Starting a Longarm Quilting Business: Insights from Vivs Laliberte & Russ Lee

0:00 So with us today, we have, we have the proprietors.

0:29 Of the Bears Quilt Shop. Do you want to try the introduction? Yes, if, since it's written on

0:36 the introduction I saw, I will feel comfortable in saying the bald guy is, is, now tell me if

0:44 I pronounce it correctly. Vives La Liberte? La Liberty. Liberty. Okay. La Liberty. La Liberty.

0:54 Okay. See, I knew. And the other guy with the beard is Russ Lee. And the other guy with the

1:04 beard, the dog with the beard. Dougal has more hair than all of us put together. Right. I'll

1:08 let you introduce the, the canine. This is Dougal the Wolf. And he is, he's the boss around here,

1:16 and our official greeter, and doorbell, and the other foot, and eat treats.

1:23 He also makes sure I take breaks now and then.

1:28 Right. Nice, nice. Comes over and says it's break time.

1:32 So that's basically the mascot of the store. I bet Dougal is. That's wonderful.

1:38 All right. So let's start off with the standard questions. Where are you guys located? Where's

1:45 your shop? We're located in Southern California. We're actually about six miles from Disneyland

1:53 in Garden Grove. Okay. Magical. Sometimes it is. I have a lot of customers that just bring

2:03 their quilts and say, here, just add your magic. And, and how long, how long have you had this

2:11 quilt shop? How long have each of you been long arming? I've been sewing and quilting since I was

2:20 almost 10. So I'm, I'll, I'll be 58 in July or 68 in July. So we're looking at 58 years

2:30 of sewing and quilting. I've been long arming for others since late 1999. Okay.

2:39 That's right around the beginning of the long arming. Yeah. Wave. Yeah. Yeah.

2:46 A little. We have one of, we have one of Gammill's wooden tables with the short industrial machine.

2:54 Yeah. That's what I started with. Wow. Did you have to drive to the Gammill factory to get it?

3:05 People, people tell us that they did. Actually, no, we acquired that one through a second hand

3:13 buy. It turned out that the woman who owned it had knee surgery and wasn't able to continue standing

3:25 and her husband sold it. She had it set up in one of the local fabric shops.

3:30 So we met with the fabric shop owner and arranged to purchase the machine.

3:37 And after we were there for three months and started going really well with business,

3:42 the owner of the fabric shop decided he was going to sell the business and close.

3:49 So we located a new shop and started our own. Right. He realized that the fabric sales doesn't

3:56 hold a candle to the quilting business. Correct. So what made you decide to long arm? Because I

4:05 mean, obviously you were looking for a machine maybe and you found it and purchased it. What

4:11 made you decide to do that? Well, I had a career in computers, so I was working full time.

4:18 My partner at the time had just been laid off and he also sewed.

4:28 He looked at the machine first, but when I saw it, I was like, okay,

4:33 this takes the strain and stress off my hands because I would hand quilt.

4:38 Hand quilting for anyone who doesn't know is extremely slow. Time consuming. Yes. Yeah. And it

4:47 can be very difficult on the hands for dexterity. I've had people tell me that one or two quilts a

4:56 year is full time hand quilting. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So when you got your machine and it was set up in

5:07 a quilt shop, so from the very beginning, you were thinking of quilting for customers? Yes.

5:14 Slowly at first, not anything fancy. We had the, I think there's 12 basic patterns that

5:22 were with the machine. Paper pantographs? Paper pantographs. Didn't even have a laser light. We

5:28 had a little metal pointer that hovered over the table. Yeah. Yeah. Did it have stitch regulation?

5:37 No, it did not. Not at all. So how many years did you use that machine for?

5:45 We used it almost a year. And then we met Charlie when we opened our new shop

5:56 and she's like, you know, I've got the green machine and I've got the red machine and I've got

6:05 I've got the green machine. If you want to buy it, I'll load it in the trailer and bring it out to

6:11 you. Because she was in New Mexico. Okay. So we bought her green machine from New Mexico,

6:22 less than traditional. And she brought it out. So we have a 1991 Gamel green machine.

6:28 And the green machine is one of the historic, one of the, one of the stages on the way to the

6:35 classic. Right. For the classic, it has no rocking finger. It has no computerization to it.

6:44 Basically, you control the speed with the rheostat dial on the side.

6:49 Yep. Yeah. And that machine is still running today, correct? Yes, it is. Yeah. Other than

6:56 a timing issue at the moment, but yeah, we got to, I've got to go back later tonight and time it,

7:00 make sure that it, because we check the timing on it every now and then make sure that it's doing

7:05 good. That, that machine was an important step in the development of the machine that we have today.

7:14 It was, it was kind of the, the, I don't know if prototype is the right word, but

7:21 when they went from that machine, which was a welded aluminum body,

7:26 they wanted to have a cast aluminum body so that they would be, so that each machine would be

7:33 with interchangeable parts, kind of like the innovation of Ford when they went from all the

7:42 cars being hand-built to now they were going to be mass produced so that if your starter motor

7:47 went out, you could just bolt a new starter motor on and it would fit. So when we went to

7:52 the casting, you know, that was a big part of making the machines all standardized and each one

7:58 have the same performance as the one before it. But there were several other patented things

8:02 because people had been, you know, relatively happy with the way the machines worked enough

8:09 that you could sell lots and lots of them. But with the, with the new machine that we've now

8:16 had for, I don't know, 25 years or something, the, the patents on that are the, the, the rocking

8:24 finger is what we call it, but it's a, it's a tension stabilizing device that allows the tension

8:29 to be the same all day long. And then the intermittent upper tension, which tightens as

8:35 the take-up lever comes up in order to make sure that the stitch finishes properly. And then a

8:41 variable stroke hopping foot that makes it so that you can use the machine on a variety of

8:46 different thicknesses of, of quilt and batting all over the world. Because when you go far north,

8:52 people use a lot thicker batting than when you go closer to the equator. And so there was a lot of

9:00 stuff that, that, that, but that green machine was kind of like a proof of concept and they were

9:05 really cool. It was a very cool machine, but it took us from a six inch pattern width

9:13 to a 16 inch pattern width and to a 14 foot table. We have one of the first

9:22 steel tables. Okay. That's one of the prototypes for today's table with the tilt front.

