How Cynthia Wheeler Built Her Longarm Quilting Business in California

0:00 We're gonna go ahead and get started.

0:25 Welcome to Quilting Business Success.

0:28 My name is Bobby Ware.

0:29 I work with Gammill Tech Support.

0:33 And tonight we have Cynthia Wheeler has joined us today.

0:38 We're really pleased to have Cynthia.

0:42 So Cynthia, let's just go ahead and get right to it.

0:45 Can you tell us, first of all, where are you located?

0:48 Where's home for you?

0:51 I'm in Clayton, California,

0:53 which is located in the foothills east of San Francisco.

0:58 Okay, and how long have you been longarm quilting?

1:05 16 years.

1:08 At first, I had it for the first 10 years.

1:11 I was using an HQ16 with Pantos, rulers, and free motion.

1:17 And the last six years,

1:19 I've been using a 30 inch Gammill Statler,

1:22 fully computerized on a 12 foot table.

1:27 Wow, that's quite a change, huh?

1:33 So you were telling me a little bit before

1:36 about the difference between machine guided

1:42 and computerized longarm quilting now

1:45 and the way it was looked at in the old days.

1:49 Can you give us a little bit of what it was like

1:52 in the old days?

1:54 All right, so I started quilting,

2:04 officially joining two guilds,

2:07 and they were traditional guilds.

2:13 And one of the biggest things was that you had to make

2:17 a quilt that was a bed size quilt.

2:21 And then the bed size quilt had to be hand quilted.

2:25 And so one of the-

2:27 Hand quilt, is that like hand stitching?

2:30 It's hand stitching.

2:31 Wow, okay.

2:33 Yes, we could use the machine to piece the top,

2:38 but we had to hand quilt it.

2:40 So we actually had a frame that was about six feet

2:45 by six feet that was built that was on tall legs.

2:52 And then we would put the quilt on it

2:54 and we would have basting night

2:57 where we would baste each other's quilts

3:00 so that they could take it home and baste it by hand.

3:04 Wow.

3:05 So I was not up for that at all.

3:09 I mean, literally I never had a quilt basted ever

3:14 because I didn't have time in my life to do that.

3:19 Right.

3:20 To hand quilt a quilt.

3:21 Yes.

3:23 So how and why did you,

3:29 how'd you get around to long arming?

3:30 What made you decide to go that route?

3:33 You want my long story or short story?

3:36 Well, it depends on how long the long story is.

3:41 I wanted to quilt my own quilts.

3:44 And of course all that whole time,

3:47 everybody was requiring that you hand stitch your quilt,

3:52 but I didn't have any time.

3:54 I was working full time.

3:55 I had children.

3:56 I was going around taking care of them.

3:59 There was just no way that I was going to hand quilt

4:02 my quilts, but I didn't want to give my quilts

4:05 to somebody else to quilt.

4:06 Cause I saw that as something that I wanted

4:11 to start and finish.

4:13 So.

4:14 You didn't have time to do them,

4:15 but you didn't want somebody else doing them.

4:17 Right.

4:18 Okay.

4:19 Yep.

4:20 I just, one of those things that went full circle

4:22 on me actually, when I started the business.

4:27 So I,

4:32 it got around the middle of, you know,

4:34 about 10 years into getting the,

4:39 taking all of these classes

4:42 and learning how to make tops and tops and tops and tops.

4:45 You know, it's kind of like one of those illnesses

4:47 that quilters have, right?

4:49 You just, you, you got a new class coming up,

4:52 a new technique, a new teacher, whatever.

4:55 And so you, you make a new top and a new top

4:57 and a new top and a new top.

4:59 And I've got piles of them.

5:00 I got like 30 or 40 tops that need quilting.

5:05 And so I was, and now, and now at this point in time,

5:11 machine quilting was okay.

5:12 Domestic machine quilting was okay.

5:15 So then there was a whole bunch of classes

5:17 for domestic machine quilting.

5:20 And so I took all those classes

5:22 and then I started basting those quilts.

5:28 You know, how you do all of the basting with a pin basting

5:31 and then you're, and you're, you're getting it all ready.

5:34 Oh my back.

5:35 Oh my Lord.

5:36 It hurts so bad because I didn't make small stuff.

5:40 I made big quilts.

5:42 Then you roll up the quilt and then you shove it through

5:46 the quilting machine, the domestic machine.

5:49 And I would have bad cramps in my shoulders

5:53 and everything would hurt.

