Since my friends and I were all (mostly) backcountry snowboarders being students with low-income crap jobs when they could find one, none of us really had the money for quality winter gear. Used skier and Army surplus (especially Swedish Army wool pants!) were the best we could find for the -20'F days of deep winter. Remember, this was before the internet and search engines!

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Money was tight, student loans didn't stretch far now having a family of 5 living there! But Judy was a skilled tailor, and driving to Salt Lake City for better prices on Malden Mill's 'PolarTec 200' fleece was not a hardship. Back home she got busy sewing up layering coats and hats to keep the family (and friends) warm that coming winter. Suddenly we were WARM hiking up the Bear River Range peaks with snowboards on our backs!

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Big Al asked if she could make a 'rooster' hat, then Charlie Grant wanted one like a cone. Word got around that winter in the small snowboarding community...enough that a small independent XC ski shop in Logan asked for some of her creations. She started me learning how to cut and sew basic hats while I continued my student job as a Kenpo Karate instructor at the AVA after shifting to the downtown Community Rec Center when they moved up, and going to classes.

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She sewed up a box of extra hats to take down to Salty Peaks Snowboard Shop in SLC to see if they wanted to carry them. Even just in a cardboard box with hand-drawn hang tags, Drew the co-owner was impressed and took the chance on us as consignment. They sold out immediately, by that next weekend. Thanks Drew!

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The first business license came in 1991. We became real.

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By 1993 we had moved the shop back to our California roots but not to the crowded beach scene. Instead we found a place in Mt. Shasta, the big volcano up north that had a ski hill and lots of backcountry terrain. By then the kids and her had learned to love living in the mountains and snow. I had the kids up & riding the first winter. She had gotten back her old job with CalTrans, had learned to drive equipment and snowplows while I kept the shop running, sewing in the daylight basement with her sewing on weekends. By 1998 the Boardwarm shop had 11 ski resorts and 20 retail shops in five states buying our hats and some of our clothing, and it was about all I could do to keep up with the preseason orders during the warm season before the orders were due in October. 

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In 2004 I moved the shop north to the colder winters and better snow of the Selkirk Range in N/E Washington State, the same year President Wbush signed the 'most favored trade treaty' with China. The shop had survived President HW Bush's NAFTA/GATT that President Clinton signed into effect, but the 4,000% increase in Asian textile imports kicked the butts of all small sewing shops in the US. By the Wbush housing crash of 2007/08, most of the ski resort contracts were going overseas for the much higher profit margins to be made. Newly installed President Obama continued Wbush policies and bailed out the wealthy and the bankers, not us small businesses.

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But after all this, and after the Covid Pandemic, in 2025 this little shop is still going and sewing winter hats and accessories for a couple of local businesses while filling orders for long-time customers and the people who find this website looking for non-corporate logo custom winter hats. Started as a small family business sewing quality gear, and still is! 

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Thanks for reading our little story.