9:31 Mm-hmm. So did your business, how did it grow during that time?

9:36 Um, we actually went from about a hundred quilts a year to almost double 200 quilts a year.

9:46 Awesome. Um, and then our customers started becoming return customers because we started

9:54 collecting a lot more pantographs. Okay. Um, we, that's one thing that we pride ourselves on

10:04 is making sure that the pantograph or the quilt design goes with the, the idea and thought that

10:12 the piecer had for her quilt, his or her, or I'm sorry, his or her quilt. Yes. Um, I do the

10:21 same thing too. I mean, so many times I just use the pronoun she, you know, because 95% of the time,

10:29 but not to leave the guys out. It's just that, I mean, look at the panel here today. Yeah. We got

10:34 left out. Hey, it's all guys here today. I'm in female mode because I've had female customers all

10:40 day today. Yeah. We've got to do everything we can to support the few male quilters that are

10:48 out there so we can get more male quilters out there. That's right. That's right. So was there,

10:54 was there any particular, uh, uh, like a lot of times people will say, you know, if I ask, well,

11:02 why did you choose the gamble machine? They'll say, well, I, I looked at all the different ones

11:07 and I picked the gamble, but I don't, did you do the same thing or was this more like it was the

11:14 machine that presented itself when you were looking? No, I had looked at other machines,

11:21 um, and talked with other quilters, but gamble had somewhat of a reputation at the time.

11:30 And even though we didn't know that our little six inch industrial pass

11:35 was a gamble because it was unlabeled,

11:40 um, that, that machine and table would have probably survived a nuclear blast.

11:49 So we knew going forward, the green machine had the same standard.

11:57 And it's going to probably outlive me. The other thing at the time, um, that was real

12:04 selling point for gamble, uh, was we're 10 miles from a dealer that had their own in-house repair

12:12 guy. That was an important, uh, transitional step, I think for us as we were growing,

12:19 because there was a period of time there where, uh, where people's expectations for service

12:26 were higher than in the past. Cause in the past, people would come to the factory,

12:31 pick up their machine and then take it back to whatever state they lived in.

12:36 And their expectation was to have a phone number to call. They were thrilled to have a phone number

12:41 to call for help and parts sent by mail. And then we had a long period of time where the,

12:47 the dealer support in some areas was better than others. But as we, as we learned over time,

12:55 what would end up happening is people would purchase machine from a dealer

13:00 and our average length of time between when you first buy a machine and when it breaks down

13:06 the first time is somewhere between 15 years and 25 years. So basically the first 15 to 25 years,

13:15 you don't need help, right? You run the machine, you change the needles, you change the check

13:20 spring when it breaks, you know, you do a few things like that to take care of your machine,

13:24 which is all in the instruction book. And, uh, then when you need your dealer for service,

13:31 he's retired and the new dealer is an eight hour drive away. And so the, that dealer model was

13:40 a real important thing for us for a period of time, but then it quickly became obvious that,

13:46 um, it lent inconsistency to the whole picture. Well, the dealer that you bought from wasn't

13:52 there when you needed them, right? They were there for all the time that you didn't need them.

13:57 And that happened to my customers too. I had customers where I lived,

14:02 uh, I sold all those people, machines, and then I moved to a different job, you know?

14:07 So, yeah, we, from the green machine, we went, what, about six years. And then what year was it

14:18 when you got the green machine at first? About 2000. Okay. Later than that, 2002, maybe. Okay.

14:27 What happened after that? We, after that, about six years after that, uh, we again had a customer

14:35 come and talk with us. She was thinking of upgrading to a new machine and she had a classic

14:43 plus that she was looking to sell. And the dealer at the time out here wouldn't take it as a trade-in,

14:54 suggested that she sell it and then use that money for down payment on her new machine.

15:01 What were your thoughts when you heard that? I imagine you started salivating immediately.

15:06 Um, I'm looking at it and I'm going, wow. It was stitch regulated. It was a stitch regulator.

15:15 It had the gamble plates, the design plates. At this point, stitch regulation was a new thing

15:22 for you, huh? Oh, yes. Yeah. Uh, and it had a,

15:27 I'm sorry, the name went right through my head. It had the slide on ruler plate. Oh, yes. Yes.

15:37 Because on the green machine, I had to make a ruler plate by taking a 13 by 13 plastic

15:46 ruler and cutting a hole for the needle plate. And anytime I needed to use a ruler with the green

15:52 machine, I broke out the duct tape and duct tape my ruler in place. So chances are good that this

16:02 was a machine that was probably anywhere from a 2002 to 2006 probably is my guess. It was a retro

16:12 fit. Um, it was, the machine was called, um, Annie first and then she became auto Annie. She was

16:19 actually the deal, our local dealer's first conversion from a classic to a plus. Ah, okay.

16:27 They're in, it turned out what we bought was their in-house machine. We, there was somebody in

16:32 between us, but we bought the actual dealer's, um, original and it had been run for a while as a

16:39 classic before it became plus. Um, and, uh, I have to say it was definitely a lot less than $15,000.

16:49 Less than 15 years before we had to deal service. We did have, we did have the guy out here relatively

16:55 regularly, um, for various issues up to, and including blowing a motherboard at one point.

17:02 Um, but, uh, so it was great to have somebody local, um, and, uh, but, um, auto Annie, as we call her

17:16 was a great machine. We've used her and we still use her.

17:22 Statler Annie.

17:23 She's now Statler Annie.

17:25 Ah, okay.

