I can’t believe I haven’t talked much about the needlework shop! In early 2001, I was the “Downtown Shop Girl”. I covered for the owners of several little shops so they could have a day off during the week. I worked in a couple of clothing stores, a home and giftware shop, and a lingerie shop. It was really fun! I loved the merchandising and contact with customers. After doing that for a year, I was encouraged by family and friends to open a little shop of my own. Obviously, when you’re going to head out on an adventure such as this, you go straight to your girlfriends and ask what kind of shop they think the area needs. Well, we were in our 40’s, we had little kids, and we were heavy into cross-stitch so….cross-stitch it was and Needles & Pins was born.

A friend of mine owns the Hotel Denver and I visited her one afternoon to discuss my vision. I was looking for a little Victorian house or space in a building and knew she had her finger on the pulse of Glenwood Springs. I was pleasantly surprised when she suggested the Historic St. James Inn…an old building they owned. They had been thinking of renovating it for some time and this was the impetus they needed. We set to work and designed a space perfect for housing a darling little needlework shop. Inventory was purchased, displays were created, hundreds and hundreds of items were priced, labeled and hung on pegboards. Finally the day came and I opened shop.

I had a huge table in back with a dozen chairs around it. Every Wednesday, women would come the moment I opened the doors. We would sit and stitch and drink coffee, and laugh, and solve the world’s problems. Then we’d order lunch and do it all over again till it was time to close up shop for the day. It was therapy with thread. The shop lasted a couple of years but it never turned a profit enough to support me. I needed to move on with my life and get into something with a solid paycheck. It broke my heart to close. And the hearts of many others.

You know how they say everything happens for a reason? Well, I no sooner had that shop dismantled when my mother passed away unexpectedly. I spent several months in West Virginia cleaning out her house then remodeling it for sale. I returned to Colorado in September of 2004. I was offered another space for my shop and thought I’d give it one more shot. It was never a huge commercial success. Then Mr. Virgo came along and it was MUCH more fun to play with him than it was to work six days a week. So, I closed for good in the spring of 2006. One of the things I did in my shop was design cross stitch patterns. Somewhere in my things I have a couple of my original designs stitched up. I had it charted and ready to print under a little division of Needles & Pins called….drumroll, please…Marshmallow Ranch! And, there you have it! The history of a teeny, tiny little needlework shop.

❤️

““It’s no good, it’s no good!” says the buyer— then goes off and boasts about the purchase.”

Proverbs 20:14 NIV

Photo credit: elitestitch.com