How Much to Charge for Longarm Quilting: Lessons from Kate Wellen’s High-Volume Studio

0:00 Okay, so how did you end up getting into long arming?

0:29 What was the story there?

0:31 So Tom was retired and I was looking to retire or semi-retire.

0:38 And I kept saying to him, we need, we should be long armers.

0:41 And he said, no, we're not going to be long armers, you're crazy.

0:44 But unbeknownst to me, he started investigating what long arming was because he didn't really

0:49 know and found that it would, it could definitely be a viable business for us.

0:55 So he got himself educated a little bit on the subject.

0:58 So he went from you're crazy to, well, let me check this thing out.

1:03 Okay.

1:05 So, all right, here's how, here's how that happened.

1:10 Okay.

1:11 Let's, let's hear the real story from Tom.

1:12 Yeah, exactly.

1:13 So Kate had some quilts and so we went to fabric stores that also rented machines,

1:22 gambles.

1:23 So we went and we did one of her quilts at, on a rental machine and that was okay.

1:32 I said, okay, this isn't rocket science, I could do this.

1:35 And then we decided to do another one, but at a different place to see, you know,

1:42 if we could learn something different.

1:43 And I said, well, you know what, this is kind of, this is viable.

1:47 So then I called around central Massachusetts and I said, if I bring you a queen size quilt

1:53 tomorrow, when can I get it back?

1:56 And the average answer was seven weeks.

2:00 So as a business person, I, the light went on and said, well, there's,

2:08 this is certainly viable as far as there's a market.

2:12 So that's when, that's when we decided that we would look at it closer.

2:17 Okay.

2:17 So, so a light bulb went off there.

2:20 And so at that point, did you just decide to go ahead and get a long arm?

2:28 No, we, we did a little more looking at it.

2:32 And some of the people that we had been exposed to, I tell the story all the time,

2:38 a lot of the long armers were quilters like Kate and decided, well,

2:43 why don't I just, instead of give my quilt to somebody else,

2:46 why don't I just buy a machine?

2:48 And then I can, I can do the quilting as well.

2:53 But I think that some of them really didn't understand how to run a business

2:59 or what that takes or how much it takes.

3:02 And so they kind of turned their passion into a nightmare in some cases.

3:07 So we, we have actually, we have customers that we do their, their quilts for,

3:13 who have bought long arm machines and are too intimidated to use them.

3:20 Really?

3:22 So, okay.

3:25 So you were kind of gaining this knowledge and insight into everything.

3:31 And, and so tell us about when you finally just bit the bullet and,

3:38 and decided to go ahead and get one.

3:40 Well, all those kind of factors said to me, this is doable

3:46 because it's, it's not that difficult to learn the craft and there's a market out there.

3:54 If it's going to take seven or eight or 10 weeks turnaround so that we could do this business

4:03 and run it as a business as a, as instead of a hobby.

4:07 And so that's what we, that, that was our plan.

4:12 So when we, when we decided to start our business,

4:16 we said we're going to have a maximum two week turnaround.

4:21 And that's how we ended up with three machines.

4:24 Wow.

4:25 So you, you, from the get go, you decided to have a maximum two week turnaround.

4:30 Yeah.

4:31 That, that's quite impressive.

4:33 When you start out in the beginning, you don't, you don't know what you don't know.

4:36 Right.

4:36 So we just hopped in with both feet and bought our first machine.

4:41 And a few years later we said, well, we now, we're getting close to not being able to do

4:46 the two week turnaround.

4:48 So let's buy another machine.

4:50 Okay.

4:51 So, and so needless to say, you started out with the, the purpose of just strictly doing it

4:59 of just strictly doing it as a business.

5:03 It wasn't, there wasn't any hobbying really involved, right?

5:07 No, that was like kind of, you know, in the back of my mind, geez,

5:10 I'll be able to do my own quilts, but I'm kind of like the shoemaker's son

5:15 and don't always get my quilts done.

5:19 Okay.

5:20 And was your first machine, did you get a gamel to start out with?

5:25 We did.

5:26 Okay.

5:28 Optimum, right?

5:29 I think so.

5:30 Yeah.

5:31 Okay.

5:32 And so can you tell us what, why did you decide to go with a gamel to start out with?

5:39 Did you do some research with that or?

5:42 Yeah, we did.

5:42 So we went to some quilt shows where, you know, there were a bunch of different machines,

5:47 different manufacturers, and we tried them, you know, minimally, but we tried them.

5:55 And one of the things about the gamel was, it's so solidly built.

6:01 And I look at some of them and I feel like you start quilting and they're going to fall off

6:05 the rack, you know, the table.

6:09 And gamel just struck me as the best in the business.

6:14 And I had done some research and, you know, talk to people and stuff.

6:18 So it wasn't, we weren't going to say, we weren't going to do hand guided either.

6:23 And we would, we were going full throttle with Statler and, you know, we wanted,

6:30 we wanted this to be a real viable business.

6:32 So we wanted the best, best in class.

6:35 Okay.

6:37 So, so did you started out with a Statler?

6:41 Yes.

6:42 Okay.

6:43 And did you buy one new or did you get a used one?

6:49 We built.

6:50 Okay.

6:51 Okay.

6:52 And so one of the things about the quality was, you know, I liken it to a World War II

6:59 Jeep.

6:59 They were, they were just built to last.