17:26 34 months ago, we took and

17:33 traded in an APQS that we had acquired and bought a new Statler and upgraded auto Annie to a Statler.

17:43 So we now have two Statlers and a green machine.

17:47 Okay. So that's a big change for you guys. And that was, that was two and a half years ago.

17:53 Yeah. Yeah. Um, actually it just should be just about three, just about three months.

17:58 Well, it was three years. We got it. We, we were supposed to get it in June

18:01 and we were, it was right. We hit right at the transition for you guys.

18:05 Right.

18:05 Out of the dealers.

18:07 Right. So you did it just in time for the pandemic then.

18:10 Yeah. We got it right.

18:12 That's when you first got, that's when you first began using computerized stitching.

18:18 And our first brand new machine, everything prior to that, we were getting the hand-me-downs.

18:24 Yeah. So we have a 1991, a 2001 and a 2021.

18:33 All right. And these three machines are the backbone of the business. If we don't count the dog.

18:38 The dog is standing there, pushing at me to get them done.

18:43 Gotcha.

18:43 I need more cookies and tennis balls. You got to do more quilts.

18:47 So, so let's, let's ask a few questions about how you grew your business.

18:52 Um, how, what was your strategy? What were the different things that you did to find customers?

18:59 The biggest one was, um, hitting the local guilds.

19:04 Um, yeah, when we were first starting out, we went to the local guilds.

19:10 One of us would join the local guild, become a guild member.

19:15 So we always had something to go and share.

19:19 We're, we're in, we're kind of in a lucky boat as far as that goes here in Southern California.

19:26 Within a 40-mile drive, there are almost 50 quilt guilds.

19:33 Wow. That's a lot. There's a lot of people that don't get along with other people.

19:39 Um, well, it's just, I think it's a matter of concentration of population.

19:45 There, there, there's a lot of population and a lot of people commute for their jobs.

19:50 And so they're not willing to commute for their, um, their hobbies as much.

20:00 much. They want something local, although a couple of the guilds are quite huge.

20:06 We have a couple of areas out here that are retirement communities, and most people think

20:14 of a retirement community being a hundred or so apartments. These retirement communities

20:21 are seven to eight hundred townhomes, and each one has their own guild.

20:31 Okay.

20:32 There's all kinds of different types of guilds around here, from tiny ones at a college to

20:40 massive 300-member at-a-meeting guilds.

20:45 There are some things like that in Florida and in Arizona, too. I might be leaving off

20:52 an area maybe that is also like that, but those places—you're right, I mean, people—

20:59 Areas of high-concentration population.

21:01 They want to be able to have the guild meeting right there in the community clubhouse.

21:07 Right.

21:08 Yeah.

21:10 So going to those guild meetings, that was really important for you, and so your strategy,

21:16 I guess, was to attend and to bring a quilt and, you know, show-and-tell, kind of?

21:21 Show-and-tell.

21:22 Do some show-and-tell.

21:23 And then for the local guilds, we still offer a coupon as a raffle gift every month.

21:34 Oh.

21:36 So they have a gift certificate.

21:39 We get our name announced at least twice a meeting, because somebody gets called up,

21:46 they want a ticket that gives them a percentage off on quilting, batting, thread.

21:54 Edge-to-edge quilting.

21:55 For edge-to-edge quilting.

21:56 We don't get into custom or semi-custom on the day, but—

22:03 Does this raffle?

22:05 Has this produced a lot of results for you guys?

22:09 It's hard to judge.

22:11 We don't get a ton of the coupons back, but you've got a room of quilters, and they hear

22:19 our name at Longarm Quilting every month at their meeting.

22:22 And we do that—

22:23 We put a value on that, but it's more than zero.

22:27 Right.

22:28 It ends up in the hindbrain that when I need something quilted, who am I going to think

22:34 of?

22:35 Well, there's this one that I kept hearing at the meeting.

22:37 And then those that bring their coupon to us and we do their quilt, they take it back

22:43 for show-and-tell and hold it up and show it to everybody.

22:49 And then all of a sudden, people are going, that's beautiful.

22:53 I can get mine done like that.

22:56 We've actually had a couple of guilds that they've had bidding wars over the raffle coupon.

23:06 Fantastic.

23:07 Because somebody's got a big quilt.

23:11 And I've had a couple of my clients say, I had a king-size quilt.

23:16 I wasn't going to quilt it myself.

23:18 I bid back and forth with this lady because I wanted your coupon because I wanted the

23:23 discount.

23:26 So you guys, are you guys only have exposure in certain quilt guilds or do you rotate?

23:37 Because I know there might, it sounds like there's more than you could ever go to in

23:42 your area.

23:43 Yeah.

23:44 We go to a lot less of them these days.

23:48 Back pre-pandemic, I used to hit, I'm wishing 25 a month.

23:59 And so I didn't necessarily hit all of them every month, but I would rotate around on

24:03 some of the others.

24:05 These days, I don't tend to get to any.

24:07 I got a dog right before the pandemic and he grew up as a pandemic baby and has never

24:13 been alone.

24:16 So it's much harder to try and go to a guild meeting when I can't really leave him alone.

24:22 You got the baby.

24:24 And you have an established customer base and it grows organically at this point.

24:29 Yeah.

24:30 Yeah.

24:31 It grows and we still send them a lot of them the gift certificates.

24:37 So again, we're getting announced.

24:41 We're trying to get better about putting stuff on our Facebook page, especially when he does

24:48 something spectacular with the quilting, but also just the edge to edge stuff, trying to

24:56 get more in the habit of, I'd love to see practically every quilt end up on our Facebook

25:01 page, just because people like to look at pretty pictures.

25:05 And again, they get in the habit of seeing stuff quilted and like how it's turning out.

25:14 Even more than those pretty pictures, they like to see one of those little video clips

25:18 of the machine actually stitching part of that quilt.

25:24 As you know, you've graduated.

