Every month The CARON Collection features one of the outstanding shops who so ably provide stitchers with not only supplies but guidance, technical expertise, and inspiration. We hope you'll support your local shops and browse through our extensive SHOP LISTINGS to find a shop near you. This month we take you to discover...
Old Town Needlework & Framing
in Scottsdale, AZ
Personal landmarks in Gail Savage's life have occurred most often during summers. She was born in Oak Park, IL in the summer. At 6 months, her family moved to Racine, WI and Gail spent half her childhood there and the other half in Arizona, which has been home ever since. Gail's innate affinity for sales became evident as a "brownie," peddling Girl Scout cookies, "I found my destined vocation - I was going to be a Girl Scout Cookie Dealer when I grew up. But alas, the season was just too short, and the competition was too great. Then greeting cards took over, then this, then that, then Tupperware, then an opportunity to open my own shop in November of 1977."
Gail has always considered her grandmother to be the world's best embroiderer and retains vivid memories to prove it, "She could whip out a tea towel or a pillowcase in no time. And the magic she could do with a tablecloth and matching napkins brought tears to your eyes. The variety of color of floss that kept coming out of her candy tin amazed me. I never had crayons that color but here they were in embroidery floss crying out to be stitched!" When Grandma Branch finally agreed to teach Gail at age nine, several conditions were imposed, "I promised to eat all my peas (ugh)...to keep the back of my stitching as neat as the front...and to wash my hands, with soap, before I stitched." That settled, Gail proceeded to stitch tea towels out of flour sacks and matching pillowcases during another fateful summer. The following year, autograph books were the craze and all the girls were madly rushing around filling them with names. Gail, ever the non-conformist, started her own fad, "I wore one of my mother's old white blouses to school and had everyone sign their name...Then I embroidered each name in a different color. When I finished...and wore it to school, it was the hit of the year!" Gail's mother thought she should try needlepoint and one day came home arms laden with pre-worked stool covers, purses, pillow tops, cigarette cases and you name it, all to be stitched with a black background, by Christmas. Gail reminisces, "Well - my tension did get to be pretty perfect, but I sure got tired of black backgrounds!"
When her family relocated to the desert, Gail remembers, "Our car had "440" air conditioning...all 4 windows rolled down at 40 mph!...This was...summer, again!" Upon arriving there, she found that the seasons were somewhat reversed. One spent summers indoors, away from the blazing sun and more time outside winters when temperatures were milder. During her first summer there Gail learned how to knit, "The dolls got their own blankets. My brothers got blankets. Even the cat got her own blanket! Then winter came and I forgot about stitching for many years." But as Gail later discovered, "All those stitching skills are like riding a bicycle. You never really forget...When I was pregnant with my son I stitched, knit and crocheted up a storm." When her son Joe started school, Gail felt left out of the loop, so she decided to open a store devoted to her other favorite hobby - cooking. She signed a lease but someone else just beat her to it, opening a similar shop nearby. Gail determined to go with her first hobby - needlework. Her shop, Crewel World, near Flagstaff, AZ, became known far and wide. She reminisces, "Soon I had ladies making their husbands detour their vacation to southern California by 200 miles just to stop by the shop!" Her shop was the first in Arizona to carry counted cross stitch supplies and be on the cutting edge of a fantastic cross stitch revival. Gail literally gave away more than 2,000 free kits to teach people how to cross stitch. And did it work! Men, women and children were hooked and wanting more. The shop flourished and Gail presided over her own stitching heaven there for 11 wonder filled years.
When personal reasons necessitated a move, Gail sold the business. She opened another, Old Town Needlework & Framing, in Scottsdale, now in its second location. It is situated within striking distance of the Grand Canyon and Sedona, both favorite tourist meccas. There are hundreds of golf courses and Spring Training Camps for several baseball teams in the vicinity. Her emporium sits smack in the www.scottsdaledowntown.com part of town, a popular destination for tour buses to disgorge masses of visitors to shop the myriad of unique stores and boutiques which line the streets, along with numerous restaurants and galleries.
Within the store, the walls are a feast for the eyes, covered with every kind of thread imaginable. Needlepoint racks boast a very eclectic selection of canvases; cross stitch books number in the thousands. A huge bookcase holds linens and aida fabric and cabinet drawers open to reveal treasure after treasure. Models ring the walls, many in southwest style, featuring unique and intricate framing jobs. This is one of the shop's specialties with loyal customers sending their needleart from all over for Gail's special touch. Musing over her career, Gail comments, "It is not really like working...I get to visit with friends every day and play with beautifully colored threads. I help people start new projects and see the finished ones come in for finishing so the circle has been completed." Gail is the ultimate people person and is endlessly patient, insisting "There is no such thing as a 'dumb question.'...I love to show old and young, women and men, how rewarding stitching can be." She exudes the same intensity of enthusiasm first elicited by Grandma's tin of colored threads when she was just a child.
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STORE FOCUS ARCHIVES
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Mrs. Titchett's Eye, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Pocket Full of Stitches, in Lubbock, TXSophisticated Stitchery, in Carteret, New Jersey
Hardanger House, Stettler, Alberta, Canada
Nordic Needle, Fargo, NDNeedlemania, in Cranston, Rhode Island The Country Cross-Stitcher, Woburn, Bedfordshire, UK Amy's Golden Strand, Memphis, TN Needle in a Haystack in Alameda, California
Tri Thy Needlecraft Centre, in North Wales, UK
Fils Du Temps in Strasbourg, France
Stitchery Source International / Rainbow Picture Framing in Miami, Florida
Nettie's Needlecraft in glamorous Beverly Hills, California...
Island Needlework, Key West, Florida...
The Summer House Needleworks, Oley Valley of Pennsylvania
Evening Star Designs, mail order specializing in Quilting supplies
Ginger's Needlearts and Framing, Austin, Texas
The Needlewoman East in Falls Church, Virginia
Hook-n-Needle in Fairfield County, CT
The Needlepointer, Everett, Washington
Haus Tirol in Williamsburg, Virginia
Crafty Lady in Macomb, Michigan
It's A Crewel World in Salem, Massachusetts
Exclamation Point!in Saratoga Village, California
Thistle Needleworks in Glastonbury, Connecticut
