How Doc Wiginton Built a Thriving Longarm Quilting Business with Two Machines and a Personal Touch

0:00 And our guest today is somebody that we have seen before, Doc Wiggington.

0:30 The Quilt Doc is with us. We're glad to have you with us.

0:35 Well, Doc, last time you were here on the podcast,

0:40 you had just received the delivery of your second Ascend. And I guess we'll just start out with

0:51 why did you choose to get an Ascend in the first place and how has that decision affected your

0:57 business? Well, thanks for having me on again. I appreciate it. Glad to have you.

1:05 I chose the, I tell folks that choosing the Ascend is sort of like finding your favorite

1:11 cottage cheese or your favorite ice cream. Like once you've found it, you can't go back.

1:16 You can't go back to anything else. It's too good, right? And so you're always

1:24 wanting that little bit more accuracy, that little bit more speed.

1:28 And so I tried to talk myself into a Statler, which is an awesome machine.

1:33 But at the end of the day, I knew I just wouldn't be happy unless I had the Ascend.

1:40 And I was using the Ascend for, I really wanted it for my custom work. The new machine was for

1:47 my custom work for most of my custom pieces. My old machine is a 30 inch Ascend and my Ascend

1:55 upgrade. And my second machine is a 26 inch Ascend. So the 26 would help me to get closer.

2:02 And so that's what I wanted for my custom stuff. And I tell you, it's done the trick.

2:08 I can keep the edge to edge running on my 30 and not have to slow down or not have to feel

2:15 bad about taking longer on a custom piece. And that's been great. My customers love that. They

2:21 used to have to drop off a quilt, excuse me, drop off a quilt, a custom quilt, and then wait until

2:30 I finished all the edge to edge I had piled up until it was the turn to do the next custom quilt.

2:35 And of course, theirs might not be the next one. And then the edge to edge stuff, my edge to edge

2:41 customers, you know, wanted it quickly and they might have to wait until I finished this custom.

2:45 So it was always that tension in my studio. And having the two machines has really solved that.

2:52 It's made my customers a lot happier and I am able to do more quilts now. So that's been really great.

3:00 I have a couple questions brimming and it's hard to know which one to ask first, but

3:05 I'm going to go with this one. For people that have never operated two machines

3:11 at the same time before, which most people have not, can you give them an idea as to,

3:19 okay, you've loaded up both quilts and you started the edge to edge. Tell me about how often

3:27 it breaks into your creative flow on that custom to where you need to turn your back on it and

3:35 pay attention to the... Can you kind of give people an idea how that rhythm is?

3:39 Sure. So I set up my studio so that on my edge to edge machine, my computer is on the right side

3:48 and on my custom machine, the computer's on the left side. So I'm pretty close to both

3:55 of the control surfaces within three or four feet. And they're both, how do I say this,

4:01 they're sort of both open to me. So I don't have to walk around any of the machines

4:06 to get to them. They're both within my eyesight at the same time. So if there's a problem,

4:11 I can stop it pretty quickly. I'm imagining something kind of like a galley style kitchen

4:17 where you have basically a runway down the middle and... That would be ideal. Mine's more like a V

4:23 just because of how my space is. Okay. All right. Same kind of idea that opened that

4:30 galley up a little bit. Okay. And it works out pretty slick. There's some tricks I learned right

4:37 away to help make it better. Sewing backs together on the edge to edge so I can do more than one

4:43 quilt without having to stop and load a quilt. I can stay in the creative zone to change a bobbin,

4:49 especially if I've got them all, a bunch of them ready to go. And I choose my quilting patterns

4:55 so that I can go all the way down, come all the way back. I can really take advantage of all

5:02 30 inches of my space. So that gives me more time. But of course you run out of bobbin thread.

5:09 Sometimes things happen, you make mistakes. But for the most part, as long as I've got it loaded

5:16 up well and I've got bobbins ready to go, it's not too bad. It's not too bad at all. It does keep

5:23 you moving. Your legs don't get sore from sitting too long. And of course the custom quilts,

5:31 those, you know, I might work on one pass or one chunk for a long time. And so once it's loaded,

5:40 sometimes in my studio for a couple weeks or better. So that's not so bad. Because, you know,

5:47 the real tough mornings are when I have to load a custom and all the edge to edge. Then it's sort

5:53 of hard to get going. I haven't cracked that nut yet. But for the most part, it's worth the

6:00 little extra effort of prep to stay in it. So it sounds like you do a fair amount of both custom

6:09 and the edge to edge. How much custom do you do?