25:27 You don't have the Statler stair anymore.

25:30 But for those who are uninitiated, it is, it's mesmerizing where you've got to do some

25:37 surfing of it.

25:38 And that'd be good video.

25:40 Yeah.

25:41 Yeah.

25:42 I hesitate to just let the machine do it because then I have people coming in and going, well,

25:49 I don't want to pay that much because all you're doing is letting the machine stitch

25:52 it.

25:53 No, no, no.

25:54 Dear.

25:55 I do a lot more work than just that's why that's why I immediately went to.

25:59 No, I don't necessarily want to do just the Statler going by itself, but if he's surfing

26:03 and because I get a quilt to make sure that we get the wrinkles and the tucks out and

26:12 that we, we work to make them pretty.

26:16 That's just me.

26:17 I'm well, there's a, there's a reason that these training programs, you know, these,

26:24 these programs with the videos and the handouts and stuff, you know, you can buy a machine

26:30 and we'll teach you how to use it, but it's, I mean, it's a decade of learning all the

26:36 tricks and all the, you know, not that you're not able to do a quilt from the first day

26:40 because you can, but you, a matter of fact, uh, Vivs, you were telling about that.

26:47 You're not exactly proud of your first quilt.

26:50 Maybe.

26:51 Yeah.

26:52 Um, and I'm still, I'm nowhere near at his level.

26:55 He's, he's at master quilter level.

26:59 I'm a novice.

27:00 I do edge to edge work.

27:01 I don't do any of the semi custom or anything like that.

27:05 But the vast majority of the quilts that we get in are just edge to edge.

27:10 I shouldn't say just edge to edge, they are edge to edge.

27:15 And, uh, I can do those fine and, uh, I, I've gotten better at making sure that they

27:22 come out square at the end and not a little smiley at the end of the quilt or anything

27:26 like that.

27:27 Um, but my early stuff didn't necessarily, I pushed, uh, not, not to say that any quilters

27:38 quilt was not square when it came in, but when I had that little bit of excess, I didn't

27:43 necessarily know what to do with it to get it to, um, look it's best, uh, I do better

27:52 at it now.

27:53 And, uh, there's still places where I would say, Hey, uh, Russ, can you give me a clue

28:00 as to what to do here?

28:02 Because, um, I want this, I want her to be happy with this or, or even him to be happy

28:08 with this when they get home.

28:10 He'll text me now and then I got help and I'll go soup cans on either side to help with

28:19 the surfing to help with surfing, the added weight on the quilt top help surf in the excess

28:25 fabric in the top.

28:26 I'll tell you, I haven't used soup cans for years.

28:29 I like to use the new one for me.

28:31 Oh, is it really?

28:32 Yeah.

28:33 I like to use the 20 ounce soda bottles.

28:36 You drink the soda out of them and then fill them up three quarters of the way with water

28:40 or whatever.

28:41 They're really solid.

28:42 You know, they're the plastic that they're made out of is tough and they're the right

28:46 shape to roll up and down the quilt with the Statler.

28:50 Uh, and if one of those hits the floor, you don't have to worry about breaking your toe,

28:55 but yeah, but that's a, that's a time honored, uh, trick for, uh, smoothing out the quilt.

29:06 Guys fill them with beans or birdseed.

29:09 Um, I've seen them filled with all kinds of things.

29:11 I have rice bags.

29:13 I have long tubes of mattress kicking that's filled with rice that I will use to help when

29:21 I'm surfing, especially when I'm doing a custom.

29:25 I wanted to ask you guys, um, considering the audience that's watching and, um, looking

29:30 back on the years that you've had and growing your business, the place you are now versus

29:37 the place you used to be, um, can you, uh, it can be either, uh, uh, some incidents or

29:45 stories that you may remember.

29:47 Can you think of any of the times that you would consider hard parts of, uh, growing

29:52 a business and, uh, any, anything that you can share about that with the people watching?

29:59 For me, the hardest thing in doing the business was learning to stand up and say, no, there

30:12 are times that no is a complete sentence.

30:17 Um, I've had ladies bring in quilt tops and want me, and I'm not talking little ones.

30:27 I'm talking king size, 110 by 110.

30:32 And they want me to quilt 110 by 110 with inch and a half size leaves in 15,000 pieces.

30:44 And then they want to pay $110.

30:49 And I've had to say no.

30:55 And they look at me and go, why?

30:57 And I said, because what you're asking me to do is going to take hours upon hours.

31:08 She goes, really?

31:09 And I said, you're, I'm looking at 40 hours.

31:14 Would you work 40 hours for $110?

31:18 And she said, no.

31:19 And I said, but you expect me to.

31:24 Something like that is easier to say no to.

31:26 I think where a lot of people struggle is it's an edge case.

31:30 It's where you, you could almost say yes, but something in the back of your mind is

31:36 saying, I don't want to do this.

31:40 Yeah.

31:42 And, and there are times.

31:44 You have to listen to your intuition, don't you?

31:46 Yes.

31:47 You have to listen to your gut and intuition.

31:51 There are times when you look at a quilt and you go, that's not an edge to edge.

31:57 That's not my base price.

32:01 I'm going to increase the price because I don't want to do it.

32:07 Yep.

32:09 Now I will negotiate with the client and say, you know, I can do it the way you're requesting

32:17 it be done at this price, or I have this pattern that's similar that I can do at base

32:28 price.

32:31 A lot of times people come in with an idea in their head and don't necessarily have a

32:36 concept of what is involved in getting there.

32:41 And so, you know, they saw this in a magazine and don't necessarily have a, a real feel

32:47 for the scale of the pattern, looking at it in a magazine.

32:53 Right.

32:54 And so they have a Saks Fifth Avenue vision in their mind, but it came out budget and

33:02 beyond.

33:03 I've actually been told they could get my work at Bed Bath and Beyond.

33:08 Yeah.

