Reverie Dry Goods’ signature pieces are Henschler’s handmade Christmas stockings, created from carefully sourced materials including historic blankets, linens and quilts, and lined with satin.
Reverie Dry Goods, 19 N. Main St., in Janesville, offers homemade gifts, art, antiques, home decor and essential small everyday items for those living, working or visiting in the historic downtown area.
JANESVILLE — When you step inside Reverie Dry Goods on North Main Street in downtown Janesville, the world seems to slow down.
Reverie Dry Goods’ signature pieces are Henschler’s handmade Christmas stockings, created from carefully sourced materials including historic blankets, linens and quilts, and lined with satin.
A flickering fireplace glows beneath a wall of handmade Christmas stockings stitched from vintage fabrics. Shelves are lined with flannels, old glassware and thoughtful small gifts that feel like they’ve lived stories of their own.
And behind it all stands Shelly Henschler, her warmth matching the cozy space she’s created.
“I just love customers,” Henschler said. “I loved working with people my whole career, I mean they were little people before,” she added, referencing her years as a school counselor before retiring last year.
Shelly Henschler, a retired school counselor, owns Reverie Dry Goods, 19 N. Main St. in downtown Janesville.
She then started to work at an antique shop and realized how much she missed being able to connect.
That connection, to people, to stories and to the past, is what inspired her to open Reverie Dry Goods at 19 N. Main. St.
According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the two story, Queen Anne-style brick building was constructed in 1880. It has held many different businesses over the years, including a barber shop and Mood stationary and gift shop, which recently moved to West Milwaukee Street.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, as part of the city of Janesville’s North Main Street Historic District.
Henschler said the shop’s name, Reverie, means “a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts.” That reflects the feeling Henschler hopes people carry with them when they walk through the door.
“I grew up with parents who loved antiques,” she said. “We’d go to auctions, estate sales. Old things were part of our home, they were familiar and comforting. For me, vintage feels like home, and I wanted to share that with other people.”
The shop’s signature pieces are Henschler’s handmade Christmas stockings, each created from unique, carefully sourced materials, including vintage tartan blankets that have already survived eight decades.
“If they’ve made it 80 years, they’ll be in for the long haul,” she said.
The stockings began as gifts for her family and friends, but when she started selling them at vendor fairs, the response was immediate.
“I wanted a place to really showcase them,” Henschler said. “When I walked past this space and called the landlord, the timing was perfect. It just felt meant to be.”
Each stocking carries a touch of nostalgia, a piece of fabric that once kept someone warm and a bit of satin along the inside to help bring warmth into people’s home during the holidays. She said that some are made from old blankets and antique quilts,while others are newer linens in butter yellow, soft pinks or traditional Christmas colors of red and green.
Handmade stockings hang from a faux fireplace at Reverie Dry Goods, 19 N. Main St., in downtown Janesville.
“My childhood stockings had satin lining,” she said. “So that’s kind of my signature now.”
The stockings are found all over the store but are displayed hanging over the faux fireplace in the middle of the store.
Beyond the stockings, Reverie Dry Goods offers a mix of old and new, vintage glassware, cozy flannels, local art, and small, useful items like reading glasses, umbrellas, mints and nail kits.
Henschler said she wants her shop to feel like both a nostalgic escape and a practical stop for people who work downtown.
“I used to work just down the street at 101 East Milwaukee,” she said. “I remember wishing there was a place nearby if I forgot something or needed a quick gift. I want Reverie Dry Goods to be that place now, a spot where someone can pop in on their lunch break and find something useful like mints or glasses or something meaningful like a gift.”
Reverie Dry Goods, 19 N. Main St., in Janesville, offers homemade gifts, art, antiques, home decor and essential small everyday items for those living, working or visiting in the historic downtown area.
Her flannel display, in the back of the store, is a nod to Janesville’s annual Flannel Fest, which has already proven popular.
“I wanted to tie in Janesville’s culture,” she said. “Flannel feels regional, it’s part of our farming roots, our comfort. I’ve had everyone from 18-year-olds to couples in their seventies come in and find something they love.”
Even the building that houses Reverie Dry Goods carries a bit of local history. After posting on the Janesville History Facebook page, Henschler learned that the space was a dry goods store 100 years ago.
“I love that,” she said. “It feels like things came full circle; this space was made for this.”
In a nod to Flannelfest, the city's winter festival held each February, Reverie Dry Goods, 19 N. Main St., carries a selection of flannel shirts.
Standing among the tartans, pine-scented candles and shelves of soft flannel, Henschler said she hopes that people feel how she feels when she shops for antiques.
“I hope people walk in and feel something familiar,” she said. “Something that reminds them of home, or childhood, or just a warm feeling. That’s what Reverie Dry Goods is about: comfort, nostalgia and joy.”
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