How Busy Bee Quilt Shop Built a Thriving Longarm Quilting Business in New Zealand

0:00 Well, hello everybody, and welcome to Quilting Business Success.

0:29 I'm here at the GAML headquarters doing our weekly broadcast.

0:36 Andrew is not able to be with me again this week because he's on the road, as he often has been lately.

0:44 But he did send a couple of lovely ladies our way.

0:49 We have with us Shannon Peters and Sue Burnett.

0:53 I'm going to introduce them more in just a moment.

0:56 We're going to give just one minute for more of the participants to come online and join the show.

1:07 We'd just like to welcome everybody here.

1:11 We've got a pair here.

1:14 It's our first people that are in a different part of the world, aside from Canada.

1:23 Does Canada really count?

1:25 Yes, it's another country.

1:30 I think we're going to go ahead and start here.

1:33 Ladies and gentlemen, we have Shannon Peters, wave your hand, and Sue Burnett.

1:41 They are joining us from New Zealand.

1:46 These are quilters that have been doing this for quite some years.

1:54 We'll just start out right from the beginning.

1:58 Whichever one of you wants to talk can talk.

2:02 Tell us, you two are in business together.

2:06 Can you tell us just a little bit about your business that you have right now, your quilting business?

2:14 About 10 years ago, Sue and I decided we were going to open up a quilt shop.

2:22 Sue had been already long-arm quilting for a number of years, more than 10 years from her home.

2:29 Our thinking was we would open, we would have fabrics, and then build up the quilt shop side of the business just as we could, little by little.

2:43 We would have a built-in customer base because Sue had already been quilting for quite some time.

2:51 Sue has four gamel long-arm machines, so we do a large number of quilts every year.

3:01 We have both customers that use our long-arm service and that also don't use our long-arm service.

3:10 Sue, how long have you been long-arming?

3:16 This is my 24th year.

3:18 I ordered my first gamel in 2000.

3:22 Okay, so it's been quite some time.

3:25 Yes, 2000. I got my second one in 2006, and the fourth one I think was 2008.

3:35 So, by 2008 I had four of them.

3:40 Have you always had gamels, or have you had any other long-arms as you've been doing this?

3:48 No, I've always had gamels.

3:51 What made me start up was there was only one person in Wellington long-arming, and I took a quilt to have it quilted, and she only had five patterns for me to choose from.

4:07 I did have it quilted there, but I wasn't happy with the result.

4:12 I thought, I can do that, so I ordered a machine from America, which ended up in Belgium because it went to Zealand and not New Zealand.

4:24 We got it here in the end. It took about four months, but we got it here in the end.

4:31 The people that are watching, I'm sure they can tell that your accent is a little bit stronger than Shannon's.

4:40 Shannon, are you not a native New Zealander? What's the story?

4:47 I'm not. I am American. I have lived in New Zealand for 24 years.

4:54 We moved to New Zealand because of the work that my husband does, and his job has been very good, so we just stayed here. We really love living here.

5:03 You're a transplant.

5:06 I'm a transplant. We're in Wellington, New Zealand, which is the capital of New Zealand. It's also the southernmost tip of the North Island of New Zealand.

5:18 Sue, are you a native New Zealander, or have you been there all of your life?

5:28 I've lived nearly all of my life. I was born in Island Bay, which is about 10 minutes away from the shop, so I've been in Wellington all my life.

5:38 Many, many years, because I'm really old.

5:44 Now no one else is saying that.

5:52 Tell me, Sue, how did you start out in the quilting or long-arming? How did you get into it in the first place?

6:03 In the very first, I went to a wedding in 1998, and the girls I worked with had made bride a quilt, and I was so taken by it that I started quilting.

6:22 I started patchwork piecing, and I got into the long-arm quilting because I tried to quilt one of my own, and I didn't like the result, so I thought I needed to do it professionally, so I got my first machine.

6:40 When you started to try to do that quilt, were you trying to do it with just a sewing machine?

