How We Started

            This shop began on accident. It grew out of our sister store Fenceline Fabrics, when Liv, the owner, set up a small de-stash corner in the shop hoping to re-home a few of her own unloved fabrics. Eventually, people started asking if we took donations and well, we were too thrifty minded to refuse. In no time, the donations were taking up half the space in the Fenceline Fabrics building (which was only 600 square ft) and Liv realized that a secondhand sewing shop wanted to exist.  

So, we moved house. We loaded up our de-stash and deadstock fabrics and transported our inventory to our current location, a 2,400 square ft warehouse in the little town of Ogden, KS.

We believe that sewing can and should be sustainable. The practice of sewing as a household skill was often used to re-make or repair clothing so it could last longer. We hope to encourage our customers to think before they buy – check their stash, sew with what they have, upcycle, and generally put thought into their projects. But we also know that deadstock fabric sitting in a warehouse somewhere isn’t doing anyone any good, so we are happy to provide a secondhand shopping alternative for thoughtful makers.

Our Values

1. We believe in amplifying marginalized makers and sewists. Please tag us in your Thrifty makes so we can repost you on our social media accounts (with permission and credit). We want to avoid randomly posting people without an authentic connection to their work. Let’s build a relationship and collaborate.
2. We want to be good neighbors. When we can support businesses run by marginalized folks, we will always do so. At the very least, we will consciously support small, sustainable, and local.
3. Be intentional in our hiring practices. We want to cast a wider net when we hire new people onto the Thrifty team. We exist in a majority white town in northeast Kansas that still relies heavily on networking and word of mouth and we want to move beyond these often exclusionary hiring practices. We enthusiastically encourage applicants from all communities who are sustainability minded to apply.
4. Take care of our people. As a newer small business, we can’t yet provide pay and benefits equal to what our employees deserve, but we are taking intentional steps to achieve a living wage for our staff. All employees receive quarterly raises and our CEO takes the lowest salary of anyone in the company.
5. Donate 5% of our profits to a different non-profit each month. At our core, we are a group of people focused on sustainability and promoting equality. We want to contribute to causes we believe in by making regular donations when we turn a profit. We believe in putting people first and profit second (we’re terrible capitalists).
6. While we strive to be primarily a secondhand shop and majority of our sales are online, it is worth noting that we are the only fabric shop in our area that is not a big box store. As such, we do keep a selection of high quality and organic new fabric on hand for our local customers. We do our best to source these fabrics with as much research as possible and the belief that we are buying ethically made textiles, but with capitalism being what it is, we can not always be 100% sure of manufacturing processes overseas. That being said, we endeavor to be transparent about all of our sales practices here at Thrifty and will continue to vet any brands we sell to the best of our ability. 

          Update August 2021: Due to fluctuations in our monthly balance sheet (and the fact that we don’t always turn a profit) we are moving to a quarterly donation plan.

Also, since moving locations our desire to be good neighbors in our local community has increased. One local business that is making a steady and quiet difference is The House Café. They fund an after-school program with their non-profit coffee shop and are currently working on building an early childhood development center in Ogden. For now, a portion of our quarterly profits will go to their cause.

Thank you all for sticking with us as we keep learning and trying to do better. Feel free to share any feedback below.

✊🏿 ❤️ ✊🏽 🏳️‍🌈 ✊🏾 🌍 ✊🏻

 - The Thrifty Crew

Organizations we've supported:

May 2020 - The Bail Project

June 2020 - Victory Fund

July 2020 - The Flinthills Breadbasket

August 2020 - The House Cafe

September 2020 - The House Cafe

October 2020 - The House Cafe

November 2020 - No Profit

December 2020 - No Profit

Quarter 1 2021 - No Profit

Quarter 2 2021 - No Profit  * We've been investing in making our new building ready for in-person shopping and adding sustainable upgrades like solar panels.