Brad

February 10, 2020

When I wrote my last blog post, ten months ago, I had every intention of writing frequent updates. What I didn’t expect was being blindsided by something I saw coming from miles away.

In July of this past year, my husband, Brad, died from cancer. His original diagnosis was at the beginning of 2014 and we were all sure that he would be fine in the end. But the first half of 2019 made us rethink our stance and prepare for a different ending.

I closed the shop in April as a temporary solution. I knew that I needed to spend as much time with him as I could and closing the shop was the simplest way to make that happen. It was a decision I’ll never regret. I didn’t give you any updates during that time. The only thing I wanted was for Brad to get better and giving an update would have been putting a voice to my greatest fear, and then saying it loudly for all to hear. I couldn’t do it. I needed to keep that sliver of hope alive by keeping my fears to myself. And then after Brad died, I couldn’t put my thoughts together. I couldn’t trust myself to write something coherent and instead I waited, hoping the fog would lift.

I still haven’t reopened the shop. The reality is that I’m working hard on renovating my house and preparing to sell it. That means that I don’t have time to reopen the shop. Once I sell the house and find a new place to call home it’s unlikely that I’ll have an outbuilding that could mimic the beautiful set up that I have right now. So while I paint and clean, I spend a lot of time considering what the future of the Stitch Merchant looks like. When I do come back to work I won’t be doing alterations. I will continue to sew but I’ll be focusing on sewing custom garments. I’m still in the early stages of planning out how this will work and what it will look like but this new direction has me very excited about the things to come and I can’t wait to share more with you as plans and timing become clear.

This post was a long time in the making but now that it’s out in the world I plan on updating this space more often. Certainly more often than every ten months. Thank you to everyone for your support and understanding. It truly means the world to me.