdedness. It really isn’t worth the risk and I am sure our employees…

Last week, I spent my time blogging about how appreciative I am for all of the sales reps selling for the Jaftex Companies. This week, it is time to give a big shout-out to two different classes of people that we couldn’t live without….all of our Jaftex customers and what I like to call, “Our customers’ customers” aka the ultimate consumer. Let’s start with our quilt shop owner, online retailer and fabric store owner customers. In a nutshell, we are nowhere without you all. As such, I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you, your patronage and the partnership that you have with my companies and your…

As I have explained before, the various Jaftex Companies use both direct and multi-line sales reps.  Direct salespeople carry lines for Jaftex only, whereas the multi-line reps sell fabrics for various companies. In my mind, these men and women don’t always get the credit they deserve.  I consider them the unsung heroes of the textile business.  As such, today I want to give them credit where credit is well overdue.   Right now, the world is upside down with Covid.  These rep troopers are traversing the madness and traveling from shop to shop so they can earn an honest buck.  This is their livelihood and they don’t have the luxury…