5:55 And one day I started crying

5:57 because I was just so frustrated.

5:58 I wanted to have this quilt.

6:00 I remember exactly the quilt that I was doing

6:03 and I wanted it done.

6:05 And I just couldn't get it done because it hurts so bad.

6:08 My body hurts so bad.

6:10 And my husband walked in and he said, what's wrong?

6:15 And I said, I can't do this.

6:17 It's not working.

6:18 She says, he said, well, what do you need?

6:20 Cause he understands tools.

6:22 And he said, what do you need to be able to do what you need?

6:25 And I said, I need a long arm.

6:29 So that's when we went out and we investigated

6:33 and the Handi Quilter, the HQ 16 fit the bill

6:37 because it fit in, it was adjustable in length,

6:40 the table length and it was small enough

6:44 where that could fit it into my room that I had.

6:47 So I still had children here.

6:49 So that's what got me started.

6:52 And that's when I started kind of doing my own quilt.

6:56 The biggest thing was though,

6:59 I got involved in my continued to get on

7:03 with my charity quilts and quilts of honor.

7:07 And veteran quilts and all that.

7:10 So this became more of a pantograph use,

7:15 creating quilting quilts that other people had made

7:22 that they gave to me and Susan.

7:24 And on the weekends we would quilt these quilts.

7:29 And it came down to what we were doing it so much

7:32 that we came down to, okay,

7:34 we're going to do 12 in one year.

7:37 Then it was 15 in one year, then it was 20.

7:40 So we had certain goals that we wanted to meet

7:44 to be giving back.

7:48 Got you.

7:49 And this was hand guided at this time.

7:52 Right, so when it came down to me wanting to do more

7:57 on my quilts, I'm still doing the rulers,

8:00 I'm doing the hand guiding,

8:03 but my vision is too big.

8:05 I want more space to quilt on.

8:09 You couldn't fit it on that table, huh?

8:11 I mean, it was only 10 inches, you know, space.

8:17 And the only, and I went into my husband and I said,

8:21 hubby, I want to trade in my HQ6 team for a HQ Fusion

8:29 because they have a trade in thing.

8:31 And because I want, I need more space.

8:34 I need more space for my vision of things

8:36 that I wanted to quilt.

8:38 And he said, I thought you wanted a gamble.

8:44 I said, I don't know where you got that name from

8:46 because that's been 10 years

8:48 since I ever said anything about it,

8:50 but you just opened the door.

8:55 One month after that, it was ordered.

8:59 And in November of 2018, on my birthday,

9:04 it was delivered to my house.

9:06 And I have been flying ever since.

9:09 Wow, and what year was that again?

9:12 2018.

9:13 Okay, and do you still have that one today?

9:18 I do, I do.

9:21 That is Esta Ramona, E-R, E-R,

9:24 because Susan, whoever quilted with me on the HQ,

9:30 was there when it was delivered and everything.

9:33 And E-R, she is a 35-year veteran nurse.

9:38 So it was the, it was kind of a play on words as well.

9:45 Yeah, your stitcher's name is Esta Ramona, okay.

9:51 Yeah, that's one of the more unique,

9:53 if not the most unique name I've heard.

9:56 Yeah, I've heard some unique ones.

9:58 Okay, so when you first got your Gamel, Cynthia,

10:04 was it computerized from the get-go

10:08 or did you get a, was it hand-guided?

10:10 The biggest and the most computerized I could possibly get.

10:14 I got all the lights, all the wheels,

10:19 everything that I could possibly get.

10:21 Okay, so you got top of the line at that time.

10:24 Mm-hmm.

10:25 Okay, so now, at this time, when you,

10:31 so this was kind of a big jump for you,

10:34 going to this high-dollar Gamel.

10:39 At this time, did you know that there was enough

10:42 long-arm business available in your town

10:45 to support what you could do,

10:49 or what was your view of that?

10:52 Did you know that there were enough customers, or?

10:57 So the reason why I bought this was to be able to fit it,

11:00 to meet the demands of the community,

11:06 the charity quilts, the veteran quilts,

11:10 to do my own quilts, and to, and kind of just,

11:15 you know, just improve on my quilting, all right?

11:20 And then when I, when Susan and I were watching it

11:23 being loaded up and put into the house,

11:25 she looked at me and she said,

11:27 why don't we start a business?

11:29 Because, you know, we're talking about a big chunk of change

11:33 and this was a good opportunity to possibly

11:37 add some money into the bucket

11:39 to pay off the cost of the machine.

