Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch...

Okay. We'll admit it. We've been keeping something from you all. And, we actually didn't count our chickens before they hatched. We just found our little eggs a henhouse and then they hatched. So to speak. Let me back up a bit. Incoming wall of text to explain some history:

We had a dream that started in high school of operating a small cozy business together. We’ve always loved sewing - from Strawberry Shortcake yarn threading cards when we were 3 to creating a custom black silk cocktail gown for a friend a couple years ago. Even with professional lives we always make time to sew.

When Rachel moved to Beloit in 2011 Quillen’s sewing store was still open, but it has since closed. Alco removed their sewing department, and then closed. A few years ago Stuff n’ Such (a quilting store) in the nearby town of Downs closed, and finding physical, local sewing supplies became even harder. Rachel started to take on custom garment requests and in talking to locals realized a need.

We chose a name for the business and started this blog in 2017 and an Etsy store to maybe someday get a business going. Rachel even ordered business cards with a version of the hen logo in 2018. But, life got busy with other distractions and we left things pretty much dormant.

Meanwhile Kate was pursuing her profession in libraries until 2020 when a recent change in job didn’t turn out to be the environment she needed. The COVID-19 pandemic hit and Kate took the opportunity to evaluate long term goals, mainly moving to be closer to family here in Beloit and start that sewing business we'd been talking about for years.

We thought we’d start the business slowly, out of one of our houses. Kate was getting re-settled in a new job and looking for positions closer to her professional background. Finding retail spaces in small towns isn’t always easy so we weren't in a rush. But a store-front opened up in our budget range (thanks for the tip, Mom!) so here we are. Flying around with our tail feathers on fire, setting up a retail space!

Our little 500 sq. ft. piece of small town downtown.

With the front entrance at the bottom of the floorplan sketch, you can see the store is pretty long and narrow!

It’s exciting to create a cozy, inviting space where other sewing creatives can find the supplies they need. We want to provide notions, tools, materials, and other supplies our locals ask for in the retail space. In our workshop we’d like to help people feel their best in their clothes with simple alterations, repair, or even a custom garment. From wedding and prom alterations to repairing favorite overalls we’re here to help officially. We just have to set up shop.

Looking out through the front door.

Looking back into the doorway to our workshop.

Oh - and where does a chicken fit in to all of this? We grew up with Mom’s chickens and have found the little birds to be funny, brave, industrious, inquisitive and more. Besides, who wouldn’t want a modern miniature dinosaur for their mascot?

The bird logo on the main page of this website is a real chicken belonging to our Mom years ago that Kate captured mid-trot. She converted the image to black and white and I printed and traced it, reversing the direction of the run and adding a spool of thread. Our outdoor sign will look like this:

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Believe me - we're harried hens already, even if our doors aren't open to the public yet. Setting up a business is not for the faint of heart! We close the contract on the storefront on August 16th, but even before then we'll be hard at work setting up a limited liability company with us as members, contacting state and federal departments to collect taxes eventually, making Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts, setting up bank accounts, talking to insurance people and wholesalers, plus researching point of sale systems and a million other details.

Still, we hope to open our doors mid September. We just need to decide exactly what to fill our space with.