The Threadville Effect

Another week brings us not only one week closer to the big night (that is most definitely a gentle reminder - ok, not so gentle reminder, that if you don't have your tickets yet, you should GET THEM NOW!) but it brings us to, well another Write About it Wednesday!

This week finds us featuring Janet Bolin.  A lover of reading, writing, sewing and beautiful 4-legged furry friends, she is the author of the Threadville series.  Dire Threads, Berkley Prime Crime, the first novel in the series, was nominated for both the Bony Blithe Award and the Agatha Award in 2012.  The second novel in the series, Threaded for Trouble, is the book for which she has been nominated for the 2013 Bony Blithe Award.



Janet's passion for sewing has been a lifelong affair.  So it seems only natural that she would weave that passion into her stories.  You need but read a few pages of her work to realize just how deep this love affaire runs!

With that, I present Ms. Janet Bolin.

People of a certain age who sew will do what I do when anyone mentions Stitsky’s, the fabric store that was once on Bathurst Street south of Honest Ed’s in mid-town Toronto. We heave huge sighs. We may shed a tear or two.  We may even burst out in loud wails of inconsolable grief. Our children will reminisce about sorting through big bins of buttons in the basement.

Alas. Stitsky’s is long gone.

For many years, I lived within walking distance of Stitsky’s (I also lived within walking distance of the Brunswick, but that’s another story…)

I prowled through Stitsky’s at least several times a month, sometimes several times a day. I knew their inventory by heart. I bought patterns, fabrics, notions . . . It was like a second home.

And then, taking for granted that there would be a similar store wherever I went, I blithely moved to Mississauga.

Oops. No fabric store of any sort within walking distance. I returned to Stitsky’s, but not as often.

For some reason, after I left the neighborhood, Stitsky’s did the unthinkable. It closed its doors. Forever.

Had I been singlehandedly keeping it in business all those years? I still feel guilty about abandoning it.

I discovered the Queen Street fabric stores, and that helped, especially when I could walk there during lunch hour.

Life throws some strangely curved seams at you. Next thing I knew, I was living just outside New York City. The fashion District (the area formerly known as the Garment District) was a short train ride and walk away. I was spoiled again, though it still wasn’t the same as dashing off for a only few minutes for just the right length of zipper or color of thread, and being back in time to insert the zipper before dinner.

I’d moved to New York without a sewing machine. I figured I could buy one there.

I could, and I did. I also bought the embroidery attachment for it, and software to create my own embroidery designs. In other words, I created a monster—myself.

Meanwhile, I was writing novels of suspense with a bit of romance thrown in. Wonderful manuscripts, I convinced myself, but although agents were politely interested, they didn’t think they could sell them. Not good.

Despite all the fabrics in New York City, I had to return to Ontario, had to try, for the first time, living away from cities and suburbs, out in the country where I’d see sky, fields, and trees instead of buildings, road, and cars.

I did.

Oops. Fabric stores were now over an hour away! What had I done? What could I do (besides buy a used loom, but that’s yet another story…)?????

I could, um, how about if I invented a town of textile arts shops? To start with, there’d be a fabric store, a yarn shop, a notions store, and a quilt shop. I’d call the village Threadville. I’d have a main character who sold sewing and embroidery machines and everything that went with them. She’d teach machine embroidery! And she’d solve murders!

Now she needed a name. Sadly, one of the treasures I’d left behind in New York was a tiny frame cottage on the upper Susquehanna. The building had come with the name Willow Cottage.

Willow! That’s what I’d name my protagonist! She’d be willowy, too, and young. And while I was at it, I could give her that old cottage, except if she was Willow, I couldn’t call her cottage Willow Cottage. My real cottage had been painted a charming, dusty teal. My fictional cottage became Blueberry Cottage.

I love writing about Threadville, but there’s a downside.

Whenever I need another shade of embroidery thread (machine embroiderers always need a new shade of embroidery thread, at least ten new shades, preferably), I find myself thinking I can simply dive into Willow’s shop and buy one. Or if I need a zipper, I can zip across the street to the notions shop.

No. I had to drive more than an hour…

However, like all respectable sewing enthusiasts, I keep an enormous and ever-growing stash of sewing supplies, so all is not lost. And yes, the amount of stuff I hoard—I mean the amount of stuff I keep on hand is a little embarrassing.

But there’s good news. A new fabric store opened less than an hour away.

The Threadville Effect is at work.