Upper Lake >> April Jackson has never been one to sit still. She’s taught beading and basket weaving, worked with children and art therapy, spent time decorating cakes and even rebuilt car engines, with a little prompting from her mechanic father. And now she’s decided to try her hand at running a quilting and crafting store.
“I’ve had a store, but it’s not been open to the public,” she said, referring to classes she taught. “This is the first time I opened it to the public. I just did things privately for a long time.”
Jackson’s store, AJ’s Sewing Room, Quilting and Crafts in Upper Lake hosts its grand opening March 28, but the idea for the business has been floating around for years. Jackson always wanted to run her own store, but all the cogs weren’t in place until now. “Financially nobody wants to back you,” she said. “And number two, you have to get enough money to open a store.” Thankfully, the funds came together.
She was prompted to open the store after people reached out to her about teaching. “I’ve been sewing since I was 15 and now I’m 58-years-old,” she said. “I’ve had people that wanted to learn how to quilt, so I decided I might as well open my little store and a quilting shop at the same time.”
The store offers quilting, sewing and crafting materials, but by and large it’s a place to learn the tricks of the trade. Jackson explained that AJ’s Sewing Room, Quilting and Crafts consists of 80 percent classes and 20 percent products. “Basically, I’m just going to be teaching sewing and quilting,” Jackson said. “I’ve been teaching how to make products for almost 25 years.”
Instructing is the perfect job for someone who enjoys regularly mixing things up. “With quilting everybody has a different quilt, which is good. I’m helping work on three or four different kinds of quilts,” Jackson said. “Then I work on my own quilts. It gives me variety. It give me a variety of things to do, different techniques and different styles.”
The quilting classes are for adults only but people of all ages can enjoy sewing instruction. “In the beginning I like to teach the kids how to sew and use the machine or use a pair of scissors to make a product,” Jackson said. “Something that’s useful, something that they can be proud of … Kids can come into the class to learn to make the pillowcase. It’s learning how to sew, learning how to accomplish something. A lot of people are afraid to accomplish, to make things, because they don’t know how to do it. ”
The store is open Monday, Tuesday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Monday and Tuesday Jackson has scheduled quilting classes in the evenings. People also come in for classes from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. some days. She tries to keep her teaching open and flexible. “My classes start out eight hours for 40 dollars,” she said. “You put the eight hours weekly, daily, whatever way you want to do it. I have students drop by. I just put that in their hours. It’s convenient, I want it to be convenient, because it’s their time. It’s my time but it’s their time too.”
She’ll work around her customer’s needs, scheduling a class at a different time if people can’t get into the store. “I make it convenient for people to come and do their classes,” Jackson said. “If someone cant come until after three, I’ll do a class in the evening. I’m pretty flexible, because I would like to see people enjoy their lives and learn to do something.”
Jackson said that her classes offer many benefits for attendees. “Emotionally it helps people too. It’s kind of like a therapeutic thing for people, I think that’s very important,” Jackson said. “It’s nice when they have other people to sew with too because they get to know each other, talk about community stuff … It helps them, it really makes them enjoy their quilting stuff.”
Jackson’s store brings something new to Lake County and particularly to Upper Lake. While Lakeport and Kelseyville each have quilting stores, nothing of the kind previously existed in the north. “Upper Lake is kind of an off the wall place to have a quilting shop,” Jackson said. “I will be having fabrics and stuff later on, probably in the fall, so that people wont have to go all the way to Ukiah, all the way to Santa Rosa, so people can go right downtown.” Though she’s focusing on getting her classes set up right now, Jackson also carries notions and threads at AJ’s Sewing Room, Quilting and Crafts.
Machine repair is another service Jackson offers. “I’ll have a place where I clean and repair machines,” she said. “Upper Lake, Nice and Lucerne, they wont have to go all the way across the Lake to take their machines in.”
Children’s classes also provide “the opportunity for kids to learn to sew,” Jackson said. “I’ll have summer classes for kids and parents to come in and learn how to make a pillow case and learn how to make an apron. Stuff that’s not even offered in the schools anymore. It’s an opportunity for kids to learn to make different things, sewing and crafting.”
Something that differentiates Jackson’s store from other quilting shops are her unique, handmade items. “A lot of the things I make, it’s not things everybody else makes. Everything I make is Native American made, Native American print. Everything I do is kind of in that area. I’m a Native from here in Lake County. It’s not stuff that you go down to the store and get. All the quilts that I make are Native designs, Indian Native designs of this area.”
AJ’s Sewing Room, Quilting and Crafts hosts its grand opening Saturday, March 28 from 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Jackson will be serving refreshments and cookies. The store is located at 9495 Main Street, Suite 7 in Upper Lake.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