7:01 So, you know, the gamels, it's not a lot of plastic machinery or whatever.

7:07 Right.

7:08 So when you, even, even if it's 10 or 15 or 20 years old, when it's refurbished, it's

7:13 ready to go.

7:15 Yeah.

7:16 And, and, you know, and that's a common thread that I've heard almost everybody that we

7:21 interview, they talk about, they use words like it's, it feels industrial, it feels

7:27 tough.

7:28 Exactly.

7:29 And, but at the same time, it, it, it can move very smoothly.

7:34 It moves like a dream.

7:36 It's so easy to, to manipulate and operate.

7:39 And even with the Statler, we've gone, as soon as a new upgrade comes, comes out, we

7:45 jump on board because we want the latest technology and be able to do things as efficiently,

7:51 as efficiently as possible.

7:54 Okay.

7:55 And, and so you, so this was, this was eight years ago, is that right?

7:59 Yep.

8:00 Okay.

8:02 And started out with a Statler.

8:05 So did you, did you know how to use it when you first got it?

8:10 You said you had some practice on some other machines.

8:14 Yeah, we had taken some lessons at different spots in our area.

8:17 And then when it was delivered, we got a half a day training session.

8:24 But I'm pretty proficient with computers.

8:27 So that part of it was easy, or easier, you know, I could pick it up relatively easy.

8:34 And, you know, just some of it was learned by the CW pants.

8:40 I did do the quilting with confidence the first time you came to New England.

8:45 And that helped a lot, you know, gave me a lot of stuff, a lot of information that

8:50 I either didn't know or forgot or whatever.

8:53 So, and YouTube videos.

8:56 And now there's so much more of that.

8:58 That's so helpful.

9:00 Yeah.

9:00 Yeah, that's true.

9:01 And there is, even from eight years ago, there's so much more education available.

9:08 You can purchase an entire course, new owner training on gamel.com.

9:15 I wanted to ask you, business wise, was starting a business,

9:22 was that a new thing for you?

9:24 Or had you done any business before?

9:27 A little like, kind of, let's see if I can do this that didn't work.

9:33 But Tom is the business motivator and driver.

9:37 He's worked in all kinds of businesses and has a very good business mind

9:43 and knows the logistics of setting things up and making it work and keeping it running.

9:49 And so he's the brain behind the operation as far as that's concerned.

9:54 Awesome. Awesome.

9:57 So this machine that you got eight years ago, do you still have that same machine?

10:02 We do.

10:03 Is it still going strong?

10:04 It's going strong.

10:07 Excellent.

10:08 Yeah, it's a great machine.

10:09 And it's, so it's, you know, 30-inch throat with a 12-foot machine and it...

10:18 12-foot table, yeah.

10:19 Yeah, 12-foot table, yeah.

10:21 It just keeps going.

10:23 It works.

10:24 It works every day, all day.

10:26 Okay.

10:28 Did I hear you say that you've gotten another one since then?

10:31 Yeah, so we got, probably a few years after that, we got a second one,

10:35 which was one of, a Long Armor, local Long Armor who I knew called me and said,

10:42 you know, I'm downsizing my business, I'm getting ready to move,

10:45 would you be interested in buying one of my machines?

10:47 And she had two.

10:49 So we went and looked at it and it's 26-inch throat on a 10-foot table.

10:55 So we figured that would work.

10:58 So we figured that would work well for our business.

11:02 So we bought that.

11:05 And then we bought our third machine, which is also Optum, 30-inch throat.

11:16 And we bought, at that time, we bought an 8-foot table.

11:21 So we have three different size tables and two different size machines.

11:25 And they're all running all the time.

11:28 Okay, so you keep them running.

11:30 So, Kate, are you pretty much the only one that runs the machines?

11:36 Not at all.

11:36 Tom does it more than I do.

11:38 I'm the customer service person.

11:43 And I'm the machine operator and trophy husband.

11:48 Those are my titles.

11:50 I got you, I got you.

11:52 I'm kind of getting a different picture here.

11:54 It looks like Tom is the one that does most of the work here.

11:57 Oh, definitely.

12:01 Depends on what you call work.

12:02 I do most of the production.

12:07 He does.

12:08 But when you hear Kate with the customers going through their quilt,

12:13 and isn't this awesome, and I love this, and this is the thread,

12:17 and this is the pattern, that's a whole lot different than I could do.

12:22 Okay, and Kate's the face of the business.

12:26 He is absolutely the face of the business.

12:29 I'm the back room.

12:34 You're the laborer in the background.

12:38 Although the quilters do love him.

12:41 Okay, yeah, I can see that.

12:42 I can see that.

12:44 So, yeah, so you attract them in and then they grow on Tom.

12:50 Yeah.

12:52 So, I wanted to ask you,

12:55 so one of the machines you have is the 26-inch classic

12:59 instead of the third, and the other two are 30-inch optimum, right?

13:03 Yes.

13:05 And for the people watching,

13:09 what kind of difference in functionality do you see?

13:13 Do you have any recommendations?

13:15 Or, you know?

13:17 I do.

13:19 I wish we had all three machines at 30 inches

13:23 just because we're a production operation,

13:25 and the shorter arm means you roll the quilt more.

13:30 Right.

13:32 So, yeah, so when you have a smaller one,

13:35 which it's not a whole lot smaller, the 26, that's the second size.

13:39 It's that one row.