11:42 So I said, okay.

11:45 So we went around and decided on what we were going to do.

11:49 We named the business, Finally Finished,

11:52 Long-Arm Quilting Services.

11:54 Okay.

11:55 I play on words.

11:57 It could be finally and finally,

12:00 but it actually is finally.

12:03 Gotcha, gotcha.

12:06 So what I did was I went through and figured out,

12:11 I already knew all of the long-arm quilters.

12:13 I mean, I've been in quilting,

12:15 in the quilting business, so to speak,

12:18 and I belong to many different guilds.

12:23 I had been in many quilt communities and committees.

12:30 I had run quilt shows.

12:33 So I knew 90% of the people that were around,

12:37 all the quilt stores, everything.

12:40 And so when I got involved in,

12:43 or I started looking at possibly running a business,

12:45 I already knew who was around

12:48 and they were very strong quilters.

12:51 I mean, everybody went to them,

12:54 but I really had to believe that what I had to offer

13:01 was different because knowing what I learned

13:06 in being a real estate agent is that there's a million,

13:12 zillion, trillion real estate agents in this world, right?

13:17 But it's the uniqueness of each individual

13:20 and what they have to offer.

13:23 And not everybody likes everybody, right?

13:27 They just feel more comfortable being with certain people.

13:31 So just put myself out there.

13:35 And it was really easy because people knew me,

13:39 they came to me, and I'm a real estate agent.

13:45 I work seven days a week.

13:48 So, but being a commercial real estate agent,

13:53 typically we try to stay within the five days a week,

13:57 which leaves me two days a week to quilt.

14:01 Okay.

14:03 So what I tell people when they come and they ask me

14:05 if I will quilt something for them,

14:08 I tell them that I have only the weekends to work on it,

14:12 and they have to be tolerant enough to understand

14:15 that if I have a call for a grandchild event or something,

14:20 or a quilt show that I have to attend,

14:23 that I will do that first before they will do the quilt.

14:26 Okay.

14:27 So you still do real estate full-time, right?

14:34 I own the business, yes.

14:36 Okay.

14:37 And your quilting is reserved for the weekends.

14:43 You stay pretty busy, don't you?

14:46 I actually own and operate four different businesses.

14:49 This is only just two of them.

14:51 Wow, wow.

14:53 So with the quilting,

14:58 you laid the groundwork for that

15:00 by actually years of the charity quilts

15:03 and things like that,

15:05 and just being affiliated with the guilds

15:07 and the people that you know in there.

15:09 Is that right?

15:11 Yes.

15:16 One of the things that was really instrumental

15:18 was that we did a lot of the charity quilts

15:20 and the veterans quilts, right?

15:23 And I knew all the people that were making these

15:27 and they would work them in groups, right?

15:29 And one of the gals who was a long armor

15:33 will usually quilted them all.

15:35 But after a while, she was not able to handle them all,

15:39 so she funneled them to me.

15:41 And because I was doing,

15:43 Susan and I were doing them for free,

15:45 we would do certain number each week,

15:50 and we would send them over back to them.

15:53 Well, the ladies were seeing the quality of quilting

15:56 that we were producing,

15:57 and that was just like a major advertisement, right?

16:01 Because now they were seeing what they,

16:03 and they liked it.

16:06 Can you quilt my quilt?

16:09 And I encouraged them to go to Susan

16:12 because Susan was the long armor

16:15 and she was the one that was creating this group,

16:20 but there were times when she couldn't manage a quilt

16:24 because it was too big for her machine.

16:26 And so then she would send it off to me.

16:29 And then if somebody tried to come to me direct,

16:31 I would say, please go to Susan, talk to her,

16:35 and she will organize, you know, working with me

16:39 until she tells me otherwise.

16:41 So, and then after a while, Susan retired

16:46 and she sent everybody to me.

16:49 Oh, okay, okay.

16:51 And at that same quilt store that she worked in,

16:53 which is in the same city

16:55 that I have my real estate office in,

17:00 I knew the person who started the quilt store.

17:03 And so that, my name was put on the list of quilters

17:08 and it was on their website.

17:10 And lo and behold, I was the only one that answered the phone

17:15 Nobody answered the phone.

17:19 I mean, that's just like basic business, right?

17:22 You got to answer your phone.

17:25 So for the people that are watching,

17:28 would you say that that's a kind of a key thing

17:30 that they probably should do is answer their phone?

17:34 Yes, yes.