6:15 Well, there's not very many folks around me who do custom. It's expensive and it takes a long time.

6:22 And there's just not very many people who do it. And that's one of the reasons I started

6:27 longarming was because I had a lot of friends and students who wanted custom quilting but couldn't

6:34 find it. It wasn't that they couldn't afford it. They just couldn't find somebody to do it.

6:39 And there's a lot of folks out there who have long arms who only do edge to edge. And that's

6:46 pretty much how my market is. So when I started, I knew I wanted to do custom work. And I've said

6:53 this many times, I am very blessed. I'm very lucky. The market that I work in, my ladies can afford

6:59 the work. And so it's okay for me to take time on a quilt. Not every quilt. The first question I

7:08 always ask is, what's this quilt going to be used for? And then the second one is, what's the budget

7:13 for this project? And a lot of my ladies can afford custom work and are excited to pay for it.

7:21 So I keep a custom going all the time. Right now, my custom queue is out several months. So

7:30 they just take a long time. And once you build that clientele that likes your work,

7:35 that is excited by your work, they seem to come back. But you know, those ladies also are bringing

7:40 me edge to edge quilts while they're waiting for their masterpiece. They're still making quilts

7:45 for their grandkids and quilts for their quilt shops and quilts for everyday quilts, I call them.

7:53 So are there any particular tips or tricks that just kind of,

8:01 you know, for running the two machines simultaneously? You had mentioned

8:04 sewing your backs together on your edge to edges. And what that, what I'm envisioning then is,

8:10 you might have three edge to edge quilts that you're planning to do, A, B, and C. And you'll

8:15 just seam the bottom of the first one to the top of the second one. And then the bottom of the

8:22 second one to the top of the third one, and then roll them all on all at once.

8:26 The trick there is you want to measure from the center. So find your centers,

8:31 start with your biggest one, and you work your way down to the smallest back.

8:35 Okay.

8:36 They're easy to, it seems to keep the tension better that way that you're building that big

8:43 quilt. It's also, if I can talk my ladies, if they've got a baby quilt, sometimes they'll call

8:50 and say, you know, I'm making a baby quilt. And I'll say, you know, why don't you make two?

8:54 I'm sure you've got enough scraps to make another. Why don't you make another one and we'll put it

8:58 on the same back, right? I've got a few sister teams who will make quilts together. I live on

9:05 the far side of the county in New Jersey. A lot of my ladies live either in Manhattan or Brooklyn

9:11 or really close to Manhattan. So they'll get a couple, three of them together and then bring

9:15 me their quilts. And I'll say, why don't you get together and sew your backs together? Or maybe

9:19 get together and pick out a great big 108 that you can all share. And that helps too.

9:26 They're usually more than willing to do that if I knock a little off the bill at the end. And I

9:32 always tell them it's gonna help speed up production. They'll get their quilt faster. And it's true

9:36 if they can do that for me. That's a big help.

9:41 And so, having the two machines there, and you know, a lot of the people watching

9:45 may be interested in this. Are you normally like running, you've set up your edge to edge to run,

9:54 and then you turn to the other table and just do some hand guided, I mean, you know, some custom

10:01 while you're doing that? That's usually how it goes. I do a lot of teaching. And so, some days

10:07 I'll come down and just run one machine. But on my studio days, I call them my studio days,

10:13 when I'm going to go downstairs and just quilt until I'm done for the day. On those days, I try

10:20 to get down there early so that I can get all my prep done, or do my prep the night before. That's

10:25 even better. Another tip for loading all those big backs is I like a commercial wrinkle releaser.

10:34 Like there's lots of brands. Mary Ellen's Press makes one called I Hate Ironing that I really like.