13:40 Yeah, so you got to roll it a little more often.

13:44 And remember, if you got somebody running between three machines,

13:49 that does make a difference.

13:51 Right, right.

13:52 Yeah, you got to stay pretty busy.

13:54 So, the two of you, and mostly Tom, run the three machines.

14:00 And would you say you keep them,

14:05 are all three of them pretty much running every day?

14:09 Pretty much.

14:10 Okay.

14:11 You know, so there's a workflow that is more efficient.

14:20 And the workflow that's most efficient is if you can get all three,

14:23 if two of you in the beginning of the day

14:27 can get all three machines loaded with some backup loading,

14:32 then one person can keep three machines running.

14:35 But if one person cannot keep three machines running

14:39 and take them off and check them and trim them

14:41 and then load something else on.

14:44 So, there's diminishing returns.

14:49 Like if we had a fourth machine, it really wouldn't do us any good.

14:53 Gotcha.

14:53 In the third machine, we need to be well coordinated

14:57 in order to have all three machines productive during the day.

15:00 If there's just one of us, really, we only need two machines.

15:05 Gotcha.

15:07 One thing that occurred to me, do you have zipper leaders?

15:13 Yes.

15:13 Does that benefit you a lot, the zipper leaders?

15:17 Well, what's the alternative?

15:19 We don't know any alternative.

15:21 Well, without the zipper leaders, you pin it on there and then you got to unpin it.

15:26 Oh, so we have the zipper leaders, but you still have to attach it to the leader.

15:30 But I would tell you that one thing that we did very early on,

15:34 in fact, the very first time we went and rented a machine,

15:39 in the first three minutes, we were pinning our quilt backing onto a leader

15:45 with three inch corsage pins.

15:48 And I looked at Kate and I said, I'm not doing this.

15:51 There's got to be a better way than this.

15:53 And as it turns out, at one of the MQX in Manchester,

16:01 one of the teachers, and this is our first year,

16:06 Georgia Stahl said, oh, I staple.

16:08 And she showed us how she staples on.

16:10 So we don't pin, we staple.

16:13 And it takes about probably 15% of the time to staple a quilt

16:23 backing onto a leader as it does to pin it.

16:27 And it takes about four seconds to remove it.

16:31 Okay, okay.

16:32 And we never use the red snappers.

16:35 Okay, okay.

16:36 Well, that's a good useful piece of information.

16:40 I have a question here from Yolanda is asking,

16:45 how soon after purchasing your first longarm,

16:48 how soon did you feel comfortable to start taking quilts for business?

16:54 So it was a little intimidating initially,

16:58 but I joined several quilt guilds in my area.

17:02 And we started taking in charity quilts.

17:06 And we didn't charge for charity quilts.

17:09 I also went around to the quilt shops in the area

17:12 and brought quilts that we had long armed.

17:15 So I could show them, you know, our work, which helped a lot.

17:21 But it took a while, I would say a good six or eight months

17:26 to get the confidence from anybody that wasn't our friend

17:29 or didn't know us and want to try us out.

17:33 But the learning curve on doing it was pretty easy, I think.

17:38 Okay, so you started off...

17:41 I would tell you it was pretty painful.

17:45 We would have issues and we didn't know how to resolve them

17:48 or the machine would be giving us bad stitches.

17:51 And that's not hard to fix, but it's hard to diagnose.

17:55 And I think going back,

17:57 one of the things that I didn't do a good enough job

18:01 is to take advantage of all of the resources

18:03 that Gamble and others have online and others.

18:08 We could have become much more proficient,

18:10 much quicker than just doing the work

18:14 and flying by the seat of our pants and learning as we go.

18:18 So I would tell anybody to take 100% advantage

18:23 of all the training available out there.

18:28 Yeah, and that's a great point because now,

18:32 even more than when you guys started eight years ago,

18:34 there are so many resources available.

18:39 There's tons of videos on Gamble.com.

18:42 There's purchasable entire courses, video courses.

18:47 And you can even buy one-on-one Zoom sessions

18:52 with some of the Gamble educators.

18:56 A lot of the people I talk to,

19:00 if they're having trouble getting a hold of how to do things,

19:03 I will tell them to write down areas

19:07 where they have difficulty with

19:09 and get a little bit of a list of things.

19:12 And they can set up, I think it's $59

19:16 for a one-hour session with an educator

19:18 and they'll have all their stuff, their questions written out.

19:22 And something like that is helpful.

19:24 Because, I mean, Kate, you're fortunate you have Tom there,

19:29 your workhorse in slave labor there.

19:31 That's right.

19:34 But there's a lot of people out there.

19:38 If they may be by themselves, I do want to let people know

19:41 that, yeah, there are tons of resources

19:45 to get you to be at your skill level.

19:48 Even with the business, we have

19:52 information on helping people get their business going.

19:55 So anyway, I'm not trying to make it into a big commercial.

20:00 much more helpful than what was available to us when we started. And there was, you know,

20:06 the people that we bought the machine from was in, they were in St. Albans, Vermont. So we

20:12 weren't running to them, and they weren't running to us. If we needed something, you know, we could

20:16 call them, but they were running a business and were busy. And the other people, there was one

20:22 quilt shop where we took a lesson. And I mean, she was nice enough, and I knew her, but she,

20:28 she wasn't good at answering your questions. So we didn't really have anybody to fall back on.