17:35 There's lots of, I hate to say this,

17:38 but there's a lot of quilters that just don't.

17:42 And if you want business,

17:46 all you need to do is answer the phone.

17:47 If you don't want their business,

17:49 tell them that here is another place to go

17:53 to look for the business, right?

17:55 I mean, to give your business to.

17:58 But if you don't answer the phone,

18:00 they will never call back again.

18:04 Very good point, very good point.

18:08 Cynthia, I wanted to ask you,

18:10 originally when you got your gamble in 2018,

18:15 did you finance your machine

18:17 or how did the funding of that go?

18:20 You know, Nordstrom credit card?

18:24 Well, there's like these wonderful points

18:27 when you buy something.

18:32 All right, so I got all these Nordstrom points on there

18:36 and I got all these.

18:39 I had so many gift cards to give out to people

18:42 for Christmas, it was like, it was wonderful, right?

18:46 And then the next month I paid it off.

18:48 Wow, very nice, very nice.

18:52 So I made money on that deal.

18:54 Yeah, wow, that's fantastic, yeah.

18:59 So for the people that are watching this right now,

19:03 do you, how many hours a week would you say you actually,

19:09 I know you say you work on the weekends doing quilting.

19:11 How much time do you put into quilting?

19:14 I can easily put in about 20 hours over the weekend.

19:18 Wow, that's a long weekend there.

19:23 You really do work full time, over full time.

19:27 Oh yeah, yeah.

19:28 Well, my real estate, a lot of times I don't come home

19:31 until nine or 10 o'clock at night.

19:34 And then, but I think that really having the Gammill

19:40 has opened up so many doors that when six o'clock

19:44 in the morning on Saturday and Sunday morning comes along,

19:48 it's so easy to get out of bed and jump right in there

19:52 and say, yes, Ramona, what's our project for the day?

19:57 So you really enjoy working on your Statler, huh?

20:00 Oh, I do. I do.

20:03 Excellent.

20:05 So, now, as far as charging for the people that are watching the charge by the hour by the square inch. How does that work.

20:15 Typically in this area, it's two and a half cents per square inch.

20:20 I charged $25 to fix a back or put it back together if necessary. And I charged $25 to put binding on the front of the quilt.

20:35 Okay, I will. I send out, if they want the binding all the way all the way on I send it out to a friend of mine who will hand stitch it.

20:46 If they want a fancy t shirt quilt, or a specialty quilt like one of them wanted baby clothes or things like that. I have three or four people that like to do those things and I'll send them out to that.

21:02 Okay, so those type of quilts you'll refer them out to some of your friends there.

21:10 Most of the kind of quilting that I do is edge to edge, only because I think that the budgeting on quilting making quotes, kind of, it's okay to spend a lot of money making you know making the quilt top.

21:26 But when they get down to the quilting, it's like, it's scrimping, you know, you just, you just want to barely pay a small amount of money just to get it quilted, so that you can get it done and get on to the next thing.

21:40 And it, I always encourage my people to think about making a quilt.

21:49 With the quilting in mind.

21:53 Look at the quilt designs that I have, and see if they can create something like they like the certain quilting design and create something to fall within that quilting design.

22:08 Hmm.

22:09 Okay.

22:11 And do you do, do you do any hand guiding these days or is it all pretty much edge to edge or give me anything to do and I will do it.

22:21 Okay. Yeah.

22:25 What would you say the your, your ratio is like hand guided versus edge to edge.

22:35 The edge to edge actually is 90%. The hand guided often is ruler based and, and, and every now and then I get something that somebody want this one gal she always gives me.

22:53 I want it custom.

22:55 I want it custom she just gives everything she gives me she says I want it custom. And that's, there's no talk about it.

23:03 Just wants a custom, and that's when I have to drop the belt is it drop the belts I guess that's it. Yeah, you have to drop the bill.

23:11 And it's it actually I have to kind of get myself used to it again, because the machine. You know what's amazing is that this machine is like so heavy.

23:22 How much is away 50 pounds, 60 pounds.

23:28 70 pounds or so.

23:30 And it moves so easily.

23:34 When it when the belts are dropped.

23:37 You can move it with just your fingers.

23:40 That thing it rolls very well.

23:45 So, so do you charge different how do you charge for custom stuff.

23:52 I use about three or three and a half cents per square inch, depending upon the complexity.

24:00 I actually she actually gave me a compass to a table runner with two compasses on it. And I did an intense quilting design, all free motion rulers that she wanted, she wanted on it.

