women of the cloth
by sandi tomlin-sutker

I HAVE THE MOST FABRIC AND I’M NOT DYING UNTIL I SEW IT ALL!
Sally Hickerson created this bumper sticker and, like most people who love textiles and love to sew, she really means it! And like the early rock song says: The Girl Can’t Help It; it’s in her blood.

Sally has owned Waechter’s Silk Shop for 25 years but her relationship with the store and its former owners goes back much further. At age 16 she worked for Sally’s Drugstore on Patton Avenue and spent most of the money she earned on fabric. She was the youngest charge account customer Waechter’s had and every two weeks she handed over a big chunk of her paycheck to them. But her love affair with textiles goes back even further and deeper. Her Paternal Great Grandfather owned a woolen mill; her Maternal Grandfather was a cotton broker for Union Wadding—they made Sparkle-Tex, that white cotton Christmas tree skirt embedded with multi-colored glitter. Her Grandmother came up with the idea to embed seeds in the cotton batting and theirs was the first company to offer it.

Lots of creativity in that family. Her Paternal Grandmother was a fine painter, ceramicist, metal worker, seamstress. Sally lived with her for a year at age 17 and it was there that her love and skills for sewing were honed. “We had a large padded sewing grid on the dining room table that we used to measure and cut out the fabric. Then we left it for 3 days so that, in my grandmother’s words, ‘the fabric would understand its straight of grain’. Then we carefully basted the garment by hand and left it hanging on a heavily padded hanger for 3 more days so the fabric ‘would understand what we wanted it to be’!”

Sally doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t sew or was involved with fabrics. At age seven, she had a homemade circle skirt with an entire circus embroidered on it. All her coats were handmade and her dolls always received matching ones. For her High School graduation, she designed a dress, made the pattern from newspaper and found a perfect ivory satin drapery fabric for it. That creative bent led her out west to work for Anna Zap, who sewed all of John Denver’s shirts; Sally also embroidered shirts for Stephen Stills—those of the Boomer generation will understand the delight in that opportunity.

As it often does, though, home called her back. In 1979 she returned to Asheville and went to work for Fiberarts magazine, an important voice in the area’s textile art movement. Then one day the Waechters called to have lunch, told her they were retiring and wondered if she would be interested in buying the shop.

Sally didn't hesitate and with family help she went for it. Her mom quit her job and worked in the shop five days per week for 11 years; Sally worked seven days and her husband helped on weekends.

In 1983 Wall Street was slated for renovation and it seemed a good time to move to the current Charlotte Street location. The available buildings were completely trashed, Sally tells me. "We hauled ten 12 ton pickup loads out of here." But the spot was convenient and had good parking and Sally hoped to someday be able to buy the building and expand. That dream was quashed when the owner, ready to sell and retire, refused to consider Sallyfs offer, telling her "you don't need any more space for your little-girl business." This was 1996, folks, not 1966, but he was of that prior generation who thought this was just a hobby for her and since she and her husband were divorcing would have to get a real job!

But for Sally this is a life's work. She doesn't consider herself a good, i.e., organized, businesswoman. "I was told that I do nothing by the book and everything by the heart, and that's true. Really, it's all by the seat of my pants!" Yet by this, perhaps unorthodox method, she has managed to sustain a thriving business for 25 years. And she has managed to do what is unusual for many small businesses: provide benefits to her employees such as health insurance, a retirement plan, and profit sharing. (Even the chain stores only provide benefits to managers, generally keeping other employees below full-time so they arenft required by law to offer benefits to them.) And her employees have returned the favor with loyalty and longevity: several have been with her over ten years and they are more friends than employees, sharing parties and get-togethers and family events.

The other important element in Sally's success is the uniqueness of what Waechter's offers. For example, there is no formaldahyde in any of the fabrics she sells. She is careful about which companies she buys from: one Indian company serves meals to its employees and even provides day care on site—practically unheard of practices in that country.

Waechter's has never carried standard, commercial patterns, and today only carries private label patterns produced by privately woman-owned companies. These are specialty patterns that actually fit women's bodies! One example is Folk Wear, locally owned by Kate Mathews, one of the original publishers of Fiberarts magazine. Another is Petite Plus, which only makes patterns for that particular body type.

After 25 years in this business, I wondered what the future holds for Sally. "I can't imagine not being involved with textiles. There is an unspoken connection between people who love fabrics, and that continues to excite me. But look for some major changes coming up in January.' I'll definitely do that. And I'll definitely be back to shop—my own connection to textiles and design and clothes was rekindled today and I've pulled out my own, pretty substantial, stash of fabrics, moved my sewing machine out from its hiding place, and looked through old patterns for new ideas.