33:09 And I've told them, yep, go, I can buy a bed in a bag for a hundred dollars and it comes

33:15 with this, this, this, and this, and I'm like, go for it.

33:18 Absolutely.

33:19 And they'll look at me and go, you're turning down a customer and I said, go get the hundred

33:25 dollar bag.

33:26 Yeah.

33:27 You'll have to get another one after you've washed it twice.

33:30 Yeah.

33:31 Yeah.

33:32 There's a world of difference between those things.

33:35 So as, as your business was growing, you, you had said that around 2020, 2021 in there

33:45 is when you retrofitted one machine to be a Statler from being a plus, and then you

33:50 got another new Statler.

33:52 Tell me about the decision process there, because that's a big change all at once.

33:58 What drove that decision for you?

34:02 I got another job, honestly, honestly, and truly is the biggest, the biggest thing.

34:10 I got hired by Ancestry in their pro genealogist division, doing genetic genealogy research

34:20 for them.

34:21 My background is 30 years as a computer programmer, database analyst.

34:29 His background is all genetics and science and hard sciences.

34:36 Yeah.

34:37 And you know, he's got two masters.

34:38 I have one master.

34:40 One master.

34:41 Four bachelors, one masters.

34:43 So when he got hired, it was going to be me doing all of the quilting.

34:49 Oh.

34:50 So there was that.

34:51 And the simple fact that I was going to, I was going to have a larger, I was going to

34:57 have the income.

34:58 I mean, we'd wanted a Statler for a while, but financing it, there were periods of time,

35:10 we do this because it's a passion, not necessarily because we're getting rich.

35:16 And so the idea of financing a Statler was really outside of our scope until I got this

35:27 new job, which unfortunately only lasted 18 months.

35:31 And then I got hit in the tech layoffs.

35:37 It laid off out of 150 people in our division, they laid off 25 of us in a single day.

35:45 And you know, my dream job went bye-bye.

35:50 But by then we already had the new gamble.

35:52 So but yeah, having that extra income and knowing that my time couldn't be spent as

36:02 easily on, and I didn't want everything to land on him as well as, no offense, but he's

36:14 getting older and doing all the hand-guided work and gambles can move quite smoothly,

36:23 but they're still heavy machine and you're doing it 40 plus hours a week, hauling the

36:29 machine back and forth and wanted to be able to make life easier on him.

36:38 Someone had asked me, have you had any joints replaced yet?

36:44 And this was when we had decided to order an upgrade.

36:50 And I said, not yet, but it's getting close.

36:55 So as it had to do that three years later and 20 years of pushing around the machine,

37:01 right?

37:02 Tears on the body.

37:03 Right.

37:05 Even if you're not pushing around a machine, I mean, we're all, none of us are as young

37:10 as we were last year.

37:13 So it seems to me like you had a real bad break of luck there with the 18 months of

37:22 that new job.

37:24 And as far as like payments on your two Statler machines, they typically set those up on a

37:29 five-year payment plan, which is, you know, I wish it was a 30-year payment plan like

37:35 a house, but it's not, it's usually five years.

37:38 So it's a pretty aggressive repayment schedule.

37:41 How did you handle that?

37:43 Luckily, we both had access.

37:51 I dipped into my future inheritance from my parents to finance it.

38:00 And so repayment is currently on hold until we get to the point of being able to do that.

38:11 And the upgrade was monies that I had stashed.

38:17 And so I paid for that outright.

38:19 Okay.

38:20 So both machines are technically free and clear.

38:25 Gotcha.

38:26 Also, you got a good chunk of the money is that Bayer, the person that the namesake of

38:32 the shop passed away.

38:35 And so he had some inheritance there that helped get Annie upgraded.

38:42 So we locked out.

38:44 I wish I could say that it's a great solution for everybody.

38:46 It's not.

38:48 We locked out there.

38:50 My parents have been very supportive of, they said, you know, you pay us back and you'll

38:57 get it when we die.

38:59 Or if you don't manage to pay us back, you're just going to inherit less than your brother.

39:04 I would say that it's the rare parent, there are some, but it's the rare parent that does

39:09 not want to see their children pursue their dreams and their passions.

39:16 Most of the time, the parents would like nothing more than to see their children be

39:22 successful and happy.

39:26 And Bayer's Quilt Shop officially opened in 2001 and we were in 2021.

39:34 It's not like it was something new.

39:36 It was not.

39:39 We weren't trying to convince them to put money in a brand new endeavor or something

39:47 that they didn't know if we were going to be able to make a go of it or anything like

39:52 that.

39:53 We'd been here as an official business for over 20 years.

40:00 So it was much more reasonable to say,

40:06 we're gonna keep going at this.

40:08 We've been doing it for this long.

40:09 We're going to keep doing it.

40:13 You're not talking about shelling out a large amount

40:17 of money because we bought the 14 foot table

40:20 and the largest throat that you had available

40:22 and hydraulics and a whole shebang.

40:26 So it wasn't a cheap price tag.

40:30 Less than it is today, but it's not cheap.

40:34 We got it right before the price went up

40:37 back in July of 2021.

40:40 You guys had a big price bump right after we bought

40:45 and the local bureau was pushing us saying,

40:48 the price is going up if you don't look now.

40:53 And then right before the whole change

40:57 and how you dealt with your dealers.

41:02 So how many quilts at this point would you say

41:09 that you're looking to do on those machines

41:12 on an annual basis?

41:13 Do you have a feeling for what you did last year

41:16 or what you're on target for for this year?

41:20 I ran the stats.

41:23 Just to give you an idea,

41:24 we had our machine serviced three weeks ago

41:28 or four weeks ago.

41:31 And I've already put 2.5 million stitches

41:35 on the new machine.

41:39 Auto Annie, I don't run as often

41:43 because I'm usually doing so much more semi-custom.

41:46 Our workload shifted.

41:49 We don't get the 5% semi-custom custom work.