24:17 One of the things that I do is I prepare everything up front.

24:21 When it comes to to custom quilting. So I already know all the designs that I'm going to put in there I have the, I take the photo I put I import it.

24:31 I put the all the designs on top of it. So I already know my roadmap.

24:37 I don't I don't want any surprises in there, you know, getting stuck somewhere.

24:42 Yeah, yeah. And also it's really important for the customer to know what the end result is going to be.

24:50 They, they really appreciate it, even if it's an edge to edge, they really super appreciate getting that vision.

24:59 So then when they get the quote back.

25:01 They're already expecting it, and they're not disappointed.

25:06 So you're able to kind of show them visually what it's going to look like.

25:12 Yes, the CS seven allows us to do that.

25:16 I set up edge to edge on all of the designs that they want and I put it up on the CS seven even if it isn't imported the photos not imported, and I still put that on there.

25:28 And they say oh I don't like this, the lines up on this or I don't like the, the way that it, you know, the way that it connects.

25:39 Right.

25:40 And then I don't, I like it.

25:43 Less quilting less dense.

25:46 And I, you know, it's really hard when you're looking at a laptop and it's what microscopic.

25:55 I have to enlarge it so that this, the great the grid is an inch. And I say okay this is what we're actually looking at, and you don't think you only see like a very small part of the quality.

26:07 Oh,

26:10 gotcha, gotcha.

26:12 Well, I'm so Cynthia.

26:16 Like yearly Do you know about how many quilts you, you normally do.

26:22 Sometime when I did maybe 20 or 30 quilts and then one time I did 60 quilts in a year.

26:29 Okay, so it does it kind of vary based on the year.

26:34 Yeah, when we were doing when we were kind of going into coven.

26:40 There was a lot of freak out about, you know, getting together.

26:45 And then also like touching something that somebody else touched.

26:51 So, you know, when you're like everything is in your house and you're handling it at all how do you sterilize a quilt. Right, right.

27:00 But I can tell you after coven, you know when people actually felt like they were comfortable with allowing other people to touch their items.

27:10 Everything came out of the closet and I'm still getting that right now I'm having people bring me 910 quilts at a time.

27:18 Oh wow.

27:20 So would you say you have you have as much business as you need right now.

27:26 You have to turn any away.

27:28 I never turn business away.

27:33 I, I tell them that they cannot restrict the deadline. If, if the deadline is, is at a point, and I cannot meet it for sure I cannot meet it, I tell them that they really need to go someplace else that can meet that deadline.

27:51 And I'm talking like a week or, you know, something shorter than that.

27:57 Okay.

27:58 What what is your, what would you say is your normal turnaround time.

28:02 Sometimes I can get it done in a couple hours and other times, I can get it done in four weeks, five weeks depending upon like when quilt I have right now it's a purple quilt, it's called the purple thing.

28:16 Right.

28:17 It's a quilt top that my customer bought, and it's kind of cool but it really requires a lot of thinking on what you're gonna do with it.

28:34 And so, yeah, it's lingering, it hangs up on my wall and I look at it as to how you know kind of like the vision of what I'm going to do with it.

28:44 Gotcha, gotcha.

28:46 Holly is asking a question. When you said 20 or 30 quilts.

28:52 She said, is that just the quilts that she charges for or does that include donation and charity quilts. Those are the charging ones.

29:01 Okay, yeah, the charity quilts go in between.

29:05 Okay, so you just squeeze those in where you can.

29:09 Those don't require me to spend an hour or two hours with the customer kind of planning out their quilt, their quilt design, the thread, you know, and then talking about where the quilt came from, why they made it.

29:26 If it was the mom's quilt and she passed away and now it's a special, you know, item and, and just kind of like all those emotions that go along with quilts.

29:37 Right.

29:38 Gotcha.

29:40 So, well, Cynthia, what, what would you say has been, what is the hardest part of growing a business like this.

29:54 What would you say would be a difficult part about it.

29:59 So in my advice to others. Is that kind of what your question is.

30:04 Yeah, this, and, you know, our target audience is a lot of them there are people that are either starting businesses themselves or in the earlier stages or maybe thinking about it.

30:16 So what would you say some of the hard parts.

30:20 So,

30:23 when I look on Facebook, or other things where people post their anxieties.