6:51 Yes, just an ordinary, very old Elna Supermatic from 1973, which I'm still using, but not for quilting.

7:03 So I imported one with a view of starting up a business, and I did 50 quilts for friends in the first three months, and then started quilting professionally in April.

7:25 Okay, and when you got your first long-arm, was it specifically to do a quilting business, or was it just for personal use?

7:39 No, because it was relatively expensive. It wasn't a statler, it was just a free-motion hand-guided one, and very different from the four machines I have today. I did have that one retrofitted in the end.

8:01 Okay, and tell us again, why did you go for gamel in the first place?

8:10 Only because the one I had seen was a gamel.

8:17 Okay, and so that's what you knew, and that's what you went with?

8:22 That's what I'd seen, and I did look at other machines over the years, but it's the gamel that I still think is the better one.

8:33 And you say, and since then you have upgraded that hand-guided machine, you still have that original machine?

8:40 Yes, it's my favorite machine, it never fails, it handles any fabrics, it goes over lumps and bumps and pins and scissors, no trouble at all.

8:52 And scissors?

8:54 Oh yes, I can quilt over anything, and the occasional finger.

9:00 Don't tell my tech support people that.

9:03 All of the problem quilts that come in from customers go on that specific machine, because we know that's the one that's going to sew through all the interesting fabrics.

9:18 Okay, a lot of the American people watching this right now, they just want to know, what is the superior country, New Zealand or Australia?

9:31 Hands down, it's New Zealand.

9:34 Of course.

9:36 Well, you know, I have a friend named Marino, who is the gamel dealer in Australia, that's not what he's told me, I think we're just going to have to work this out, I don't know.

9:51 He needs to come have a good long visit with us and he'll be convinced.

9:55 Absolutely.

9:57 Well, yes, I've always read that there's that sibling rivalry between New Zealand and Australia.

10:05 Yes, especially in the sporting field.

10:08 Yes.

10:10 Yes, yes.

10:12 Not much in the quilting.

10:14 Football, right?

10:16 Rugby.

10:18 Oh, rugby, okay.

10:20 Which also can be referred to as football.

10:23 Yes, yes.

10:25 It's winter here and it's rugby season, so we're getting down to where the last four teams are playing.

10:36 And I'll just mention that three of the four teams are New Zealand teams.

10:41 Okay, but we're going to have to bring Marino in on one of these days.

10:49 Okay, so you're getting close to the Super Bowl there.

10:54 Oh, I will tell you that the Kansas City Chiefs have recruited a rugby player to be on their team this year, so we'll be excited to see how that works out.

11:06 It's their kicking ability.

11:09 Okay, okay.

11:11 And the size of rugby, they're on the large side.

11:16 On the large side.

11:18 Chunky monkeys.

11:20 Very built tough.

11:22 Okay.

11:24 As you know, this is a quilting show, so we'll try to get back to the subject.

11:30 I'm bad about chasing rabbits on this show, people know.

11:34 So, the business that you have now, tell us a little bit about how that started and how long you've had this business.

11:45 Tell us about how that started and how the two of you ended up getting together on this business.

11:51 Well, the first couple of years, things were a little bit slow.

11:57 There was very little work, sort of in the beginning of the year, January, February, very quiet.

12:03 What was that?

12:05 That was in 2001, I basically started doing people's quilts.

12:11 But the third year, the work just steadily came in all year long.

12:19 At the moment, we're doing about 900 quilts a year.

12:25 But that's dropped off considerably with the, what would you call it?

12:33 The economy.

12:35 The economy, yes.

12:37 The economy and COVID was a big dip for us.

12:42 When COVID first finished, we got a lot of quilts in from people who'd been making them while we were in lockdown.

12:52 But that's really eased off.

12:55 Now, can I ask a question about the COVID, since you guys are in a totally different part of the world.

13:05 Did COVID, was it like a very strict lockdown where you were not able to go anywhere and people weren't able to go out and about?

13:16 Yes, 100%.

13:18 We got notice of the lockdown, the notice was in March.