41:55 We're now getting about 40% semi-custom custom work.

42:01 That's a lot.

42:04 So the overalls, when I get a quilt

42:08 where I can let it run for a bit,

42:10 I will pull up Annie and let her do overalls.

42:14 Right.

42:15 Or he'll do Annie if we get in a bind.

42:19 We try to maintain a three-week turnaround,

42:21 three weeks or less turnaround.

42:25 Which we're pushing right now.

42:26 Yeah.

42:27 Right now we're probably closer to four.

42:31 At what point of quilts sitting there

42:34 stacked up waiting to be done?

42:36 Like I've had people tell me I'm fine

42:39 until I get to where I've got 40 quilts on the shelf.

42:42 And then I just freak out

42:44 and I just like have to get them done.

42:46 Like what's your level of quilts waiting to be done

42:49 that really makes you anxious?

42:51 Before we went Statler,

42:54 we would tell our customers the end of August,

42:59 start thinking about your Christmas quilts.

43:02 Because the more quilts we get in for Christmas,

43:05 the sooner that deadline gets cut off.

43:09 And one year we actually cut the deadline

43:12 for Christmas quilts to be done on September 1st

43:16 because we had 175 quilts to do by Christmas Eve.

43:23 Yeah, so we went through the gauntlet on that.

43:26 So we don't get as spooked as we used to.

43:31 With the Statler, we're now doing much better.

43:36 We've leveled off since COVID.

43:41 COVID, we dropped down.

43:43 We lost quite a few of our clientele to COVID.

43:47 We've done a lot of the families

43:49 have brought their tops in and the backs in and said,

43:52 mom's gone, can you finish these?

43:55 So that each of the family members have one.

43:59 Those quilts are very special.

44:02 They are very special and we treat them very special.

44:05 So right now we're running, since COVID,

44:09 we're running about 300 to 350 quilts a year.

44:15 And 30, 40% of that is custom or semi-custom.

44:20 Correct.

44:21 Or T-shirt.

44:22 Yeah.

44:24 And we treat our T-shirt quilts as a semi-custom.

44:29 And it's because of he's an artist

44:31 and he has the eye for it.

44:36 We have, we're pushing 6,100 patterns

44:41 and we wouldn't have that many

44:43 if he didn't have the ability to visualize

44:47 what this is going to look like

44:51 before he starts laying it out.

44:52 Obviously, everybody can lay it out in Creative Studio

44:55 and see what it's going to look like.

44:56 But when you got 6,100, you can't lay them all out

44:59 or anything like that.

45:00 He has an amazing skill at that.

45:07 My philosophy with quilting,

45:09 and it has been since I started with the first quilt,

45:12 is to talk with my customer, my client,

45:16 and see what their vision is

45:19 and what their art is supposed to be

45:22 so that I can put my art with theirs.

45:24 Because I don't want our art to be just a piece of paper.

45:29 I want my art fighting.

45:31 I want it to be side-by-side to make beautiful.

45:36 You generally take some time and talk with each customer

45:39 prior to doing the project?

45:42 Yeah.

45:44 Our intake process, literally measure the quilt,

45:49 measure the back, measure the batting,

45:51 talk with them about what they see for it.

45:54 We pull up, we actually have a widescreen TV

45:56 in the office, pull up Creative Studio,

45:59 and I'll pull up a category of patterns

46:03 and go, if you see something that sparks your interest,

46:06 go for it.

46:06 I'm going to pull some up that I think might.

46:09 And we go from there.

46:10 And then we actually put in the quilt dimensions

46:12 and start laying it out on the quilt.

46:14 So by the time we finish the process,

46:18 I've either got a very good layout

46:20 of what I'm going to do semi-custom or custom-wise,

46:26 or what the overall is going to look like on the quilt.

46:30 We save that project on our intranet

46:35 so that when the quilt comes up for quilting,

46:40 we can pull that project up over on the statlers

46:43 and go from there.

46:44 Yeah, and see what exact size did we show them?

46:48 What was the spacing?

46:50 Obviously, we've got to lay it out

46:52 because the real quilt is often slightly different

46:55 than what we just measured it at sitting here in the lobby.

47:00 But he had a customer come in today.

47:03 We were supposed to email you guys back something by noon.

47:07 And he had a customer come in at 1130

47:09 when I was trying to get it out.

47:11 And she was here for an hour dropping off,

47:14 I think just one quilt.

47:15 One quilt.

47:17 But it was her first time, her first quilt.

47:21 And she didn't understand what she wanted

47:24 or anything like that.

47:25 So it took me a little longer to get through the process.

47:29 But I will take that time

47:30 because I want my customers to not only feel special,

47:34 but I want them to understand,

47:37 this is both of us together.

47:40 And my work isn't supposed to outshine yours.

47:45 I'm a very big believer in,

47:47 yes, there are times when my quilting

47:50 is supposed to be fabulous,

47:53 but it's not supposed to look like somebody

47:55 puked thread on a quilt.

47:59 Unfortunately, we've seen some of those.

48:02 I've had clients that have brought me back quilts

48:05 from other quilters and paid us to take it apart

48:10 and re-quilt it because it literally looked

48:14 like somebody puked thread on their quilt.

48:17 That's always hard.

48:18 And quite often that really is,

48:21 it's even hard for the customer

48:22 to express their disappointment

48:24 because when the person who did the quilting

48:28 shows it to you,

48:32 there's a lot of internal pressure or social pressure

48:35 to say, oh, well, oh, it's beautiful.

48:38 Well, thank you.

48:39 Well, how much do I owe you?

48:40 And the whole time they're thinking,

48:42 oh my gosh, this was not at all what I had in mind.

48:46 But they still, they pay for it

48:47 and they leave because they're nice people.

48:49 And then they cry about it

48:52 because somebody just ruined this quilt.

48:57 Do you, who, is there anybody in particular

49:03 or maybe more than one person

49:05 that you really wanna give credit to

49:08 for being your cheerleader or your support in this business?