Waechte's is located at 94 Charlotte Street, between Just Ducky and City Bakery. You'll find natural fibers of all sorts and classes for beginners as well as those who want to perfect their skills. And of course there are the buttons, buttons and more buttons: the only thing standing between you and nudity. Call them at 828-252-2131 or visit waechters.com.

Then there are the New Kids on the Block. No, not the pseudo pop group, but two new fabric shops in downtown Asheville that add very different elements to our choices in textiles
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Make Me, at 108 N. Lexington Avenue specializes in Vintage fabrics from the 40's to the 60's with some modern/contemporary textiles as well. Owner Lisa Shoemaker has a long history of both owning her own business and working with fabrics. She started Blue Planet Packs in 1986 in the basement of Sage Dorm at Warren Wilson College. "I had a broken heart and needed something to occupy my mind 24/7!" she tells me. She grew that business until it was internationally known. Over time she kept collecting fabrics and began to notice that she had more vintage dress fabrics than anything else.

Her source was a business that had bought and stored vintage fabrics since the turn-of-the-centuryc—the previous one! They were willing to allow her access to some of the fabrics (do all textile people hoard fabrics?) and for three years she mused on the awesome opportunity and responsibility of taking on the vision that was emerging in her mind.

She knew there would have to be three intertwined but distinct businesses: a retail shop, a website and a fabric museum. Today there are 700 fabrics and 300 trims/laces online; all must be measured, dated and photographed. The retail shop offers vintage fabrics, some 50-60 years old, below retail to the Asheville market. Local designers, performers and anyone who makes things to sell get a 30% discount. And every single bolt of fabric has a swatch cut from it to be catalogued. She has a New York sales rep that shows swatches to designers who love the trendy retro look and the fact that these older fabrics were from hand painted designs, not computer generated ones. The look is quite different and since the copyrights are out of date they can have the designs reproduced in quantity.

Now a fourth part of the vision is beginning to emerge. Lisa wants to see Asheville become the design and fashion center of the universe! "There are a lot of fashion-forward designers here. Every week there are fashion shows. I want to help get national recognition for this." To this end she sponsors fashion design contests, wants to develop a website and provides an apprenticeship program. Mars Hill College has a fashion design and retail program and this is a great way for those students to learn the retail and wholesale ends, work in the sewing studio, etc.

Lisa's vision for Make Me! also includes fostering independent, self-sufficient women's businesses. She wants to provide opportunities for talent and creativity to flourish. With the energy and vision and hard work she brings to it, I think she's going to succeed! You can call 828-225-6005 or go to makemefabrics.com.

Amy Moore at Piece Gardens, located at 51 College Street, came to her business in a roundabout way. Yes, she had sewn and quilted since high school, but her career path took her into women's health as a Nurse Practitioner. Like so many women, though, at some point she knew it was time for a change. While traveling around she'd looked at a lot of fabric stores; she was also aware of what was available locally and wanted to "see a new palette of fabrics", especially those that lent themselves to quilting. She also wanted to see a basic sewing supply shop—scissors, thread, etc—to service the newly emerging downtown residential area. And even more, Amy thinks "a quilt is a garden made of pieces of fabric" and quilting creates a place where people can come together to create peace, for themselves and for the larger group. She wanted to be instrumental in creating such a place.

So, off she went to Mountain Micro Enterprise Fund for their seven-week class on creating a business plan. She feels that class and her peer group were invaluable in assessing whether this was a viable business. She continued to work in nursing while getting the store up and running; now she works in it 6 days a week from 10am to 5pm. Husband Paul had a huge hand in helping her, building all the custom-size shelving units and working beside her to create her vision of "a homey place where quilters and sewers can interact, relax and learn."

Today Amy has 15 people who teach a variety of classes in the shop: beginning sewing, applique, hand and machine quilting, paper and fabric collage note cards, wearable art and more. Classes range from all day Saturday courses to weekday and evening groups. And there is a lot of what she calls "teaching on the floor". Customers teach her as well as she them. I got a chance to see this interactive style for myself: a customer brought in a quilt from her church comprised of blocks made by several families. Her task was to complete it with a border and she needed guidance. She threw the quilt out on the floor, brought out the fabrics she was considering and the two of them played with various possibilities until she was happy with a combination of colors and sizes for the border. This is how women do business, I thought to myself.

And of course, there are the fabrics! Rows and rows of prints, batiks, ikats, solids, even real oilcloths and something called chalkcloth that kids can draw and write on at the table (anything to keep them occupied). You'll also find hand quilting threads in luscious colors, lots of instruction books, quilt patterns, all in a setting that includes space for children to play while mom shops! Call 828-254-3115 or go to piecegardens.com for more information.

Sandi Tomlin-Sutker doesn't hoard fabric, though she admits to recently finding several bolts in her attic from the 80's.