How Ava Boothe Built Her Longarm Quilting Business in Rural Louisiana

Starting a Longarm Quilting Business at 21

For many quilters, the idea of starting a longarm quilting business can feel daunting, especially without decades of experience. Ava Boothe’s story shows that passion and a willingness to learn can be enough to get started. She began quilting in 2020 with her grandmother’s help, piecing her first quilt on a domestic machine before sending it out to a longarmer.1:37 That first quilt was a king size, and the experience sparked her love for quilting: “After that, I said, I got this one done. I’m going to the fabric store. I’m going to get more”.2:06

Ava’s learning was hands-on from the beginning. She helped out at a local quilt shop, watching the owner, Miss Judy Hebert, use her Gammill longarm. “I would help her work, and I would watch her, because she has a gamel. She had a gamel in the shop too. And so I’d watch her, and then I wanted one for a while before that. And then the more I started watching her, she showed me how to do it and all that, and I fell in love with it”.2:54

By 21, Ava had launched her own home-based quilting business, the Crafty A, and just a year later, she invested in her first longarm machine. She was not deterred by her age or lack of experience: “I started my own business in the house two years ago, and I did it throughout my house for two years. Were you 21 at that time? I was”.5:43

Her decision to purchase a Gammill Statler was driven by hands-on research at quilt shows and by watching a local longarmer in action. “From the first time I started playing with it, I was like, okay, I like this one way better, and this is, if I’m going to do it, this is going to be what I get”.6:57

Financing and Setting Up the Business

Starting a longarm quilting business requires a significant investment, but Ava found a way through a combination of good credit and side work. “Credit. Good credit, huh? That’s about it… I have a cleaning business, too, and, well, I clean the dentist’s office locally. So, I do that every Sunday, and that has a lot to do with it, and then, like I said, I have my own business on the other side, the Craft EA, and that helps a lot”.12:49

Ava’s business quickly outgrew her home setup. After two years, she moved her machine into a brick-and-mortar shop—Stitched in Faith Quilt Shop—where she could serve more customers and expand her offerings.5:35 She didn’t have a detailed business plan or a mapped-out strategy: “I fly by the seat of my pants”.10:09 Her willingness to take risks and her drive to make things work were key: “I was willing to take that chance and do what I had to do to make sure I had a gamble”.9:15

Ava also credits her business education for giving her confidence. “I woke up one morning, said I wanted to go to college for a business degree. I went, got my associates in business administration. I now have two semesters left until I graduate with my bachelor’s in business administration. And then, everything’s just kind of fallen into place, and I never hesitated on any of it”.14:14

Workflow and Managing High Volume

Ava’s shop is a hive of activity. She quilts between 55 and 65 hours per week, often arriving at 7 a.m. and staying until 6 or 8 p.m..16:03 She handles all the quilting herself: “I was up here Sunday, Monday, all week, averaging about five a day. Most days, on hit or miss, some will be two. Just depends on the size”.15:11

Her focus is on edge-to-edge quilting, which allows her to maintain a high throughput. “Do you just do edge-to-edge? Yes, sir”.17:23 Last week alone, she completed 14 quilts.12:29

Ava’s workflow is streamlined but demanding. She greets customers, helps them with fabric selection, and then returns to the longarm. “We have fabric in here too, so when people come in, we greet them and help them with whatever fabric they need. I just keep it running. If it stops, I’ll break away and go start it back and get the other lady that works with me to help, and then I’ll come back”.15:34

Despite the long hours and high volume, Ava says, “I do, but I wouldn’t have it any other way”.16:28 She even manages this workload while raising a one-year-old. Organization and stamina are essential, but so is passion: “This is my life. Like, I wake up sewing, I go to bed sewing. I dream about it all night”.14:47

Pricing and Record-Keeping

Ava charges by the square inch, using a formula she found early on: “Length times width divided by 36 divided by 3 times 1.75 plus 8”.17:58 She admits, “I really don’t know how much I charge the square inch. All I know is the formula”.17:44 She’s aware that her approach isn’t the most scientific, and she’s had to learn from experience: “Before the shop, whenever I bought the shop, I talked to Mrs. Dadey and she was like, what is that? And I was like, I don’t know. And she’s like, you’re working yourself to death for nothing. And I was like, I don’t know. I just found this formula and I ran with it”.18:41

Her record-keeping is a blend of paper and digital. “I keep my quilting for the month in a manila folder, and then at the end of the month, I’ll put it in a different file and put it in a little tote box, so it’ll be labeled. And then, everything else, I have a filing cabinet for”.20:17 For sales and charges, Ava uses an online system: “We have an online system, so when we wring it out, we put it in under quilting or batting and stuff like that, so I could go back in and look at it and see exactly how much it was for quilting and all of that, too”.20:53

