I got my degree in education and began teaching middle school. I taught gifted students math and language arts, and I LOVED my job! To this day, I stay in contact with lots of my former students. I am so proud of them! I never imagined that I would start a business. That was Brent's department. After graduating from college, Brent opened a store called GameDay Sports. It sold fan items for college and professional teams. Brent and I both owned the store, but it was his job to run it.
A year after Brent opened his store, my mom purchased a quilt shop called Hen Feathers and moved the store next door to GameDay Sports. Brent and my mom get along well, so they had a door connecting their offices. They would chat during the day and help each other out. Around this time, I began making jewelry. I am not sure if I mentioned it yet, but I am a serial crafter. The jewelry making was both fun and profitable, and I started selling sewing charm bracelets in mom's store. They sold well, so I spent a lot of my free time making charm bracelets.
Fast forward a year or two. I also convinced my mom to work with me on developing a line of quilt patterns. To do so, we had to have a business name. That was easy...we were making patterns for Hen Feathers, and we were the two chicks from Hen Feathers. Two Chicks Designs was born. Did I think it would be a fun business? Yes. Did I love working with my mom? Definitely. Was I still teaching full time and making jewelry? Yep. I tend to always have a full plate, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that it's already overflowing!
At the same time, Brent started screen printing for the store. One day he was sitting in his office listening to all the quilt ladies shopping at Hen Feathers, and he got the idea to start making t-shirts for quilters. Our first saying was "A Fat Quarter is Not a Body Part". For those of you unfamiliar with quilting, I will explain. A regular quarter yard of fabric is 9" by 42". A fat quarter is 18" by 21". It is still a quarter yard, so it is known as a fat quarter.
Quilters loved the shirts, and they were sold all over the country. At the same time, a distributor picked up the shirts, patterns, and charm bracelets. I quickly learned that making jewelry wasn't as fun if you had to make 100 of each piece without changing it. I even had Brent helping at night. He would attach rings to the charms before I put them on the bracelets. Even back then, we operated as a team!
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