20:35 And I've been around sewing machines my whole life. So for me, I wasn't intimidated by the

20:41 sewing machine part of it. And I've worked on computers a lot. So I'm not afraid to try things.

20:48 Gotcha. But just to circle back, people should take full, full advantage of all of the educational

20:57 material and videos that are available. That's, that's something I, if we had it to do all over

21:04 again, I would have done that, and I did not. So we kind of had to fly by the seat of our pants

21:10 a lot, because we didn't do that. Now we have done over 5,000 quilts in the eight years we've

21:16 been doing this. And I think we're very proficient. But I really wish we had taken advantage of all

21:24 those other resources. Yes, yes. And I will, I have actually, Delana is asking a question.

21:34 There is no free training with the purchase of a machine. You have to pay additionally for

21:38 training. I will tell you, Delana, that's not the case. If you purchase a machine from Gammill,

21:46 you'll get all the new owner training. And yeah, that comes with the purchase of a

21:53 machine. So, but, but typically, that's not going to be enough. That's going to get you started.

21:58 Yes. But, you know, it's sophisticated enough that over time, you're going to say, well,

22:02 how do I do this? Or how do I do that? Or, you know, continue, besides taking the initial training,

22:08 which will help get you going. Yes. Always take advantage of all the available training other,

22:14 otherwise. Yes. And a lot of it's free. A lot of it's, you go on YouTube, and you can find all

22:19 kinds of free information. And when I get stuck with something, that's my first place to go is,

22:26 I go to YouTube or the Gammill website. And nine times out of 10, I don't have to reach out to

22:31 anybody to figure out. There's tons of free resources on Gammill.com. But, but yeah, also,

22:39 anyone that purchases a machine from Gammill, they do get the, the new owner training,

22:46 and all that, that comes with it. And also, when we started, you know, because I know people that

22:54 have bought machines since we started, and the training is much, much better,

23:00 much more comprehensive than, yeah. And also, if there's anything, if you ever have anything

23:06 going wrong with the machine, or something that needs, you can always set up a call with us in

23:13 tech support. I work in tech support, so. And you guys agree. You mean, sometimes things go

23:18 wrong with the machines? Yes, Tom, believe it or not, it's, it's a machine, and you'll, you'll have

23:25 something go, go wrong here and there. Even the best in the business will have that. But that's

23:30 what we're here for in tech support also. So you have tech support that you can always reach out

23:35 to for free. And we can walk you through troubleshooting if there's any problems.

23:41 There's the, the new owner training that, that comes free with machines. And, and there's also

23:47 extra purchasable sessions as you move on. And like you said, there's, it's a lifetime of

23:57 learning. You, you will continue to learn things for many years when you have these machines. So,

24:02 so yeah. All right, let's move on to you guys. When you first started, I wanted to ask you,

24:12 I know you, you talked about how, you know, the, the, that you saw that there was,

24:19 what was it, seven week turnaround? Yeah, or more. Or more. And did, but did you really

24:29 know that there was going to be enough long arm business in, available in your area to support

24:36 your business or did you just have a hunch or did you tell, tell us about that?

24:42 So, because I called around and I'm going to say I called eight or 10 long armers in central

24:49 Massachusetts and said, if I bring you a quilt, when am I going to get it back? And so some of

24:55 it was really stretched out. And, and the average was, let's say seven weeks. So that told me

25:04 there was a demand that was not being met. So that's when I say the light bulb went on,

25:11 that's what that told me and said, you know, people aren't getting these things turned around.

25:17 That's because there's more work than, than is getting done.

25:23 Based on that fact, you knew. So when you first started, you said, did you say you started

25:32 just doing the Quilts of Valor? Yeah, charity quilts. We did a lot of charity quilts. We did

25:40 customer quilts, but there were people who knew us, or knew me, were in the guilds that I belonged

25:46 to. And, but the charity quilts helped because then I could go to a guild meeting and do show

25:54 and tell and say, oh, we quilted this or go to a quilt shop and say, oh, we quilted this so that

26:00 they, they knew, they could see our work and know that we were doing a nice job.

26:08 You know, and word of mouth spread and, you know, it didn't come overnight, but

26:14 it spread and being able to turn the quilts around and have them being quilted properly

26:22 is, is a huge thing because somebody doesn't want to get their quilt back that's

26:26 got all kinds of mistakes or problems with it. And if, you know, on the rare occasions when

26:34 somebody said, oh, this isn't quite what I wanted, then we, you know, we do what we need to do to fix

26:39 it. Gotcha. But it also gave us at the, at the beginning, I mean, quilt was, Kate was out there

26:47 going to quilt guilds and fabric stores and whatever. So for us to do free quilts, Quilts

26:54 of Valor or charity quilts, it gave us the opportunity to do a lot of quilts and, and

27:00 really hone the proficiency, our proficiency. Learn a skill. Because we weren't really busy

27:05 at the time because building up a customer base was probably the hardest thing. And

27:10 there was that even surprised me. These, these quilters, they, they've got a long armor.

27:16 They, they're not price sensitive. You can't just, you know, reduce the price by 10% and

27:20 they're going to come to you. You know, they're going to stay with where they're at,

27:25 but the turnaround time was certainly a big thing. But I can, I remember one week I did 17

27:31 charity quilts for a, for a summer camp up in Maine. So we did a lot of, we did a lot of that.

