Welcome Fabric Fans!

Recently, I wrote a Facebook post (below) that was meant to encourage consumers to visit and spread the word about their favorite quilt shop as much as possible in order to help the shop survive for the long term. This post was surprisingly popular and was shared many times especially by shop owners. In sharing the post, many of the shop owners thanked their customers for their continued support and patronage. Somewhere along the way, that got me thinking about what makes a customer a VIP, star, beloved or ideal customer? Then it dawned on me that I have access to nearly 500 shop owners in a private group. Why…

When you post things on Facebook or Instagram, sometimes you never really have any idea what the reaction will be. Sometimes, what you expect to be an amazing post ends up falling flat to your disappointment. At other times, a post you think will not resonate actually ends up being a huge hit to your total surprise. You just never know until you post it. Take this post below for example. The post above is a very simple one, but it sure has resonated and caught a lot of eyes, shares, likes and comments. The key part of the post is paraphrased below: Let me remind you that if you…

This past Saturday, both of my sons went off to sleep-away camp. This year was different, as this was the first year both boys would be away. They will be away for 7 weeks. Yes, 7 weeks. Where I live, that is the norm. Outside of letters, 3 phone calls and about a 6 hour long visiting day, the kids are on their own to live, learn, grow and be kids sans parents. For nearly a week leading up to the Saturday drop-off, I had an awful pit in my stomach. Of course some of it was nerves, but most of it was for the void that would be inserted…

As another Father’s Day comes and goes, it made me start to think, where would we be without Jacob A. Fortunoff? Jacob A. Fortunoff is the JAF in Jaftex and he is the one that got the ball rolling for our family in the textile industry. I am sure great grandpa Jack would be pretty amazed to know that we are deep into the fourth generation with the fifth generation on deck. He would also be pretty amazed with how the business has changed over the years. I think about great grandpa Jack travelling through the streets of New York City jobbing fabrics. In other words, he would be selling…

Summer is officially here and with that I wanted to get both my consumer and shop owner friends excited for some summer and then fall fabric-tainment with me Scott Fortunoff of the Jaftex Companies (think A.E. Nathan Co., Inc., Blank Quilting, FreeSpirit Fabrics, Henry Glass Fabrics, Studioe Fabrics and 3 Wishes). Last year I brought you the Jaftex Facebook Live Video Shop Tour Challenge for shop owners to take us on a tour of their amazing and unique shops. Immediately thereafter, I followed that up with the #scottsentme challenge to gauge how many shops an individual consumer could visit in 3 months. These were just a couple of half baked…

I am on a giving kick these days ever since I saw Robert F. Smith pay off the student loans for the Morehouse class of 2019. I bet that his actions will start an amazing chain reaction of giving back. What an inspiration! I hope that by now you all heard that I have given away 150 machines to people suffering through tragedy and hardship in their lives. Let me just say that this journey has been so incredibly rewarding for me, my family and my business. At the least, when I am old and grey (I am already grey), I will be able to feel good about having given…

Happy Monday to all! I was debating whether or not to take the easy way out and not do a blog post for today as I am toasted from quilt market. As you can see, I opted for writing something. So with that, I am not going to write a formal post, but rather just some short and semi-long snippets or what I like to call Monday musings. Regarding quilt market, I am going to opt for silence at the current moment and reserve judgement for later or maybe for never. Regarding quilt market, I wanted to say thanks to lots of great people: First and foremost, let me thank…

I am calling this blog, “Quilt Market Breakdown” as in a synopsis of all things quilt market and how it relates to my companies. Ironically, when the quilt market is over, we call the taking down of the booths “breakdown” too. With that, I am looking more forward to the second breakdown as I am not hearing such great things about market attendance. First things first, for all shop owners attending market, below are the Jaftex Company booth details. I want to remind everyone that this show is for shop owners and not consumers. With that, I don’t mean to tease consumers, but I do like you all to have…

As I was perusing the CNBC app on my phone yesterday, I noticed that President Trump is losing his patience with China and the trade negotiation situation. Based on what I read, it looks like the US government is getting ready to tag on the much dreaded 25% tariff to many products imported to the US from China, including fabrics. They also plan to apply the tariff to $325 billion worth of additional stuff. This is going to come as a big surprise as much of the talk on the trade negotiations of late intimated that the negotiations were getting closer to being finalized. In any case, I wanted to…

“You have a gorgeous back side!” “Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room.” When you think of FreeSpirit Fabrics, words like colorful, creative, iconic and inspiring come to mind, even when it comes to the back of your quilt. We want to make certain that what touches your body, as you snuggle under your quilt, is as meaningful as all the love that went into creating it.  That is why the majority of the 108” quilt backs are printed on a luxurious, 100% cotton, 300-thread count, sateen weave fabric. Why sateen you ask? All you quilters invest a great deal of…