13:24 We got notice in the afternoon on a Monday, Wednesday from midnight to midnight on Tuesday night.

13:34 You were not like, only essential people were allowed to work.

13:39 That's hospital workers.

13:41 If you produced something that was essential to the economy, police.

13:49 And the only businesses allowed to be open were pharmacies and petrol stations, so gas stations.

13:56 And supermarkets.

13:58 And supermarkets were open.

14:00 So if you were a supermarket worker, you were an essential worker.

14:04 No other businesses were open.

14:06 So we were completely closed.

14:09 We were not even allowed to travel from our house to our place of business, like if we needed supplies for ourselves.

14:17 There was no, you know, no, everyone was at home.

14:25 And how long did that strict level of lockdown continue?

14:31 So the first lockdown was, what, six weeks?

14:36 Something like that.

14:38 And we had a second lockdown that was also in the neighborhood of six weeks.

14:43 The second one was slightly, there was no online shopping allowed in the first lockdown.

14:53 In the second lockdown, it was slightly different where you could order things that were essential.

14:58 Nothing quilting was deemed essential.

15:04 So we weren't allowed to even ship out mail order.

15:08 But we were allowed to do that.

15:12 There was sort of like an interim time where we were allowed to ship out orders.

15:17 But lockdown was still occurring.

15:20 So we did, you know, we were able to process people ordering things then at that point.

15:26 And the couriers could work so we could get things delivered to customers.

15:31 Okay. I just wanted to get a little snapshot into that, what it was like in your world.

15:37 Oh, I do want to tell the people, anyone who is watching live right now,

15:43 if you'd like to ask a question or make a comment, you're welcome.

15:48 You should see at the bottom of your screen, a little place where you can click and submit a question.

15:53 So you're welcome to do that.

15:57 So, and let me ask you, girls, the place where you're located,

16:03 is it very rural where there's a high population concentration?

16:10 Or is it more a city or more country?

16:16 We're definitely in a city.

16:19 Okay.

16:20 Most of New Zealand is predominantly rural, but we are definitely in a city.

16:27 Shops in a suburb.

16:29 Yeah, we're not in like downtown, we're in a suburb.

16:33 Yeah.

16:35 Okay. So when you first began your business and the quilting part,

16:42 how did you, did you have any difficulty finding customers and how did you go about doing that?

16:48 No, no, no problem at all.

16:52 I belong to a quilt guild.

16:56 So, and because virtually no one else was doing it, I had a pretty good run of it.

17:04 There are a lot of people now in Wellington doing it.

17:08 So I rely really on my reputation and return customers.

17:15 But when I first started in 2000, there was just the two of us doing it.

17:22 And when you first started out and you bought that first machine,

17:28 how did you come up with the funds to purchase that machine in the beginning?

17:33 I just added it onto the mortgage.

17:37 Okay. Yeah, and I've heard that from several people that have done that same thing.

17:42 Yeah.

17:44 Sherry is asking a question. Do both of you run the long arm machines?

17:50 No, no, just me at this stage. Shannon desperately wants to, but she's busy.

17:57 What do you do, Shannon?

17:59 Nothing.

18:01 Is she just the face of the operation? Is that what it is?

18:04 If you ask the other people who work here, they'll tell you nothing.

18:07 I do the majority of the ordering for the shop. I process all the bills.

18:13 I make sure all the paperwork, like taxes, and we have both income tax and sales tax.

18:20 So that needs all the filing.

18:24 And she does work in the shop.

18:26 I also work in the shop. Yeah.

18:30 I do all the lessons that we teach and anybody who wants to learn how to do things.

18:39 Okay. So Sue, do you do all of the quilting, Sue?

18:46 I do have a girl that comes in three days a week and she does the edge to edge patterns,

18:54 which I do some, but I do all the block work and the custom quilting.

19:01 Jenny, who works with me, just does pantographs.

19:04 So she works on two machines and I work on two machines.

19:08 And when she's not here, sometimes I have all four going.

