Check us out on Fox News Rising this A.M. We had a great time with Wilson on the morning program. The South End Gallery crawl at Lark & Key Gallery and Boutique was featured, along with Modern Fabrics and Charlotte NC Tours.

Thank you and feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns

click image to view printable PDF

Hello folks, we just wanted to let you know we are having our semi-annual Modern Fabrics Sidewalk Sale at our Charlotte, North Carolina fabric store.

We will have fabric, vinyl, full leather hides, pillows, chairs, and occasional tables!

We have a TON of fabrics that must find a new home to make room for even more great fabrics. Weather permitting, our warehouse sale will be held on our front sidewalk in the heart of Charlotte’s Historic South End Design District.

Bring your friends and family- you are going to need an extra set of hands!

Meet us in two weeks in South End and take home some great

fabrics we are practically giving away!

We’re also including one of many re-upholstery jobs we’ve completed for several local Charlotte retail-shop customers.

Enjoy!
Ewa + James

Karen’s Bags: Mint Workshop

Karen Balcom of Chapel Hill’s Mint Workshop has done it again, making exquisite handbags from reclaimed and vintage fabrics!

The Mint Julep tote: 10- 1/2″ X 4- 1/2″ X 13″

The Doublemint tote: 6″ X 4″ X 6″

Travel Trailer Heaven: A Pair of Wonderful Restorations

Friends and fellow “tinkerers” Bob Burditt and Brandon Bell of Memphis, Tennessee set out to restore several Airstream treasures they found for sale. These two projects took many months and meticulous craft and detail.

They also used several of Modern Fabrics reclaimed fabrics to finish them off! The results are amazing! Check out these photos of their projects:

1967 Caravel 17′ Brandon & Layla Bell

Day 1 : Brandon & Layla Bell purchase the Airstream from the previous owners

Restoration underway: completely gutted to the frame

Before & After: New gaucho seat with storage, new cushions / curtains

New folding door: Designtex Wire from Modern Fabrics

New front gaucho with cushions / curtains

1965 Safari 22′ Bob & Laura Burditt

Bob’s ‘65 Safari before restoration

The original bones during renovations

WOW! Look at that HBF fabric!

A job well done!

Laura and Bob settle into their new traveling home

Reupholster: Now Open

Modern Fabrics is now offering reupholstery services for our local Charlotte, North Carolina customers.

Below is a great consignment store find brought to us by Annie Vereen, dancer and teacher of Viscera Dance Theatre.

Before

After

After

After

After

We continue to strive to bring you wonderful designer fabrics reclaimed from local furniture factories.

We are also currently redesigning our website and online store to make finding and purchasing your fabric easier than ever. We encourage you to contact us with your suggestions and comments.

Thanks again for shopping Modern Fabrics!

Ewa & James

From Remnants to Riches: 

New business converts manufacturers’ leftovers into high-demand fabrics

by Austin Light

Charlotte- James Powell and his wife Ewa are classic small-business owners with modern sensibilities. Instead of starting with a good idea, opening a brick-and-mortar store and then expanding online, they did it backwards.

Using the low cost and accessibility of the Internet, the Powell’s tested their idea- selling leftover fabric from manufacturers at reduced prices- online at Modern-Fabrics.com before moving into a physical shop.

After getting exposure in national design magazine, ReadyMade, the initial snowball of success turned into an avalanche. Within six months of their appearance in print, they were ready to open a store in Charlotte.

Before Renovations

“It happened so quickly. Within three days I had my business license and everything I needed in hand to open the doors,” James Powell said. “It was so easy to come to Charlotte and open a business. I signed the lease on Dec. 10 and, on Jan. 5, I opened the doors and started selling fabric.”

Building custom shelves and fabric displays

Powell’s still-under-construction store, with its handmade shelves and freshly painted walls, has been open for less than a month, and customers are streaming in.

“Every day of the week, new people are discovering us,” Powell said. “In terms of sales, I can’t complain. We only had one market before, and that was online- all we’ve done is open up another market.”

Mock-up of fabric displays and shelving

Between the folds

According to Powell, getting into that second market wasn’t part of the initial plan.

I think it is great we established the Internet thing first. You see so many companies get online as an afterthought, when there are so many people out in the world on the Internet who can shop at any hour of the day,” Powell said.

“We didn’t plan it that way, though; we did it out of necessity. We just wanted to see if people would go for this fabric.”

First truckload of fabric from our warehouse to our store: January 2009
Fortunately for the Powells, consumers were going for the fabric all over the country.

I have customers everywhere- New York, Chicago, L.A. Most of our customers are looking for good quality fabric for reasonable prices, and this is stuff they can’t find at a chain fabric store,” Powell said.

“These are all really good, high-quality fabrics, but they are usually not available to the public. Only designers and trade professionals have access to them normally.”

Since he was a trade professional and designer, doing custom furniture and showroom pieces for various companies, he already had good relationships with manufacturers. It was just a matter of calling them and seeing what they were doing with their leftovers, he said.

