Working at Jxxxn Fabrics as long as I have it’s easy to get complacent, lazy and even cynical. Why only a few years back I was often heard to say “hey no sweat, it’s just fabric and plastic flowers!” I could not have been more incorrect in that statement.
Over the past fifteen plus years I have seen a whole lot of customers walk up to the cutting counter and ask for a few yards of this or that. To increase sale and provide excellent customer service, corporate implemented the FAST program:
Friendly greeting;
Ask -- what the customer is making;
Speedy checkout; and,
Thank You for shopping with us.
There’s one component of this customer service program that changed my life --Asking what the customer’s making. I’ve cut fabric for bridal gowns, first Holy Communion banners, baby blankets, photo backdrops, window dressing, eyebrow threading, wrapping for the handles of ceremonial hammers, custom car interiors, and burial shrouds. The lesson taken away from all my years of experience is the elevation of the ordinary.
From my little world at the fabric store all that stuff is just product that comes off a truck, gets unwrapped, merchandised, and sold to you. But it’s YOU…that take the humble yards of cloth, or skeins of yarn, or card stock and ink, and make something wonderful. It’s the actual use of your mind and your hands and your heart that makes the sweater, the wedding shower invitations, or the prom dress, quilt or first pair of pajama bottoms.
You should know how much I appreciate the lesson you taught me. So, when I ask, “What are you making?” not only do I really want to know, I want to think about you and your project and share your story and your creativity. You make my day!
The Mother and Daughter Date
She had been here many times before; sometimes with her daughter and sometimes alone, and so we knew her. She had to be an old farm girl; slightly graying beauty parlor hair with big roundish bifocals framing her kindly “mom” face. She was by no means young, but I never thought of her as old, just older. And, today she was shopping with her thirty-something daughter.
They made their way through the store, and we, each in our own turn, greeted this familiar customer. It was just an ordinary day here at the fabric store. Then they approached my cutting counter…
Under her daughter’s arm was a bolt of rather unattractive peach colored cotton. Personally I thought this choice was incredibly uncharacteristic of this creative quilter. The fabric was pale and limp and that was it -- just this plain-jane light-weight cotton, no other interesting coordinates. I couldn’t resist asking, “So, what are girls going to do with this?”
Quick as lightening, her daughter replied, “A yo-yo quilt!” Such enthusiasm, such energy in her answer, I tried to hide my ‘facial opinion’. “Oh, that’ll be nice”, came out of my mouth. My response was weak and I realize now it was also quite opinionated. I quietly cut their requested yard and a half thinking all of the time, ‘a yo-yo quilt in pale peach? Not really a candidate for the Antiques Roadshow!’
Her daughter was so caught up in the shopping trip and the upcoming ‘yo-yo quilt’ I don’t think she paid any attention to my inability understand her exuberance Her mother did! Mom instructed her daughter, “Now, go take the fabric and pick out a thread. Get as close as you can”. Her daughter smiled, as excited as an eight year old, grabbed the fabric, and walked away from the cutting table.
I didn’t know it, but my whole way of thinking was about to change.
She must have felt she had to explain her daughter’s response to my question. “She wants to learn how to quilt,” mom said. “You see I haven’t been doing so good, and I’ve been thinking, I really need to teach her, before I no longer can. So, when I offered she said she wanted to learn by finishing the old yo-yo quilt, something I started when she was just a little girl, how could I say no?”
She slayed me; laying me flat out. That answer to that question changed me; it opened a door in my heart. What would ever be more important than that peach colored work of art that those two beautiful women would be finishing together! And for me…that question; “what are you making”, will never be taken for granted again.