49:13 This is one, because I can always call him

49:16 over to the machine and say, what do you think?

49:20 Am I overthinking it?

49:22 Is it too much?

49:24 I've got a lady who will come in and do binding for us.

49:29 I consider her an adopted sister

49:32 and I can go, I can do the same thing with her.

49:37 Those two, I don't know if they're the same thing

49:41 but those two are special.

49:45 But the biggest thing for me are my customers.

49:50 When a customer brings in a quilt

49:53 and says, just do something with it, it's ugly,

49:56 I'm gonna give it to Cherry.

49:59 Also, who's Joyce and who's your teachers?

50:04 You can't bring them up.

50:05 And then there's the teachers, the teachers that I had.

50:09 Joyce Lundergan, Joan Knight, they're both excellent.

50:18 The Gamble Educators,

50:23 well worth the time to spend one-on-one

50:28 because I got information

50:31 on problems I was having with Creative Studio

50:37 and it was something that I kept hitting the wall with

50:43 and I couldn't get past it on a quilt.

50:48 So I did a one-on-one session

50:51 and boom, figured out how to get past it.

50:57 Not everybody knows, I don't wanna make it a commercial

51:00 but not everybody knows that you can get an hour

51:05 with a teacher, I think it's $59 or something.

51:08 Yeah, 59.

51:10 And it is remarkable how many different people

51:14 have told me about a situation that they were,

51:18 maybe a quilt that they didn't know how to approach it

51:21 or a technique that they had not figured out

51:24 and they buy an hour of somebody's time

51:28 and it is crazy where you get,

51:31 with somebody who really knows their stuff,

51:34 they can help you a lot in an hour.

51:37 Yep, I would highly-

51:38 Make a list before you hire them and then-

51:41 Yeah.

51:43 I've got these 10 things that I wanna know

51:45 and you can get through all 10 in that hour

51:48 because they're that good.

51:49 I would highly recommend to anybody getting a machine,

51:55 get the Creative Studio software on a laptop

51:59 or on a computer, not attached to the Stitcher.

52:05 Do it in standalone mode

52:07 the minute you've ordered the machine.

52:10 And play.

52:11 And play with it.

52:13 Use all the videos, open the help book

52:17 and go through all the videos in the help book

52:21 and then go outside of that

52:26 and I'm not trying to plug anybody else

52:29 but there are clubs out there

52:33 that will help you build your skills using the software.

52:40 Absolutely.

52:41 I'll plug them.

52:43 Joyce and Joan, what's the name of their companies?

52:47 Northwest Needle.

52:48 I think it's called a Skill Builder.

52:50 They have a Skill Builder club and they have-

52:52 One of the things that's really helpful in that one

52:55 is that you get a project

52:59 and a lot of times a good way to learn is on a project

53:04 and it's an excellent way to increase your comfort level

53:09 with all the different techniques and the tools that are-

53:12 Several of the quilts back here on the wall

53:15 are my Skill Builder projects.

53:19 And they helped me understand the software

53:23 and the machine so much.

53:25 I did them without the machine

53:28 because it took us seven weeks to get the first machine in

53:34 and then another seven weeks to get the upgrade.

53:38 So I had time to play in standalone mode

53:42 and understand the software and learn more

53:46 and I did the Skill Builders in standalone mode

53:50 and watched the videos over.

53:53 What it bought me was it took the 20 years of long arming

53:58 that I had done manually and brought me up to speed

54:02 on how I could use that knowledge in the computer

54:07 and tell the computer how to push the machine around.

54:12 And I'll say,

54:15 everybody has their own favorite pattern designers.

54:20 Mine is Nancy at Wasatch Quilting.

54:23 I belong to her master's club

54:24 and I get 25 bucks for a month

54:28 and I get 50 patterns every month

54:33 versus the $10 a pattern or more that you pay for things.

54:37 And she lays them out into beautiful designs

54:41 for specific quilts,

54:43 which we occasionally do get in that quilt

54:46 but we can also adapt and find your favorite.

54:49 Find your favorite.

54:51 It doesn't need to be my favorite.

54:53 Nancy happens to be mine

54:55 but find who is your favorite and look for those,

55:00 the clubs and the videos and the whatnot that they do

55:04 because you figure out how it is that they do what they do

55:10 and you grow.

55:15 It teaches you how to think differently, doesn't it?

55:17 Yep.

55:18 Yes.

55:19 Just seeing how, oh, here's the new master's

55:22 and yes, it's a collection of patterns

55:24 but then she shows you how she laid out these patterns

55:27 to quilt this quilt.

55:29 And it sinks in after a while.

55:35 I'm never gonna be at his level

55:37 but I learned so much just from being part

55:43 of her little group and watching her little videos

55:46 that she does.

55:48 There's always people out there who are better than you

55:50 and it's not a failure to watch them,

55:55 learn from them, ask for their help.

56:01 One of you mentioned earlier,

56:02 you learn more from making mistakes

56:04 than you'll ever learn in school.

56:07 Did somebody ask a question?

56:09 I was, well, we've got a couple of comments.

56:13 I don't have a, what was the name again

56:19 for the quilt patterns from Nancy?

56:23 It's Wasatch Quilting.

56:26 Did you say it was called the Master's Club?

56:28 Is that your-

56:29 Yeah, I belong to her Master's Club.

56:30 She also has the Artisans Club, which is a smaller grouping

56:34 but I happen to belong to her Master's Club.

56:37 The other nice thing, if you belong,

56:41 you can go back and buy the previous months.

56:44 However far back, she's got like a decade or more of them.

56:50 You can still buy them at the 25 bucks a month price.

56:55 You can never have too many patterns.

56:56 Right, you can't have too many patterns.

56:58 I mean, we're up to 6,100 people.