“I have set up established partnerships with manufacturers. Some had already known me because I did work for them, so I had relationships and I knew who to talk to and how to get through the red tape,” Powell said.

“This kind of fabric, they can’t get rid of it. It’s illegal for them to throw in the dumpster. It’s not cost effective for them to waste time dealing with it, but they don’t want to see it go to waste either.”

Powell started collecting textiles trash and turning it into fabric treasure after noticing the excess fabric piles during a custom furniture job in Charlotte. With a growing collection, he and his wife bought a warehouse near their home in Lincolnton and decided to set up the Web site to see if they could sell some of it.

“Until they start making biodegradable fabric, I don’t know what else to do with all of this. I focus on modern and contemporary fabrics because I can’t be everything to everybody,” Powell said. “The bottom line is everyday I pass up more fabric than I know what to do with. I can’t save it all.”

What he could save, he brought to their 8,000-square-foot warehouse where he and his wife photographed and documented each piece of fabric, from small scraps to 50-yard rolls.

Ewa filling swatch sample requests
After the ReadyMade article and some marketing by his wife, who runs her own graphic-design company called Winkbox, they had more orders and fabric than they could handle on a part-time basis.

“Around May or June, it got to the point that we were looking at our orders and I realized I needed to do the fabric full-time or it was going to start to suffer,” Powell said. “I said to my wife, ‘I think this business has legs and I think we should go for it.”

Originally, Powell said they were going to use the store as an excuse to move to the mountains, but do to some complications, with the “business-unfriendly city” of Asheville, they decided to come to Charlotte.

“Charlotte is a super-business-friendly town,” Powell said. “I’m not just talking about the government. I’m talking about anybody and everybody in town. People went out of their way to help us get our business open. I’m still blown away by it.”
 

The fabric of success

Despite opening the shop in a friendly neighborhood and under amiable circumstances, Powell said just like anyone else, Modern Fabrics is still concerned about the economy.

“We have to hunker down, too, and make sure we don’t bite off more than we can chew. It we make it through this next year or so, I’m confident we can make it through any time,” Powell said.

“So we just have to play it safe, don’t grow too fast and don’t get overexcited. It’s all a learning experience.”

Even with the troubled economy, Powell has plenty of reasons to be excited. Over the past year, he said they’ve had inquiries about turning Modern Fabrics into a franchise, with interested buyers from New York to the West Coast.

“I’ll never run out of fabric, I know the supply will always be there. The question is how big do I want to get?” Powell said. “I don’t want to take over the world. I kind of like having a small shop right now.”

The pleasure of being in a small space isn’t going to last long though. Powell’s store is packed with fabrics- customers rub elbows with rolls of designer textiles in every direction. Powell said what’s displayed in his store is only 5-10 percent of what is in his warehouse. He’s currently expanding the back end of the Charlotte store another 1,000 square feet.

Ewa & Vicki modeling our latest fabric finds

“I would love to have a shop in San Francisco,” Powell said speaking of his expansion dreams. “I ship fabric to California every day of the week. It’s actually cheaper for them to buy from me and have it shipped.”

In the meantime, Powell said he is content with the way things are.

“It’s been exciting. This is how small businesses start. I have no retail experience and I’ve never worked in a store,” Powell said. “If you told me five years ago that this is what I’d be doing, I would have said, ‘You’re crazy man.”

James & Henry kicking-it at the fabric shop

Powell said their “crazy plan” had been more rewarding than he could have imagined. From spending more time with his kids to being able to do the occasional custom furniture piece on the side, he said starting a small business was worth all the bumps, bruises and growing pains.

“I just wish more people could stick their neck out and try an idea,” Powell said. “Even if you don’t have money, just be patient. Don’t give up on your idea. We’re living proof that it can work.”

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OK folks, we have been waiting for all of your project entries to be submitted for Modern Fabrics’ 2008 Project Giveaway initiated in our November 17th newsletter.

We are pleased to announce we have not one, but three individual winners of our contest! It was just too difficult to decide one lonely winner from the wonderful group of submissions!

And so, the winners are:

• Manja Sachet of Seattle, Washington

 Vintage 1930’s sofa & lounge

 

• Gretchen Cook of Washington, D.C.

 New duvet cover and bedding, custom pillows

 

• Karen Balcom of Chapel Hill, North Carolina
   mintworkshop.etsy.com 

   Fully lined, three compartment, medium sized box tote bag with magnetic closure

Each of our three winners win 3 yards of their choice of Modern Fabrics available in our store. Congratulations!

It is wonderful and exciting to hear from all of our customers and see the creative projects we hope were inspired in part by Modern Fabrics reclaimed and recycled fabrics!

Please keep your project images and stories coming! We will continue to feature them on our website and help promote your use of reclaimed textiles.

Modern Fabrics Store

128 East Park Avenue

South End Design District
Charlotte, North Carolina

Hours: 11am – 7 pm Wednesday – Saturday & By Appointment

OPENING JANUARY 2009