19:12 I can handle three easily, but the fourth one I have to be running a bit.

19:17 And, you know, I'm getting old.

19:20 We also have a group that comes in on Monday.

19:24 So every Monday since forever, Sue has had charity quilts on her long arms that get donated to primarily the hospital and the women's refuge.

19:41 So we do a lot of charity quilting.

19:46 So other people tend to make the quilts and we quilt them, bind them and get them to the destination.

19:54 Okay. And so...

20:00 hundreds every year. Yeah I heard you mention 900 recently, so how many hours a week

20:10 do you end up working on average? On the long arms I probably do about 30

20:18 and the chopper it's a bit more than that yeah seven to five probably nearly 55-60 hours a week

20:27 I'm here but I it's a passion I love it yeah it's my passion. So is retirement on the horizon

20:36 or are you just planning on keep on going? No chance. She's going to keep on going. Keep on

20:42 going. That's kind of the feeling I was getting. Yeah yeah I'm getting my pension I'm a pensioner

20:50 but no I love what I do I wouldn't want to do anything else.

20:56 So you say you do a lot of the custom quilting

21:04 and you have the girl do a lot of the edge to edge that works with you.

21:10 About what percentage would you say edge to edge? Probably 20 percent custom

21:20 block working custom and 80 percent would be the edge to edge work. Okay and

21:29 so I know the money is different over there but do you charge by the hour

21:35 or by the the square inch or how does that work? Square foot. Okay and

21:46 do you know can you tell us about how much like an average queen size quilt would run?

21:52 It would be about 150 New Zealand dollars yeah which is a that's a real bargain.

21:59 So that's like we're about 60 percent so would that be 110 maybe U.S. dollars?

22:09 Okay so a New Zealand dollar is 60 percent of a U.S. dollar? Yes. Okay

22:20 so so how many you you said that you did you say you did not did I hear that right 900 quilts

22:30 in a year? At the moment yes yeah a couple of years ago it was 1200 yeah. Wow. Yeah yeah we

22:39 were quilting 100 quilts a month yeah. Man. And that that honestly that's maximum capacity

22:48 capacity that's that's you know that was a lot of work. So I quilt for customer for customers

22:59 five days a week. Yeah. On the Monday I quilt for the charity quilts and on Saturday I work in the

23:08 shop. That's my day off. That's your day off. Okay and how do you how do you do the charity

23:19 quilts? Do do do you donate the materials or how does that work? We do we do donate some batting

23:31 um and a bit of backing if we get some fabric um that's not selling too well we'll

23:42 donate it to them and you know I've got people that do the binding we sort out all the bindings

23:49 and everything and they pop go out be bound and come back and then we donate them at certain

23:55 times of the year. And we we have a a reasonable amount of fabric that has been donated to us from

24:04 customers that we you know make little sets of kind of coordinated fabric that you know if people

24:11 want to make a quilt but they don't have the resources to provide their own fabric they can

24:17 come and get a little pack of fabrics for us. Some of the quilts we make are they need to be certain

24:23 sizes for what they're used for um so you know we tend to we do for both the neonatal unit and

24:32 the palliative care unit at the hospital so all the all the extremes and the mortuary well we

24:40 also yep we do so that the you know when a patient goes out they go out in a handmade well-made quilt

24:53 okay now um and do you sell supplies at your uh at your shop there like batting

25:01 yes fabrics okay yeah we've got about 500 different wide backers

25:09 so we've got a really good supply and we've got half a dozen different battings yeah wool polyester

25:18 um cotton bamboo and bamboo okay and do you do you offer other services like binding uh piecing

25:27 backing yes t-shirt quilts uh things like no prefer prefer not to do them um okay i will if

25:37 they're sashed i'll do it with the session but i don't like anything that's got the hard plasticky

25:45 ink ink on it because the the girl just doesn't look like such through that picking up the bob

25:53 and three okay i used to do them but there's something this year i've just

26:00 yeah we're getting stricter with what we will quilt and what we won't quilt and

