I'm more than a little sad

I couldn't write about it right away.
I had to let it "sew" around in my brain just a little.

We in central Ohio had some bad news last week...
Not bad news as in storm and destruction, but
bad news in that...
one of our local quilt shops is going out of business...

See, I could hardly even write it...

The local quilt shop that I work for is closing.
There, I typed it out in cold, hard font.

When October closes it's door, the LQS shop doors will also close.

So sad,
not just for the owners,

but for the employees.

And for the thousands of customers. 

Customers that have become friends.

Friends like family.

There is no blame to the owners,  

as they tried their hardest. 

I think it's the economy -

the continual rising prices

of cotton

and fabric

and labor

and fuel for manufacture and
for transportation. 

Then, the rising cost of rent, utilities, taxes. 

Recently, fabric came in

that was priced at over $12.00 per yard. 

Really - over $12.00 a yard.

We stash builders may be sitting on

the proverbial gold mine. 

Which is also a minus. 

Who will buy $12.00-a-yard fabric

when you have a ba-zillion yards

of the stuff in your home already?

We are very lucky

in that we have many other quilt shops here in central Ohio.

But each had their own niche. 

And now one of those niches will be missing.

It's just a sad day.
What will I do, not having my couple of times a week fix?

We may have to have a "Friends of A.I.S." support group.

I don't think that I'm the only one having a hard time dealing.