30:34 One of the things that I don't feel is that anxiety that they're worried that the people aren't going to like their quilting that they made a mistake, and they don't know how to tell their customer, or all these different kinds of where there's there in a

30:55 the other people are taking over all the quilting and there's nobody coming to them and they don't know why.

31:01 And I think the biggest thing is that anxiety and that anxiety transfers over to your customers and your customers don't enjoy that so that they will move on.

31:13 Gotcha.

31:15 So, for me, I started real estate over 38 years ago.

31:20 And there were literal there was literally no business, literal, no business.

31:27 And I, my joke was that I was going to stand on the corner with one of those signs that says, go over here, look at my property because I needed to show the landlord that I was actually showing his property.

31:42 And I literally did have did not have anybody to show the property to so I would.

31:48 So, whenever anybody actually even like just called because they were interested. I would go overboard, and I would push and try to make the sale, even though there wasn't a sale there to make.

32:03 What my suggestion is is to back off to really enjoy yourself.

32:10 Enjoy what you're doing, show the people that you enjoy what you're doing and show them how they can enjoy their own quilting, because there's a lot of people that are very don't say nice things about themselves, and, and their quilting.

32:27 Yes.

32:28 So, let your business grow organically that's what I've done.

32:34 You have highs, and you have lows, and it goes over year over year month over month or week over week and sometimes you don't hear any from anybody for months, and then all of a sudden you have 40 quilts and you don't know what to do with them.

32:50 Right.

32:51 You can't say, don't, I'm not going to do them.

32:55 Because if you do, if you say that, then they're going to assume from then on that you're not capable of handling that those quilts, and you're going to go someplace else.

33:05 So, you've got to be more clear about the your timing, and what you what you're going to be able to do for them.

33:14 And if you are telling them that, you know, I've got this amount of time, and I can do this and this and this, and you're about here.

33:23 Is that good for you.

33:26 And most people will go along with it, it'll be fine because they already know what the plan is.

33:33 Okay.

33:35 And that's really really hard for people to understand how to deal with it.

33:40 But the best people to actually give you business are those people that refer to you.

33:52 All right.

33:54 They're the ones that will brag about you.

33:59 This last quilt show I had a huge quilt I must have spent a whole month on this quilt because it was all ruler work.

34:07 And it was a huge quilt, it was king size. It was white background with with boxes one inch boxes diagonally colors, and I did all of those diagonal quilting from corner to corner on all of those boxes.

34:25 And I stood in front of that quilt, and she told everybody that I quilted it.

34:32 She was just so proud of it, and she, she got a nice award for it and everything. So, the people who you do, you know you take time out for, they will, they will sing your praises.

34:45 Just let them do it.

34:47 Excellent. And that yeah I know that, and that's an important principle that you're speaking for a lot of the people watching and I appreciate that, Cynthia.

34:58 Cynthia I have another couple of questions here.

35:01 Holly is asking, when you work with a customer, do you have a form that you fill out or a file that you save with all the designs and thread colors etc. How do you figure the price when you are the consult.

35:18 So, I have a form that I made up.

35:34 And then I say sit here now, it says top. So I go and measure the top.

35:40 And I say the top is this size, this by this, but the back is this.

35:46 And if they have batting then I then I have a write down the batting.

35:50 And we lay out the top. And I say, Okay, so what kind of what color thread would you like. And then they say, I don't know, you know, and I'll be like, go over there, pull out all the thread you want out of their throat on the top.

36:08 Just kind of makes you happy.

36:10 All right, so they kind of throw, you know, like, Oh, can I touch this race it. Yes, throw it out there. I don't care how much you throw you just throw it out there.

36:20 And then you'll find that they'll just pick out one or two of them and you'll say okay, these are all gone. Okay, now you decide on that.

36:29 Let's go sit down and look at the designs and then I open up pattern cloud. And I look at all my designs I have like 1600 designs so you know we're just going like, Okay, you know, but a lot of times they'll, they'll refine it.

36:44 They'll tell me that they want puppies, or they want dogs, or they want, you know, something else is specific.

36:51 But yesterday, I had a gal who wanted. She wanted, she made a quilt. That was, that was for somebody else, a 40 year old who wasn't in the colors that she usually makes.

37:06 She was concerned about the designs. She just didn't know. She just didn't feel comfortable with what she was doing, because she wanted to make it right but she didn't know how to make it right.

37:18 And I was like, Okay, I know what you're talking about because I got the same situation I can make a quilt in five minutes for myself but I can't do that for my daughter.