26:07 primarily because that's hard on the machines and it's just it takes too much time and we

26:13 we just can't accommodate that okay yeah and i've i've heard both sides of the spectrum on the on

26:19 the t-shirt quilts some people just absolutely hate them there's some people that really uh

26:25 enjoy doing them so you know it's it's it's whatever whatever floats your boat with that

26:31 i if there's somebody in new zealand who would like to make t-shirt quilts we get

26:36 requests for that often but we you know okay okay both making and quilting those quilts

26:44 i think you could earn a living at it but it's not our thing okay so um when you started out

26:52 the business um were you you were able to just take off right away or did you have any

27:01 any trouble in the beginning or not not on either side not on the

27:07 quilting side or when we started the shop because we had that ready base client base

27:15 and um with with my quilting when i was doing at home i just belonged to a couple of groups

27:21 so there was plenty of people coming forward and my prices were and still are quite reasonable

27:30 i've only put them 50 cents in the 24 years of the square foot

27:38 okay um so when you first started did you start with just the one machine yes just one

27:47 and at the time was it a hand guided machine yes okay and one quilt a day was more than i

27:56 could handle i got you i got you um how about the graphs how long did it take you to um

28:04 go to uh statler probably five years okay so when you started out you you didn't have the

28:17 capacity to do what you can do these days oh absolutely not no um

28:26 what would you say do you remember um like your lowest year um about how many quilts you

28:35 put out at your lowest time no idea no idea okay now you can do nine or 1200 that that is

28:46 that is amazing um yes yes but i think in the shop 900 is probably about

28:55 to 900 it's the lowest number of quilts we've done for customers it's um yeah sometimes i've

29:05 got a well i've got 70 sitting on the shelves waiting at the moment um i've probably got about

29:14 35 but how many say that again you broke up a little

29:22 um at the moment i've got about 25 waiting to be quilted um on a busy time i'll have up to 70.

29:31 wow and about how long

29:34 uh yeah how long of a turnaround time uh is it normally to from the time they bring a quilt in

29:44 a week for each day from for each edge it's about a week to 10 days and custom quilting

29:52 four weeks yeah sometimes up to six weeks but we do try and get the edge to edge out in a week

29:59 we really try to keep that as low of a time frame as we can it it just um we found that that

30:09 that just works the best for us and with the four machines it means we have the ability if someone

30:17 comes in with a baby that's been born earlier or something we can get a quilt through in a day or

30:23 two by just moving things around a little okay and and you do all these quilts is is just with

30:31 uh with with two people uh doing the the quilting right yeah yeah yeah we have there's a another

30:38 person who works in the shop that does um the pinning on as that's needed so there actually

30:44 are three people involved with the whole process um yeah but most of us who work here can you know

30:52 we know how to do that like get get the back on in the direction it needs to go to match the top

30:58 pin everything on so that it's ready you know we've just got a constant turnover of

31:05 you know we like to we've got a waiting area for the quilt it's just behind that over that

31:11 direction where nothing's been pinned on and then we have a secondary waiting area

31:16 where it's the quilts that have been pinned on and can go on the machine as soon as the next

31:21 one is finished i've got 14 sets of leaders and so i can pin on well in advance that's really

31:30 important for the time frame to keep ticking over in the way that we the way we do things

31:38 you have the zipper leaders yes you've got 14 sets huh yes some i bought some made yep

31:48 you guys are a well-oiled machine yes we don't do too badly we do all right

31:56 so uh can for the people that are watching a lot of the you know the target uh audience that we

32:02 have are people who are either starting a business or thinking of of going in that direction um

32:08 can you think of any uh difficulties uh that you've met in running a business or starting

32:16 the business um and and how you have uh dealt with those um i i have a couple of suggestions

32:25 it's one thing that's really i think beneficial to customers who come in is having the batting

32:32 and the wide backers available they um both of those are available at different

32:40 like we have a big box store where they can go and buy those um there are also quite a few

