ONLINE STORE

ALL ABOUT OUR SHOP

NEWSLETTER

CLUBS

RETREATS

SHOP TOUR

And now for your tour. We start at the front door.

Downtown Waxahachie was chiefly built in the late 1800's. Its glory days were around 1900 when cotton was king. Interesting how a lot of cotton now finds home in our shop. The downtown area was built near the edge of a gentle bluff which slopes down into Waxahachie Creek. If you stand in our front door and look to the left you can see the restored old truss bridge which crosses the creek about two blocks away. At one time this was a major bridge between Dallas and Waco. If you look to the right, the majestic courthouse stands in the square. Across the street, behind us, and to the right of us are three antique stores. Also on our block are two restaurants. A city parking lot is catty cornered from us. The city refinished the sidewalks to be disabled compliant in March 2006.

The term "brick and mortar" is often used to distinguish the physical operation of a store as opposed to its online counterpart. The masons who built our building in 1895 must have envisioned the term and taken it to heart when they built our 13 inch brick walls. Our building began its life by housing a furniture and undertaking business. This horse and carriage were photographed in front of the building in 1912. Note that the business was owned by Spalding. This was the name of the sheriff who was killed many years ago, an incident which began the story for the movie "Places in the Heart." Our building is two stories with 4,000 square feet on each floor. The upstairs is now loft apartments.

	On entering Common Threads, the advantage of an old building with 15 foot ceilings becomes obvious. Tall ceilings are nice of course, but when it comes to displaying full size quilts, the tall ceilings are no longer just nice, but wonderful. Lighting is critical for visualizing fabric, so new high efficiency, T8, sunshine wavelength equivalent, fluorescent lighting was installed. The old floor dating from 1895 is still in place, but it has been overlaid with new flooring.
The walls are of very thick brick which has the capacity to maintain an even temperature throughout the building. The end result is that browsing in Common Threads is a visually bright, comfortable, easily maneuverable experience. Of course our aisles are wheelchair compliant.
		The store layout blends color walls with vignettes. We believe in fat quarters and every fabric shelf has a well stocked fat quarter cabinet near by.
Our chief love is reproduction fabric from the Civil War era and the 1930's. Florals run a close second. We also keep a broad array of the essentials. Overall we carry between 3000 and 4000 bolts. Much of our fabric has been assembled into kits.

	There are two checkout stations. All of our inventory and records are computerized. We keep a record of your purchases and frequent buyer points. Want a little more off that bolt you bought from last month? Give us a call and we will tell you just what you are after.

	It seems like there are never enough cutting tables to satisfy both employees and customers who just want to lay it out. However we come close with our four cutting tables on the floor and an additional one in the classroom.
So how does it feel? Aren't quilt stores great. We just love ours and hope you will come on down and share it with us. Give us a call if you have questions or would just like to talk (972-935-0510). We would love to hear from you.