37:27 And so I said, Okay, I know what you have they have all their, their certain colors the certain designs you know all that sort of stuff so I said, let's go through it, and then let's just see what catches your eye.

37:41 Because I really wanted to go more modern for her. In the end, I, I said you know, let's look at Baptist fan, because Baptist fan is very traditional, but it is a modern design.

37:57 And then she's, and then I showed her one that had the pearls in it and she says, I don't want bubbles.

38:03 I said, we won't have to put bubbles in it.

38:08 And I said, Well, you know what, it's okay to put bubbles in there and I'm like, Okay, I mean this is two hours into this and I'm like, Okay, I'll get it.

38:15 And then the cool thing about setting up an E2E design is that you can put in duplicates of one design, and then put in one of one another design.

38:32 And then when you control, click, click, click, click, click.

38:36 And then you put that them all in the E2E design. There's four, and one, four, and another, four and another, and it spreads it out so that they're random.

38:48 And that is exactly what she wanted.

38:53 But it took forever to get that pulled out of her.

38:59 Right, so you spend, it's important for you to, you think it's important to spend a little bit of time, making sure that you know and the customer knows what they want.

39:14 The other thing is, I have them write down the thread, the type of thread, the color number, the color on the thread, on the upper thread, and the bobbin thread.

39:28 I have them write down the design.

39:31 So, they're invested in what we've done.

39:36 They've made the choice, and it's all in their own handwriting.

39:41 Gotcha.

39:44 Diana is asking a question.

39:48 She says, how do you store the quilts in your queue? I just received six from a client.

39:54 What would you say to her, to Diana?

39:57 I have

40:00 shelves and I just keep piling them up. Oh and uh I also tell my people that I don't necessarily

40:11 work one quilt after another so if a quilt doesn't is not in I'm not in love with doing

40:19 it at that moment I will pick a quilt that I just got and put it on the rack

40:23 because I'm more efficient doing something that I can do quickly and then when that quilt comes in

40:32 and I'm like I'm ready for that you know you got you got to get in the headspace.

40:36 Got to be in the zone yeah yeah okay well um Cynthia um

40:46 um is there any changes in technology that you think that makes it easier today than when you uh

40:55 when you started um and uh do you do you have do you have a change in technology coming your way

41:04 did I did I read that right yes what do you what do you have happening on your machine there

41:11 a send is on its way they haven't told me when but I am looking so much for it okay

41:20 yeah I was kind of looking at your record uh before I called and I said oh she's about to

41:25 get an ascend but she does not have it yet yeah I even I even left all the days open so if they

41:35 decide to come in during the week I'm just gonna cancel everything because I want that I want that

41:41 in my house I want it I want that Esther Ramona she's waiting she wants to be top dog so are you

41:51 gonna are you gonna change her name or anything or or or add anything to her to her identity when

41:59 she becomes innocent I don't know that's a good idea yeah yeah so um all right well let me see

42:10 what we've I've had a really good time talking with you we got okay we got a few more minutes

42:15 here um Cynthia can you tell us uh who's been your your biggest cheerleader or support system

42:24 and how important has that been well of course my husband he's the one taking me out getting that

42:32 quilt machine and and he has um become my official quilt job inspector quilt oh so he's he's got a

42:45 role in this now he he decided that he needed to see everything because if he spent that much money

42:52 on buying that machine it was going to have to do everything perfect and so he checks all the

42:59 stitches all the designs all the quilts that come in and before they go out he has to inspect it

43:08 um Susan who's my um my sidekick for uh working on the Handi Quilter for 10 years

43:17 she's still with me and and she is got an infectious laugh and no matter what we do or

43:24 how sideways things go we can always laugh and enjoy ourselves um I have a friend Cynthia she

43:31 does the community service quilts Laura she's a piecer that won't quit and I don't care what it

43:38 is that she did a dinner plate dahlia quilt king size and it was flatter than flat and I loved

43:48 quilting that one and then Susan Denton who is my the long armor she now has taken on another group

43:55 and she's still sending me um referrals so you know just just it goes all over people are just

44:04 caring people that support me in every way so it sounds like you've got a

44:12 a support system that has uh expanded over the years and uh and uh it means a lot to you

44:20 um for the people watching uh Cynthia is there anything that you can think of that

44:27 you wish somebody would have told you when you when you first started that

44:31 would be valuable for them to know

44:35 um okay so there's two things I want to tell you um how addicting and fun it is to work with a

44:43 gamel statler longarm quilting machine especially with Susan who makes me laugh every minute of the