32:45 quilt shops but we have a large selection of that and because we do the long arm quilting we've kept

32:52 that side of our but you know we have a good stock of that so you can you know there's rarely a time

33:00 where we don't have a wide back that will work with that quilt top um you know i i think that

33:07 that's been a big asset for us is to have that available and because we can turn quilts around

33:13 in a reasonable time frame that also you know the customers appreciate that

33:21 yeah so you you guys um i'm just struck with the the fact that you guys just hit the ground running

33:28 and and just were like rocket fuel the the minute you took off uh oh we were very lucky i'm just

33:36 going to go grab a couple other things that come to my mind okay uh deborah has made a comment on

33:43 here saying uh just saying you guys are awesome um and i have a paula is asking a question on here

33:51 asking uh do you use zipper leaders for backing only we have started um recently just floating

34:01 if we use we've got a wall batting that is very very thick when i use that i pin a top later on

34:10 but now i've found in the last couple of years it's much easier to float the quilt top you've

34:17 got a much better way of smoothing it out keeping it straight especially the the quilts are a little

34:27 bit wavy they're easier to to manage if you can actually smooth them out as you're going

34:33 so i'll just um show a couple of things that help to because we have a larger number of quilts we

34:41 need to be very organized so when a quilt comes in i'll cover the details that we have a worksheet

34:50 okay so the the worksheet has every piece of relevant information about that quilt

34:57 we measure the top we measure the back we measure the batting we um if they want to purchase from us

35:05 we cut those after the top has been measured because even if a customer tells you their

35:13 quilt is 80 by 80 it might be 86 by 90 when we measure it so we you know we we measure it has

35:24 we have um loose leaf binder books that we have all of our long arm patterns available so we can

35:31 that's both um the pantograph patterns and block work patterns in our in a book so we can walk

35:41 you know page by page through the book all that being said we have about 15 000 patterns

35:51 so sometimes that's time consuming um it really helps if they have some idea what type of quilting

36:00 they would like on the quilt the other thing we have are bags so every quilt

36:10 every quilt that comes in goes in a bag the work sheet is placed on the end of the bag

36:21 and it's a shelf where we can see like

36:26 oh i don't do okay we're breaking up just a little bit right now

36:34 let's see our quilts we could pick three small quilts squeeze them in and get those done that day

36:41 so that they're finished and they walk out the door shannon can you uh can you repeat that last

36:47 little bit of what you said you broke up a little bit there um right after you showed the bag and you

36:53 stuck so the yellow bags go the yellow bags go on a shelf and on the end it has the worksheet pinned

37:02 to the end of the bag so if we have time at the end of the day for a small quilt we can pick a

37:08 small quilt or at the beginning of the day we say we need three large quilts to get you know we get

37:14 them going um so we do sometimes juggle the order of quilts based on the size

37:22 as to what we can accommodate based on our you know the time available but that we can see anybody

37:28 who works here can see at a glance like where the quilt is in the line of quilt because you know

37:35 customers ring and they're anxious about their quilt and they you know what where is my quilt

37:41 now in the line and you can say well it's fourth or it's been pinned on and it's second in line

37:47 it's you know getting really close um it just helps us all to to know what's happening what's

37:54 going on we can answer questions and everyone knows what's happening and so with your business

38:01 and with your volume organization seems like it would be paramountly important it's very helpful

38:08 yeah and we we keep a secondary list every quilt is numbered as it comes in we keep a

38:15 secondary list so we can look in the book in case we lose our piece of paper and uh i wanted to ask

38:23 you um for the for the people that are watching have you had any experience uh dealing with uh

38:31 like difficult customers or difficult situations you have any anything you can share about that

38:38 we have more than our fair share of all of those the custom is always right that it the customer is

38:44 right we do everything we can to fix everything we have unpicked quilts entire quilts um we do what

38:55 we can to make everything be to the satisfaction of the customer and we try and pick up any things

39:03 like wavy borders when the quilts come in yeah and point them out very rarely does a customer want

39:10 to take it home and fix it they just they've had enough they're ready to have it quilted

39:16 so we do our best i do do and jenny does do a lot of hand holding the fabric to try and ease

39:24 fabric in okay and um this other question i'm going to ask i think i know what one of the

39:32 answers is um asking who uh who are some of your biggest uh cheerleaders or support in this

39:40 business i'm sure that one another is probably one of the answers to that definitely our staff

39:48 are fabulous we we have really good staff and we recognize that and we you know it's um

40:00 It keeps everything easier for us, knowing that we can rely on what, no matter what the situation is with the customer, the staff are going to be good.

