Textile Fabric Consultants, Inc.

Description

Textile Fabric Consultants, Inc. was founded by Nancy Oxford in 1981. As a new college textiles instructor, she wanted to use a textiles swatch kit in her class. She could not find one that fit the needs of her particular class. She developed her own kit with the help of her roommate, Nancy Hobbs. Textiles instructors at other colleges and universities found out about the swatch kits and requested to use them in their classrooms. Before long, Nancy and Nancy were making hundreds of swatch kits for numerous universities. Nancy soon bought out her partner, Nancy Hobbs, and began producing the kits on her own. TFC became affiliated with Prentice Hall Publishing Company (Macmillan at the time) to produce swatch kits that corresponded directly with their textiles textbooks. The swatches were and still are in order as they are discussed in the textbook. The cross referencing of the textbook and swatch kit provide an excellent permanent reference for the students. Nancy began by cutting the swatches by hand in her home. As the business began to grow, she outgrew the space in her home. She then built a 700 square foot attached garage and began assembling and selling the kits from there, all while continuing to teach full time. In 1991, Nancy no longer could run the business and teach. She hired Amy Willbanks, one of her former college students, to run the business. The business continued to flourish and moved to a larger warehouse in 1996. TFC has doubled its facility twice since then and continues to be a strong viable company in textile education. We now have several employees, including Amy Gardner our Marketing Director. Nancy Oxford still owns the company today. She is an assistant professor of textiles at Middle Tennessee State University. Her diligent efforts and those of her dedicated employees to provide her students with a comprehensive quality swatch kit have made Textile Fabric Consultants, Inc. what it is today.