She acknowledges that she’s still learning and expects her organizational systems to evolve: “I’d love to come back. Yes. Okay, let’s see. What else do I need to ask you?”.21:34

Growing a Customer Base in a Rural Area

Despite being in Mangum, Louisiana—a town so small it “doesn’t even have red lights. We just have stop signs” 27:45—Ava has built a customer base that extends beyond her region. She started by serving local quilters, but soon began receiving quilts from as far as North Dakota and Baton Rouge.12:09

Ava credits her growth to word of mouth, speaking at local groups, and building an online presence: “We recently went online so I’m trying working really hard to build it right now. We have a Facebook group. I’m trying to make posts on it. I actually went and spoke to a group of… it was like 10 of them this morning maybe. I went and spoke to them at lunch and just kind of told them about us and let them know where we were and what we had to offer”.26:27

She’s also embraced shipping and remote orders: “We’ve shipped some out. We actually like I said we just went online so we have online orders that come and we love to ship out that’s with us being so small that’s what whenever the bail our system has a little bail and so it’ll have a red dot if we get an online order and like me and my other employee… We’ll start yelling and we’ll say we got an order we got an order and we get so excited”.29:23

Ava’s approach is personal and community-focused. She visits local groups, maintains a Facebook presence, and encourages customers to mail in their quilts if they can’t visit in person. “For my long garment they do or you can mail them. We do have some people that mail them and we’ll mail it back to you when we get it ready”.30:30

Shop Offerings and Services

Stitched in Faith Quilt Shop offers more than just longarm quilting. Ava stocks batting, wide back fabrics, and lines from brands like Moda, QT, Cave, and Ruby Star.22:38 She also recently added t-shirt quilts to her services: “I actually just added that to my business probably a month and a half ago”.23:09

For custom work, Ava helps customers select patterns from a binder of printed options or searches for digital patterns online. “If they are looking for something specific I get on my phone or my iPad and I’ll pull up the store and I’ll type in what they’re looking for and if we find one they like then I’ll get it for them”.31:00

She also offers binding services and is attentive to customer needs, often sitting down with them to discuss their quilt tops and pattern preferences. “We have a book and it’s a little blue binder and we have our patterns printed out so they can flip through them and see different patterns that they like”.30:56

Ava involves her community in decisions, even when choosing fabrics for the shop: “We have reps that come and they’ll show us like what’s coming and we’ll look at it and you can’t get everything that you like, so you have to have other people’s opinions too. I have some ladies that sit in the back and sew… if I like it then I get their input on it and we just tally it up”.24:31

Balancing Business, Family, and Passion

Ava’s drive is fueled by passion. “This is my life. Like, I wake up sewing, I go to bed sewing. I dream about it all night”.14:47 She juggles her business with raising a one-year-old and working long hours, but says, “I wouldn’t have it any other way”.16:28

Her family and mentor, Miss Dede, are her support system. “Nobody hesitated. They’ve all been there and they’ve all been one phone call away”.32:07 Ava’s family lives next door, and she credits them for their constant encouragement: “They do. We live right next door to each other”.32:22

Ava also reflects on the difference between working for herself and for others: “I worked for a big company before and I didn’t really like it because you was just a number. Like they didn’t care how you felt and what all you went through. You could do as much as you could but it still at the end of the day it didn’t matter. And so, whenever I decided to do this I decided to do this. I actually said some of the ladies down and I was like, I don’t want you to feel like that. Like if there is something that I need to work on, I want you to let me know because I want to be the best person that I can be for you. And I want you to love coming up here. I don’t want you to dread coming to work”.33:32

Advice for New Longarm Quilters

Ava’s advice for anyone considering starting a longarm quilting business is simple: “Do it. I was so scared I would regret it. I have no regrets. I love it. I’m so happy I did it. And I wish I would have done it years before”.36:41

She encourages new owners to take advantage of training and not to let stress or fear get in the way: “If you love it, I mean and like I said this is my passion. It just pushes you to keep doing it and to tell more people about you and don’t let the stress get in the way and don’t let the fear. Just step out there and do it”.25:54

Ava also highlights the value of learning from others and using available resources. She benefited from in-person training and online videos, and recommends new owners write down their questions and take advantage of one-on-one sessions if available: “Just people showing me ways and watching videos on it”.35:17

She’s honest about the challenges: “It hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows but it hasn’t been bad either. The only thing that I will say is it gets stressful. You get nervous but it’ll get better”.25:35 But her message is clear: if you’re passionate, don’t let fear hold you back.