27:41 And like I say, it made us proficient because we get to do a lot of quilts.

27:46 And, you know, we got an in with people, even if they were going to another long armor,

27:52 the Quilts Guild was saying, Hey, we can, you know, you'll do these four or five Quilts of

27:58 Valor for free. Well, here you go. So it was a good way to get our foot in the door, get well

28:05 known and have enough work to get to work on and practice on and be proficient at.

28:13 And how important was, were the Guilds and what, what role does the Guilds play in

28:18 building your business? They played a fairly significant role. And they continue to,

28:27 because they're my quilty friends and they want to help a friend. And so, you know, they might

28:36 give you a quilt that's not, we don't do it. First of all, we don't do any custom quilting. So

28:42 that's off the books right away. So it wasn't like they were giving us custom quilts to do.

28:47 And we had to, you know, step up to the plate, but they would give us our, their edge to edge to do.

28:53 And then, you know, they'd be like, Oh, you're going to go see Kate and Tom. The turnaround

28:58 time is great. The quilts are great. So it really spread by word of mouth and talking to the, you

29:03 know, the Guild members and being a part of the Guild. So word of mouth was really, really big.

29:11 Right. I would tell you that gaining a customer base was surprisingly slow to me.

29:22 But that's the way it was done. You know, Kate, everybody knew Kate from the quilt Guilds and the

29:27 fabrics shops. So if you've got, if you've got 10 people that use you and they're all

29:32 saying, recommending you, that still doesn't give you any business. But as that grows and

29:37 you've got 50 people that are using you and they turn around, you know, you know, great

29:43 and it works great. Then everything starts to grow geometrically. As far as your customer base,

29:50 I used to tell people, it's like being the new dentist in town. Why are they going to come to

29:54 you? They've got a dentist, you know, it's, it's really hard to break, to break, to get

29:59 them here the first time that's, that's hard to do. So the real growth came with actual customers

30:07 and then spreading from those customers. Exactly. Once, once they, once you get a customer for the

30:14 first time and do a good job and do it quickly. And then they're at a quilt Guild and saying,

30:20 oh, these, have you tried these people? I heard about these people or whatever. So then it,

30:24 it's, you know, then it takes off, but it's a long runway.

30:27 So, I just want to touch on the, that turnaround time. It is the turnaround time.

30:38 Is that, do you think that's a big factor? Does that?

30:43 Huge, because that, that basically, that was our differential, differential differentiation

30:50 is, you know, people have a quilt, have a long armor, but they've delivered this quilt. It's

30:55 been four months and they call them and they still can't tell them when it'll be. And these

30:59 are some of the people that have turned their quilting passion into a nightmare because they

31:05 have a machine and they're not working it every day as a business, you know, and they're getting,

31:12 I called one person when I was checking around, they said, oh, James, I got 41 quilts ahead of

31:17 me ahead of you. I don't know when I'm going to get to it or whatever. They, they were not a happy

31:20 camper. They weren't running a business. They had a gun to their head. So, so when, when people

31:29 leaving quilts with them and then calling and asking, you know, where is it? That's a whole

31:33 lot different than people coming to us. And, you know, you, you give somebody a quilt back in five

31:38 or seven days and they're all excited to just go on to their next project. Some of these other

31:43 places, they forgot what quilt it is that's at the place.

31:47 So it sounds like you're saying that actually doing some work is, is probably an important

31:54 part of it, getting the work done. Well, we, we're running it like a business. So we,

31:59 that's why we have three machines and two operators. And we weren't, we run the machine

32:04 all day, every day, unless where, you know, I mean, we do take a little bit of time off, but

32:11 for the most part, it's all day, every day. Okay. I've got a, Marnie's asking a question.

32:20 Did anyone ask if you did, if you, let's see, did anyone ask if they do custom quilting

32:27 and did they do custom quilting right away or did it take a while?

32:33 We don't do custom quilting. We just made that decision in the beginning because

32:38 custom quilting takes so long. You don't typically don't make the money

32:46 unless you're doing quilts for big shows. You know, somebody's going to put it in a big show

32:52 or something like that. So that's not, that's not our place in the business. And we recognize that

32:59 edge to edge. Yeah. Well, and if you think about it, we have three machines, so

33:05 doing edge to edge on three machines, we can keep, one person can keep two or three machines running,

33:10 but if you're doing custom work, more or less, you're standing over that machine for the entire

33:14 time. So, you know, you could charge them $800 and they have no, and they're, they can't handle

33:23 that because they have no idea how much goes into it. So that's just, that's just a different

33:28 part of the business that we're not doing. Gotcha. That's very, very understandable. So,

33:39 let's see. Now, when you first started this business, how did you come up with the

33:48 funds to purchase your first machine? Well, you know, we, we had good careers and so we had

33:57 financial resources. We did borrow for the first machine through one of your financing partners,

34:04 and that was relatively expensive relative to the interest rate, but we did finance our first

34:12 machine and we bought our next two outright. Okay. Now, so currently, and over the course of it,

34:26 how many hours a week would you say you spend working on doing quilting?

34:32 And is it the same now as it was in the beginning?