44:48 way that for a late riser I was going to look forward to jumping out of bed at 6 a.m Saturday

44:54 and Sunday morning so Esther Ramona and I could decide on what adventure in quilting would be for

45:00 that day that gamel would develop new feet that would allow us to couch and embroider with ease

45:07 that there were our designs that are set up for placemats table runners stuffed animals clothing

45:12 bags and whatever your mind can create that every quilt I get to quilt is a new experience and I

45:19 fall in love with this wonderful opportunity every time and that hubby Kevin has become a

45:26 self-important quality control expert who inspects each and every quilt before it is

45:31 released from the quilting studio to make sure that it meets the highest standards

45:36 that my joy that my joy in creating is without bounds and this year that I was able to take out

45:45 four thousand dollars out of my quilting fund and put that towards one thousand and buy one

45:52 thousand dollar cds for each one of my grandchildren towards their their life

46:00 savings towards our life. Wow that is an inspirational list there.

46:08 Wow well Cynthia so you you got your gamel in 2018 and you know that there's there's a bunch

46:20 of people watching right now live and there will be a bunch of people watching the recordings as we

46:26 go and is there what what piece of advice would you give to someone who wants to do this stuff

46:35 that you've talked about doing today and do you think it's still possible to do it today?

46:42 All right well this is what I wrote. These machines are a wealth of opportunity all you

46:47 have to do is open your mind. There are so many people that share their expertise online you just

46:53 need to figure out what it is you want to do. I know that I have fallen in love with creating

47:00 with the gamel statler so I make trades with expert piecers to create tops for me to quilt

47:07 and hand stitchers to finish my projects beautifully. Remember that that's not what I

47:13 was going to allow myself when I started. These people beautiful people allow me to use

47:19 Esther Ramona at her highest and best use so figure out what it is that you want to do.

47:27 If you want to quilt quilts and you just want to just do edge to edge then be the best edge to edger

47:35 and if you want to do um who is it Christine Chris Prego

47:45 she she she was she did the classes on um Gamel site Perigo I think it was her name Christine

47:53 Perigo okay yes and she just passed away. All right I still pay the five dollars a month

48:01 a month to see her class because I want to watch her. She is such an amazing designer

48:11 and she has so many things hidden in her mind and I feel like every time I watch that I learn

48:17 something new. So give yourself the opportunity to learn and to find out what it is that you can do.

48:26 I have taught I have taught um serging. I have taught machines using your sewing machine. I have

48:35 taught machine embroidery um you know anything that has to do with machines and so this falls

48:42 right within the whole opportunities. You can just kind of join everything together and make it all

48:49 work. Wow well Cynthia thank you so much for sharing uh your experience with us. I know you've

48:58 inspired a lot of people that are watching. Um before we go um is there uh is there any way

49:05 that people can uh either get in touch with you or or see your your stuff what you have?

49:13 Well I started using social media but I literally ran out of time.

49:22 Got you. Um so I am I actually been thinking about it but I'm gonna have to hire somebody to do that

49:31 um to keep it to keep it so that it actually is the quality that I expect it to be.

49:37 You know you know I'm talking about I just want to match it with what kind of things that I

49:45 I feel need to be a good reflection on what I do for people and just to have a spotty social

49:53 media connection is not really that great and I can't keep it up right now. So as I said my

50:01 business name is Finely Finished Longarm Quilting Services and uh my phone number and all comes up

50:09 when you google it but that's just about as good as it gets right now. I show up on quilt stores

50:17 lists and on other people and guild lists and um I do want to say that we have in California we

50:25 have a Northern California uh Statler Stitcher group which actually is really quite interesting

50:32 because uh we all we all use and are relatively in competition with one another and in many ways

50:42 you'd think that we'd get together we would be um in competition but actually we still we are

50:49 extremely supportive there's about 50 to 60 people in the group and we're very extremely

50:55 supportive with our with our machines and um our skills. Wow wow that's wonderful so

51:04 so people get in uh get in contact with the guilds that are around you in the area where you are

51:12 and uh yeah Cynthia I want to thank you so much for uh joining us this week uh and sharing uh

51:20 your experience with us and uh we uh we look forward to uh getting you set up with your your

51:28 newest sin on Esther Ramona and uh and best of luck with that. So we're gonna go ahead and say

51:36 goodbye for now and um thank you everybody for joining us. Cynthia thank you so much

51:42 and until next week you guys have happy quilting. Thank you.