Today, I bring you a giveaway from SouleMama Sponsor Alewives Fabrics. In Rhea's words:
"We are a family-run shop in beautiful Midcoast Maine that also sells fabrics through our webstore - Alewives Fabrics. Alewives is run by the mother/daughter team of Barbara Neeson and Rhea Daiute. Barbara is a former art teacher and Rhea is a former graphic designer: the fabrics carried in the shop reflect both of their personal styles and histories."
Rhea keeps a blog that is filled with bits of her life (and occasionally bits about the shop) called AlewivesGirl.
Rhea: Both of our shops (the brick-and-mortar store and the web store) have undergone a lot of changes in the past few years. We are trying to better utilize the space we have here at the shop (a 3-story barn) by transforming the basement into a processing center for our internet business and making room for more fabric upstairs (a worth cause, don't you think?). Ond of the plans we have for AlewivesFabrics is to offer one-stop shopping: if a pattern calls for thread, interfacing, buttons, etc, you will be able to click on a link that will bring you to all of those items. And this past spring we offered our first ever virtual class, "Virtual Turning Twenty." It was such a huge success that we plan to offer a lot more virtual classes, just as soon as we figure out how to clone ourselves.
SouleMama: How do you come up with new designs and ideas?
Rhea: We try not to be too 'formulaic' with our fabric choices. We rarely purchase an entire collection of fabrics or put together a kit that uses only one designer's fabrics. Instead, we get inspired to purchase or to put together fabrics by many different sources. Sometimes we will 'expand upon' what we see a customer do here at the shop (also known as shamelessly copying), or we will see one fabric we absolutely adore and build a kit around that one fabric. Mostly, we just try to relax and let our instincts take over. If the two of us like it, chances are someone else will.
SouleMama: What's your favorite part of your job? The most challenging?
Rhea: We have the best customers in the world. Not just the ones who are able to frequent the shop in person, but our internet customers are so good to us. We never realized that running an internet based shop could be so personal, but it is, and we like to think that running a brick-and-mortar shop influences our internet style as well. Along these same lines, the most challenging thing about working at Alewives Fabrics is having to divide ourselves between servicing customers at the shop and nurturing our web store. We don't have a different set of staff for the internet store than we do for the brick-and-mortar store, so everyone who works at the shop has to process internet orders and wait on the in-store customers as well: at the same time! That can be a bit crazy at moments, but our customers are worth it!
SouleMama: How do you avoid burnout and keep yourselves motivated?
Rhea: We have an excellent technique for avoiding the burnout that inevitably comes with running your own store: we like to call it "Business Lunch with Prosecco." Works like a charm.
For today's giveaway, Alewives Fabrics is generously offering:
A "Milk and Honey" fat quarter set! The Milk and Honey fat quarter set is made up of 25 different fat quarters hand picked by Rhea, in a mix of quilting weight cottons and cotton/linen blends. The prints range from vintage-reproduction florals to whimsical, modern designs in soft hues of white, cream, orange, chartreuse, plum and cocoa brown.
"In addition, Alewives would like to offer all SouleMama readers 10% off their purchase through August 31st. To receive the discount please enter the word "SouleMama" into the promotional code field at checkout. We will manually adjust the price of your order after it has been placed."
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Thank you to Alewives Fabrics!
To enter, please leave a comment in today's post (one entry per person, please). Comments will close on Sunday by 8am EST. Comments Closed! Winners will be announced Monday morning!
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