34:37 We spend a lot of time. The good part, and when I say we quilt all day every day, it's all day from

34:46 eight or nine o'clock in the morning till six or seven o'clock at night, and typically on weekends

34:53 as well. But if we have, if Tom wants to go play golf, he goes play golf, goes to play golf, I play,

34:59 I go to my guild meetings. So, we get stuff in and we have children and grandchildren. So, it's not

35:05 like we're totally glued to the machines, but overall, we keep them running all day, every day.

35:14 Do you enjoy this career? I do. I love, so I am very passionate about people and quilt and fabric

35:24 and talking about it and doing it. I enjoy running the machines. I enjoy helping the customers pick

35:32 out their patterns and their threads, because some of them come and they have no idea, and it doesn't

35:39 matter if they've brought us quilts a hundred times or three times. Can you just help me? I

35:44 don't know what to do. And that's when I really, I really enjoy that part of it, probably more than

35:50 any other. It's working with the customers. Got you. Do you enjoy it, Tom? I do, but before I

35:59 answer that question. So, Kate is just an unbelievable expert. You know, when people

36:05 come in and need advice or whatever, she's, you know, they're in good hands with her and she's

36:12 just awesome at that. You know, we're both over 70 years old and I would like to work less.

36:18 So, we have three machines, we work them all day, every day, and I would prefer to do 60% of that

36:25 for you. Got you. At this stage, we have less, we have more money than we have time.

36:35 Well, you probably have the ability to change things around if you want to.

36:42 Yeah, you're absolutely right. We've been talking about that. I got you, I got you.

36:50 Let me ask you, as far as charge, do you charge by the hour, by the square inch? How does that work?

36:58 Square inch. Okay. And then we have, we also offer binding. We have two ladies that do bindings for

37:05 us. They're machine stitched on both sides. You know, we'll do, like, if a quilt needs a minor

37:12 repair, I'll do that, or piece of backing, I'll do that. Make a label. You know, those kind of

37:21 things we do as little add-ons, but they're not a major part of the business. Can you tell us what

37:30 the charge per square inch is? Two and three quarter cents. Okay. So, do you know, do you

37:41 know about how many quilts you do per year? We do between eight and nine hundred. Okay, well, you stay

37:49 busy. And is that about, is that what it's been like over the eight years, or has it changed?

37:55 No, it built up to about that. I'd say the COVID year, it got up to that, and we expected,

38:06 you know, we were growing by 40 percent a year, so we expected if it grows another 40 percent

38:13 next, the following year, we're going to be overwhelmed. So, we prepared for that by

38:18 renovating our garage into a studio, you know, complete with air conditioning,

38:26 new windows, all of that. And then everything leveled right off, and it has stayed level,

38:32 which was okay. It just means we have three machines, and we can handle that volume better

38:38 than we could have with two machines. Right. But it leveled right off at about 800 to 900 quilts.

38:47 It's been that way for three or four years now. Okay. So, during the COVID time, it kind of

38:55 reached a peak, is that right? Yeah, and we didn't know if it was COVID or it was, you know, the

39:01 local market, because, you know, some people that were doing long arming,

39:08 when they decided to quit, they just closed up shop and moved to Florida or whatever.

39:14 So, it just left people hanging, and some of them came to us.

39:19 So, and you alluded to in the beginning, it kind of took off slow as far as

39:26 building your customer base. Yeah, getting the customer for the first time is the difficulty.

39:35 Not keeping them, because we had great turnaround and great service.

39:40 So, once you get them, you got great service and great product, you're able to keep them, huh?

39:47 Yeah, exactly. And it's not price sensitive. It's not like I'm going to go somewhere else because

39:53 I'm going to spend $18 less for my queen-size quilt. Got nothing to do with price.

40:00 Yes.

40:01 Gotcha.

40:02 Well, can you tell us, can you think of what might have been the hardest part of growing

40:09 this business?

40:10 Well, like I said, well, the things I would do different, first of all, I would take advantage

40:19 of all the training available so that we weren't learning, that I wasn't learning by the seat

40:24 of my pants painfully, number one.

40:28 Number two, quilts come to you in all kinds of shape, I don't mean shape, although some

40:35 of it's shape, and we did not start out by charging preparation fee.

40:42 So some quilts are just, you know, the backing is in a bag that they got from Amazon.

40:50 So it's got all creases in it, it has to be ironed, it's not squared, it's 50% larger

40:55 than the quilt top, so we've got to cut it down.

40:59 And they give us batting that's still in the packaging, we've got to cut that down.

41:03 We should have started earlier on charging preparation fees, because we spend a lot of

41:08 time getting the thing ready to go.

41:10 And that's on some customers, and other customers give us everything that's ready to load.

41:15 So it's not fair between the two different customers charging the same price.

41:20 So those are the two things that I would tell you.

41:24 And then the other thing I would tell you, for your audience that's wondering how to

41:30 run or improve their business, some other things like, so you have bobbin winders on

41:37 your machine, we've never used those, we would not want to tie up a machine to wind a bobbin.

41:44 So we have standalone bobbin winders.

41:49 But also, we have 90 different thread colors, and we have two big cones of each thread color.

41:59 So that if we're going to start up a quilt with a certain thread color, we're going to

42:05 load one cone onto the machine, and the other cone we're going to use on the bobbin winder,

42:12 so that there's no waiting for the cone to make bobbin.

42:19 Just little things like that.

42:20 So we've looked hard at the whole product flow, to try to keep everything moving in

42:30 a direction that's getting stitching done, as opposed to waiting on.

42:37 Yeah, yeah.