40:14 And it gives us peace of mind.

40:18 Yeah, but honestly, we've seen everything.

40:23 We've dealt with every situation.

40:27 You know, you often feel like it's an isolated case to just like, why do we attract this, I think every customer service based business has to deal with it.

40:40 Yeah.

40:42 Okay.

40:43 And you guys are in.

40:47 You started out when you were almost the, the only game in town.

40:54 You've been able to just carry that and continue.

41:00 For somebody that is watching this and is thinking about going into doing quilting. Do you think that in this day and age that it is something that could still be done successfully or what is your thoughts about that.

41:20 I think I'm being close to a shop that doesn't offer the service as would be a good idea.

41:32 Yes.

41:34 That's where we've got the jump over other people is we're a one stop shop, we've got the fabric.

41:42 We've got the quilting, I mean we've got embroidery we've got nothing we've got every, everything here at our disposal so customers can come in, buy the fabric, bring it back, have it quilted, and they buy fabric for the next one while this one's being done.

42:02 So we're in a very very good position.

42:05 Somebody starting out I think you really need to have friends that quilt belong to a guild.

42:13 Yes. And I hear that particular from over and over from people belonging to a guild.

42:20 Because you can show your quilts to them and they can get an idea of what you do.

42:26 Quilting in New Zealand is quite, it's not, we don't get a lot of competition quilting like I've seen in the States. It's real bread and butter stuff.

42:39 Okay.

42:40 Shannon were you about to say something else or did I cut you off.

42:45 No, I just think being, being a member of the group and having a network already established, either prior to starting out or when you start out I think that that's really beneficial.

43:03 Yeah. Okay.

43:06 You know, we accept quilts by people who bring them in in person, they courier them to us, they have a neighbor, a friend, somebody else who can drop them off, we can take information by email, by phone, in person, write us a note.

43:31 You know, we work really hard to try and accommodate any method that the customer wants to communicate to us. You know, we do work to do what's easiest for them.

43:44 Okay, excellent. Well, um, I tell you it's been, it's been amazing to talk to you guys. Before I go I want, I'm going to give you guys a chance to share where people can get in touch with you or how they can contact you or find you.

44:03 I do want to tell any of the people that are watching. Be sure and check out on gamble.com you can check out the accelerate business package that can help you provide all the things that you need to get a business started.

44:20 And I would encourage everyone to educate yourselves as much as you can on your quilting, the new owner training and many other trainings courses are available on gamble.com there, just to benefit you and help you along with the whatever business that you are pursuing.

44:42 Now girls, I want to give you guys a chance to tell the people that are watching how can they get in touch with you or find you or find out more about you.

44:58 We're Busy Bee Quilt Shop.

45:03 You can go to our website, which is busybeequiltshop.co.nz

45:12 We're in Kilbirnie in Wellington, New Zealand.

45:18 Easy parking.

45:20 So we're quite near to the airport. So if anybody is traveling internationally and you'd like to come visit us we regularly have international customers. We love having them love, you know, having a visit with them in a chat and

45:41 Yeah, you're welcome to come anytime.

45:43 Okay. Well, Shannon and Sue, thank you so much for visiting with us. It's been super enjoyable and I'll say our first long, long distance out of country people to be on the on the podcast. We appreciate you so much and happy quilting and say goodbye everybody.

46:11 And you take care.

46:13 Thank you.

46:15 Bye bye.

46:16 Bye.