Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would travel down the road of Lauren Alexa again. And yet, here I am, five years later.
Once upon a time, Lauren Alexa was an adorable baby boutique in Dearborn, Michigan. My heart, soul and a great deal of money went into the dream. Unfortunately, the dream did not last for long. My parents and father-in-law both became terminally ill, and the economy in Michigan took a terrible turn for the worse all within the first six months of owning the shop. The ending of all this was very sad. I lost my parents and father-in-law all in the following year. Heartbroken and distracted, I made the decision to close the shop, when it was time to renew the lease.
Although I was so sad to close the store, I was not sad to say good-bye to the financial heartache it had brought to me and my family. When I closed the door for the last time at 1029 Howard Street, I vowed that I would never return to the retail world again. I got a full-time job, thinking that I would never look back.
And yet, I did.
In the years since I closed the shop, I have thought often about what I did right and what I did wrong. I thought about how because of the distraction of my parents' illness, I was never able to clearly make the shop what I wanted it to be. I had wanted to offer my customers beautiful, custom nursery bedding. similar to what I had designed for my girls and my mother had sewn. But God had other plans for us.
And so whenever I would think back on these things, I thought about how much I loved fabric and how much fabric has been a part of my life. Like when I was a little girl and mother would sit for hours in her attic sewing room in front of the Kenmore sewing machine that my father had bought her for their second anniversary. I would play with all the buttons that she kept in a metal basket that had once been a picnic basket. Sometimes I would open the chest of drawers that was home to the many dress patterns she had, marvelling at the sketches of the women with tiny waists wearing dresses with wide skirts.
One of my favorite things about the attic sewing room was the closet of remnants. Mother sewed a lot of our clothes from remnants that she purchased a the local department stores. I would open the closet door and arrange them in various ways, such as by color or yardage.My Barbie dolls would wear outfits that were made by my mother from the scraps of remnants that were in the tall scrap box next to the sewing machine. I would even make bundles of remnants that my Barbie could play with.
Although I developed a love of fabrics, I never truly learned to sew. My mother's attempts to teach me resulted in impatience and tears. I wanted to use the notches on the pattern and follow the instructions. She said I didn't need them. So after a few miserable creations, I admitted defeat and remained content to have her sew for me.
My desire to reinvent Lauren Alexa strangely came to me when my oldest daughter, Lauren was trying on prom dresses. The shop owner had just opened her store, having lost her original store through divorce. We talked about how business was and I told her that I had once had a baby boutique. She asked me if I missed it--and that got me thinking.
In the days and weeks that followed, I found myself googling all kinds of things related to fabrics and nursery bedding. It's amazing how much information is at our fingertips now.I began to make phone calls, get swatches and ultimately select the fabrics. I wanted everything to be made here in the United States. It made sense to me to do this. Now all I had to do was find the seamstress.
I told myself that if I could not find a seamstress that could sew the bedding for an affordable price, I could not go forward. Production costs would make or break the dream. Miraculously, I found an incredibly talented seamstress, whose price to sew my designs, right here in the United States, was affordable. I found her on my mother's birthday. And that's how I know that the time is right this time, for Lauren Alexa.