42:38 But we know other people, we've seen other operations where they have one cone.

42:42 So it's like, well, we can't start this until we make some bobbins.

42:46 You know, it's like, why don't you buy another $14?

42:50 Yeah, good, good piece of information.

42:54 And also, as far as the onboard bobbin winders, the official recommendation is that they,

43:02 you just run the machine in constant mode while you're winding a bobbin on the machine.

43:07 It makes it smoother.

43:10 Some people will wind their bobbin while they're doing stitching.

43:15 One side of the machine is making a bobbin, and the other side of the machine is stitching.

43:18 I see.

43:20 They can have a tendency to make the bobbin wind a little more irregularly than it should, so.

43:28 We've never gone through it.

43:30 The first machine we bought, we bought a bobbin winder, so we've never used our machines to wind bobbins.

43:37 Yeah, and if you ask me, I would always recommend having a standalone bobbin winder.

43:42 It, in general, just, it's devoted to that one task, and it makes a better bobbin.

43:49 Right.

43:50 So the other thing is, we actually have two of them.

43:53 One is still in the box.

43:55 But because we, our production is so high, we have, we don't have any single point of failure.

44:03 Anything that we need, like a bobbin winder, we have two of them.

44:07 You've got backup.

44:09 We have backup.

44:10 Okay.

44:11 Yeah, if we have to change a belt or, I don't know, we don't have extra motors.

44:18 That's the only thing we don't have.

44:20 We have had to change the motor on one of the machines, right?

44:23 Right.

44:23 Yeah.

44:24 But we're not stocking, you know, those are $1,200.

44:26 We're not stocking an extra one of those.

44:29 I got you.

44:29 We can ship you one pretty quickly, if necessary.

44:32 Yeah, you guys are really good.

44:33 Yeah.

44:36 So let me just ask you, for the people watching, what kind of impact has this particular style of business that you have,

44:47 the control of your own time and business, what kind of impact does this business have on your life versus working for somebody else?

45:01 Well, we make the decision for when we want to work, even though we work long hours, typically.

45:07 But it also, we're able to travel when we want to travel.

45:10 We just came back from a two-week vacation.

45:12 And, you know, or if we want to do something with our, you know, our kids or whatever, it does, it gives us that flexibility to be able to do, to live our life the way we want to live it and not be glued to a nine-to-five or whatever, you know, a boss.

45:33 I only have to answer to Tom once in a while.

45:37 I don't know.

45:38 I think it's the other way around, but I'm not going to go there.

45:42 I don't want to stir up any trouble here.

45:44 That's all right.

45:45 As long as he knows his place.

45:48 It would actually be perfect if we were only doing 70% of the business.

45:52 But we, you know, we have a backlog that we like to keep down to next to nothing.

45:59 So when we're busy, it's like we've got to work.

46:03 We, I mean, we feel like, you know, our personalities are such.

46:07 We roll out of bed and we got to get this going and that going and the other thing.

46:11 Working, I always said through my career, I never wanted to work for myself and I never wanted to work from home.

46:17 But I have loved working from home because, you know, you can have, you can have dinner and you can decide I'm going to, I've got a quilt loaded and I'm going to watch the hockey game.

46:29 So I'm just going to go out there every 15 minutes and start maybe as many as three machines and get the stitching done while I'm watching a hockey game.

46:40 You know, that means you've got nothing going on in the morning and you've got to scramble to load three machines, et cetera.

46:45 But it gives you that kind of flexibility and you can say, yeah, screw it.

46:49 I'm not, I'm going to, I'm going to sit out on the deck and read a book or I can work and you get to choose that.

46:58 Nice, very nice.

47:01 I wanted to ask you guys, and you may or may not have any, have you ever had any incidences where dealing with either difficult customers or problems dealing with people?

47:18 And if so.

47:21 You're always going to have someone, not always, occasionally you'll have someone that you just can't, no matter how hard you try, you can't please them.

47:29 It's the world we live in, yeah.

47:31 Yeah, it's, it's part of life. So we do, if we need to make financial accommodations or offer to do the next quilt at a reduced rate or, you know, we, we try and figure it out the best way for that particular customer.

47:50 But it's very rare that we have a problem, you know, we've had people call us and say, I really didn't want to call you, but I don't really like the way this stitched or some other minor thing.

48:04 And we're like, please tell us because we need, we need to know that it's not right and to watch for those mistakes in the future.

48:15 And people appreciate that.

48:18 Do you think, do you think just the, the way that you start out dealing with people. In the beginning, do you think that probably heads off some problems.

48:30 I do, I do, I feel like if I keep positive.

48:36 From the minute they call me until they've picked up that I picked up that quote and walked out the door.

48:44 I think that that influences how they respond.

48:50 And I don't know if you can't tell them kind of a positive person and, you know, I do want to make people happy I don't want anybody to be upset with our work but it's very, very rare that we've had to do anything to someone.

49:03 Yeah, and I can see that you are a positive person.

49:07 So, so we've done, say 5000 quilts and I would say there's probably three customers, thereabouts, that we're never going to see again.

49:18 And, you know, they were unhappy, they were not going to be happy, no matter, they were unreasonable. And it was like, here's your money back.

49:27 Goodbye, good luck with your next long owner. And that was the end of that.

49:32 Yeah, yeah.

49:34 Yeah, and it's inevitable you're going to have a few like that, that occurs so

49:44 let's see, I've got.