57:02 We still have most of our paper Pantos

57:05 in the other room here, which I'm still trying to get us,

57:09 find the time to get through,

57:11 figure out which ones we need to digitize

57:13 or find out there digitally or whatever

57:16 so we can pitch them or sell them to somebody or whatnot.

57:20 But-

57:21 I drew a bunch of patterns

57:24 that I've been slowly getting over to digitized.

57:29 It takes some time to do that.

57:30 Yeah, we don't digitize anything

57:32 that's under somebody's copyright

57:33 but we do have some that are 20 plus years old

57:37 and you can't buy it anymore.

57:39 Right, right.

57:40 But also back then when we were pushing 500 patterns,

57:45 I knew them all.

57:47 I knew what we had.

57:48 I knew which little hobby hole it was in and whatnot.

57:52 With 6,100 patterns, forget it.

57:55 I have no concept of what we have.

57:56 Thank goodness for keywords and tags.

57:59 Keywords and tags.

58:02 And that's, in the spare time,

58:06 going through and putting extra tags on stuff

58:09 is always a very useful thing to be doing.

58:14 Things, whatever,

58:16 because they come with tags on them most of the time

58:19 but it's not necessarily what you think of

58:21 when you think of that pattern.

58:23 Yeah.

58:24 And so being able to put in custom tags

58:27 or I want this in my holiday grouping

58:29 or my patriotic grouping or whatever.

58:35 But you were asking about my other support systems

58:39 and besides the teachers, it's my customers.

58:44 When my customers bring in a quilt top

58:47 and they're like, I really don't like this.

58:49 I'm just gonna give it to charity after it's quilted.

58:53 And I will look at them and go, can I play with it?

58:59 And then I turn them back a quilt

59:01 and they stand in front of me

59:03 and see it for the first time and break into tears.

59:09 Then I know I've done something special for them.

59:13 One lady this past week picked it up, took it home,

59:18 put it on her bed, took photographs

59:21 and emailed them to me within two hours.

59:25 For a quilt that she brought in and said, I hate it.

59:29 That feels pretty good, doesn't it?

59:31 It very much feels so good.

59:34 First of all, something people should realize

59:35 is a lot of people hate their quilt top

59:38 when they bring it in.

59:40 And it's because they're too close to it.

59:43 They've been working on this project

59:44 and they're like, it's like anything else.

59:46 I'm so glad that it's done.

59:48 And so they have a negative connotation

59:51 attached to their tops.

59:52 And people will often think it's much better

59:55 when they get it back than when they dropped it off.

59:58 Having an artist.

1:00:00 adds that much more to it.

1:00:01 And we always try and make it better than we do.

1:00:05 But there are these ones like this one

1:00:09 that this lady absolutely hated it when she brought it in.

1:00:12 And was literally in tears

1:00:16 and was gonna put it on her own bed when she took it out.

1:00:20 That's a good insight.

1:00:21 I think a lot of people probably don't realize

1:00:23 getting into the, especially if they're starting

1:00:27 a longarm quilting business,

1:00:29 that would maybe be news to them.

1:00:30 They wouldn't be aware that there is a large number

1:00:34 of people that finish a quilt top

1:00:36 and they hate it at the time that they are done.

1:00:38 And I think part of that, just a theory,

1:00:41 I don't have any, I never did a survey or anything,

1:00:43 but I kind of wonder if when you finish a quilt top,

1:00:46 there's something deep inside where you're thinking

1:00:49 that it's gonna be like the beautiful quilts you've seen.

1:00:53 But those in your mind,

1:00:55 those are all finished quilts that have,

1:00:58 they're quilted, right?

1:01:00 So you finish your quilt top

1:01:01 and you're expecting a thing of beauty

1:01:03 and it isn't a thing of beauty yet

1:01:05 because you have not completed the quilt.

1:01:10 I think that's a little bit,

1:01:11 some of it is just, like I said,

1:01:13 you've been staring at the same project for,

1:01:16 yeah, it's fatigue.

1:01:16 You've been staring at the same project

1:01:18 for two, three months making this top,

1:01:22 however long it takes you.

1:01:23 And the picture that you guys are painting here

1:01:28 is one of the amount of motivation that you receive

1:01:34 from the appreciation of the customers

1:01:37 that you're making these quilts for.

1:01:39 And that's something that we,

1:01:41 I don't think we hear as much as we need to.

1:01:45 That's every bit as much of a motivator

1:01:48 as the people around you that are not the customers.

1:01:52 And I appreciate you guys bringing that part of it up.

1:01:55 We are definitely over time,

1:01:56 but it's been a pleasure to have you here.

1:02:01 Give me the name of our furriest companion there.

1:02:04 I can't pronounce it.

1:02:05 It's Dougal.

1:02:06 Dougal.

1:02:07 Dougal.

1:02:08 Dougal, Vivs, and Russ.

1:02:10 And if people wanna look you guys up online

1:02:12 or on, I think you mentioned quilts on Facebook,

1:02:16 how can they find you?

1:02:17 It's Bear's Quilt Shop.

1:02:19 There's only two, I believe, in the country.

1:02:21 We're the one in California.

1:02:23 All right.

1:02:24 Bear's Quilt Shop.

1:02:25 Fantastic.

1:02:27 And I'm out on Facebook as Russ Lee.

1:02:32 Russ Lee.

1:02:33 You can find him through our Facebook page pretty easily.

1:02:36 Fantastic.

1:02:39 Thank you guys so much for sharing your story.

1:02:42 Yeah, thank you so much.

1:02:44 Thank you for the invitation.

1:02:46 I think it will definitely help some people

1:02:49 as they are trying to figure out, you know,

1:02:52 the things that they can do to be successful

1:02:55 and to follow their dreams, you know?

1:02:59 Yes.

1:03:00 Thank you so much.

1:03:03 Thank you guys.

1:03:04 Have a nice evening.

1:03:05 You take care.

1:03:06 Thank you, you guys too.