Sewing Basket owner Barb Bork grew her business between legendary retailers Audrey Wildung at the Style Shop and Margaret Vegge at Renfro Variety Store.
That was when shoppers still crowded Main Street for annual Crazy Days bargains, and they had plenty of buying options in the vibrant downtown Luverne.
And the Sewing Basket wasn’t the only fabric store in town. “Nelson’s sold fabric, Ben Franklin sold fabric, Renfro had fabric,” Bork said during a recent conversation about her 40th year in business.
“Back then we sold fabric for garments; now people sew as a hobby.”
As clothing slowly became cheaper to buy than to make from patterns, fabric sales dwindled, and Bork found herself the only sewing store in town.
She continued stocking quality fabrics, thread, buttons, zippers, clothing patterns, and other sewing staples, but she wisely shifted gears to attract an increasingly popular quilting market.
“We had to evolve into quilting or we wouldn’t be here anymore,” Bork said.
The quilting craze served her well.
In fact, she opened a new location in Sioux Falls from 1996 to 2006.
She fed the popularity by hosting “Shop Hops” that brought together hundreds of artists with similar passions, and she routinely offers sewing demonstrations to showcase new ideas and equipment.
Adapting to market trends is arguably Bork’s forte in retail success, but she’s quick to point out she didn’t do it alone.
“I’ve had really good help through the years,” she said, mentioning longtime employees like Diana Dyer, Barb Sandbulte, Jennifer Bakken and Janice Fick.
“And I’ve had good support from my husband, Orv.”
He didn’t say,
‘You crazy fool.’ He said
‘How much will it cost?’
Barb (Bruxvoort) graduated from Beaver Creek High School in 1959 and was a beautician for her first 20-year career working for Enola’s, England’s and other long-forgotten salons.
She got her start at the Sewing Basket working for then owner Bev Gath, who a short time later announced she was selling the business.
“When I asked my husband how he felt about buying it, he didn’t say, ‘You crazy fool.’ He said, ‘How much will it cost?’ And this was back when farming wasn’t going that well.”
Back then, the Sewing Basket operated in what is now the Main Street Financial building, and it was next to the Pantry Café and Bot Drug.
A few years later Bork purchased her current building.
“That was when we had our big surprise,” Bork said about their youngest son, Nick, who arrived 15 years after his next oldest sibling.
“We waited to make sure everything would be OK with him, and then we made the move,” she said. “I remember moving things down the street, and he was in a stroller. … He pretty much grew up in this business.”
Orval made another big contribution a few years later when he encouraged his wife to start selling sewing machines,
“He would come with me to trade shows and markets, and he’d visit with the sewing machine vendors,” Bork said. “If we were going to sell them, we’d have to service them, or it wouldn’t pay, and Orv said he would do the servicing. … and it’s worked well.”
As it turns out, the machines — at roughly $14,000 apiece — have been a big part of the Sewing Basket business as digital designs and machine outputs now dominate the fabric art world.
She sells Viking-Husqvarna machines, most of which can also machine-apply embroidery and cross-stitch digitally produced patterns on fabric.
What’s her inspiration after 40 years in business?
“I still love fabrics,” she said. “I have dresser drawers full of fabric … There’s so much potential in a piece of fabric.”