49:49 I've got one more question from Marnie.

49:54 Do you ever offer advice on quilters piecing?

49:58 On quilters what?

50:00 Piecing.

50:02 Oh piecing. Yeah.

50:04 People ask me questions like that all the time.

50:07 And I will tell, I will tell them.

50:10 Bring what you have going, and we'll look at it together and I'll tell you what I think and maybe it's right or wrong but yeah I do have people that ask for advice on piecing and or putting on a binding, whatever, and I'm more than happy to share what I know.

50:26 I've been doing it a long time and, you know, I read a lot, and I see a lot, you know, a lot of videos and I talked to people and.

50:38 So, you know, I'm always learning myself, but I'd love being able to teach people or help people along the way. If somebody brings a quote, this is one thing that happens.

50:50 More often than I would like to see.

50:53 I have a quilt that has a really wonky wavy border.

50:58 So I try and educate them on how to put the border on the next quilt, so it's not wonky and wavy.

51:05 You know, so things like that or if they have a quilt with a lot of bias seams, what to do for that.

51:13 So yeah, I'm always, I'm always telling people.

51:17 Stephanie was saying that she sometimes finds that people are sometimes intimidated and don't ask.

51:24 Right.

51:25 And she offers, hoping to help, but maybe not.

51:31 One thing that I do always, people come in, and I don't care how good a quilter they are, they could be the best quilter or the worst quilter, oh don't look too close to my quilt, my seams don't match, my points aren't on point, whatever.

51:43 And I always start by saying, you know what, there's no quilt police, and unless this is going to Paducah or Houston, nobody's going to know that your points don't match or your seams aren't straight or whatever.

51:54 And that usually puts them at ease. I usually get a chuckle and, you know, then they're willing to talk about what issues they might have down the road.

52:04 Have you ever had to deal with anybody where they brought you something and you're like...

52:10 No, yes, yes and no. Yes, we have had a few quilters where we've said, we just can't do this, this is just, just not, it's not going to work for you or us. I don't want to give you a bad product, I don't, you know.

52:26 And I don't want anybody knowing I quilted this.

52:29 Exactly.

52:31 But that's, again, that's rare.

52:33 Yeah, yeah, I gotcha.

52:36 Okay, well listen, we're getting close to the end here.

52:39 You guys have been doing this for eight years.

52:43 So, one of the last things I wanted to ask you is for people that are thinking about getting into what y'all have done or maybe already are into it.

52:55 Do you think this is something that somebody can still do in this day and age and just tell us your thoughts about that.

53:04 I do. I do. And, you know, people will say, oh, there's no young people, young people aren't quilting.

53:12 The young people who aren't quilting have very busy careers, young children, whatever, or don't have the interest but we have, we have a number of young moms who work and quilt and, you know, they just, they love it.

53:31 So, I do. I think that it's going to be a continuing business for a long time.

53:37 Excellent.

53:39 You know, I would be interested in your view as working for a long arm manufacturer and or I don't know if the fabric industry has an association, a trade association, but, you know, they're the ones I would look to to say, you know, what, how is this going?

53:59 Is this shrinking? Is this shrinking or expanding or staying steady or what's happening in this industry?

54:07 Right. And I see, I do see, from my standpoint, we do see some young people coming into the business.

54:17 This general business, in general, it's, you know, it's a little bit of an older population, but there are, I see a lot of 30-somethings and 40-somethings getting into the business, coming into the business, and our sales reflect that, you know.

54:38 So, from my point of view in GAML, you know, we see that it's still a robust business and, you know, and it's helpful.

54:50 This thing that we're doing right here, you know, we've been doing this podcast for a year now and, you know, we're just steadily getting different people that are in the business.

55:03 And it's, we get the feedback that we get from people that is so inspiring to see just real people like you guys.

55:13 You know, we have people like you guys. I've interviewed people here that are teenagers that are doing this, you know, not a whole lot of them, but there's a few of them out there.

55:23 And there's a lot of 30s and 40s out there that are doing it.

55:27 So, yeah, from my point of view, I don't usually give my point of view on here. I do see that it's a robust thing, too.

55:35 And I appreciate you asking that.

55:39 But we're getting, looks like we're at the end of the program here now. I want to thank you guys.

55:46 Tom and Kate, is there, for the people that are watching this, is there any way that anybody can get in touch with you or if they wanted to ask you a question or anything?

55:58 Absolutely. We're available for any and all questions.

56:04 We'd be happy to share our experiences and our knowledge and suggestions or recommendations.

56:13 Do you have a website or email or anything that you can share with us?

56:17 And they can also look at our website, creativelongarmpartners.com, or send us emails through that, creativelongarmpartners at gmail.com.

56:27 creativelongarmpartners.com?

56:30 Yeah.

56:31 And what was the other, did you say?

56:33 And then the email is creativelongarmpartners at gmail.com.

56:39 Okay, okay, excellent. Tom and Kate, thank you so much for your graciousness with that.

56:45 We really appreciate it.

56:47 And with that, we're going to go ahead and end this episode of Quilting Business Success.

56:55 It's been great talking to you guys, and happy quilting.

56:59 It's been great talking to you. We're happy to help.

57:02 Thank you very much. Bye bye, guys.

57:04 Bye, take care.

57:05 Bye, everybody.

57:09 Bye.