10:40 There's lots of them available at the grocery store. Lots of companies make them. And if I can

10:47 get, if I've got enough energy at the end of the day left, I will try to load at night, spritz my

10:54 backs with that wrinkle releaser, and then I don't have so much pressing to do first thing in the

10:59 morning. That solves most of that problem for me, spritzing it. Some of our, some of the GAML

11:06 educators talk about spritzing their backs with water before they load. And then in the night as

11:13 they dry under tension, a lot of that, a lot of those wrinkles release naturally, and that saves

11:20 some time. So if I can do it the night before, then when I come down in the morning to quilt

11:26 for the day, I think it's a lot, it's a lot more fun to just get started. It's probably my least

11:33 favorite chore. And so I do anything I can to shave a few minutes off of it.

11:39 So this, I feel like I might know the answer to this question, because you had a Statler Ascend

11:49 before, and that's why you got a second Statler Ascend. And so I'm not exactly sure how to put it,

11:55 but you know, there are a lot of machines available, not just the Statler. And being in

12:03 the quilting industry for a while now, you've come across different machines that are out there.

12:13 Is there, did you ever have a moment when you considered one of the other machines,

12:19 as opposed to getting a second Statler? Oh yeah, I had another machine for a minute.

12:24 It was, a friend of mine had a machine she was struggling with, and she had to make some money

12:31 happen, and I was thinking about a second machine, and so I got one. And it didn't last very long.

12:39 It was supposed to speed up my process, and all it did was slow me down. The little things that

12:45 I took for granted on my Statler, accuracy, chief among them, speed, one of the things that

12:55 made me crazy was that you'd send a file to the stitcher to stitch. In Gameland, you say start

13:03 quilting, and it starts quilting. It's pretty straightforward. On a lot of the other machines,

13:09 there's many clicks between when you're done designing and ready to start quilting,

13:15 and if you screw up any of that chain of command, you've got to start over again,

13:21 and that just made me crazy. And so I found that I was just wasting a lot of time

13:28 on that kind of stuff, and also just on stitch quality, like consistent stitch quality.

13:33 The things that I know are true on my Statler weren't true on the other machine for some

13:40 reason. I couldn't get consistent tension. That thing that you hear sometimes, my machine only

13:47 likes this kind of thread. I never understood that, because on my Statler, I could do all the

13:51 threads. I could do anything. My creativity drove it. The Statler didn't drive me. I drove it.

13:58 And on these other machines, I would find I would only use certain threads, because

14:04 I finally got it to work for two quilts, so don't change anything, which was really limiting.

14:12 So things like that, and speed, accuracy, all that stuff. It just wasn't the same.

14:18 So you really, not just because you're on this podcast with us, you really find that your

14:29 Gammill machines have had a better result for you.

14:36 Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, I'm a teacher. I'm a quilt teacher. I teach in

14:42 people's homes, and people come to me to learn, and some of them have long arms in their houses,

14:46 and I see what they're struggling with. And I didn't want to struggle that way.

14:52 I didn't want to have those same struggles. Also, I'm a big guy. You can't tell on the podcast,

14:56 but I'm 6'4", 300 pounds. I'm big. And so a lot of those little machines just felt,

15:04 well, the word I use, little machines, right? They felt small. They felt unsubstantial.

15:09 Certainly the tables felt like I was going to break them. Everything shook. They were loud.

15:15 All of these little things added up to the experience wasn't the same. And for me,

15:22 as an artist, you had to get in sync with your sewing machine, and I just couldn't get it

15:29 anywhere. And it's funny, the first Gammill I tried, I had tried all the machines at the shows

15:36 because I was looking for a couple of years before I finally decided.

15:40 And in trying all the machines, I just kept coming back to the Statler. And the dealer at the time,

15:47 when they had dealers, she was very encouraging, and she said, I'm not even going to push it

15:52 because I know you're going to keep coming back. And when it was time for me to buy one,

15:57 I bought one. And when it was time to buy the second one, I bought a second one.

16:04 Well, you didn't, though. You took a little detour. You thought, well,

16:08 this other machine would be good enough. You know, I thought, what I thought it would do,

16:12 I thought it would speed me up and help my friend out. And all those other things don't,

16:19 you know, they're not so important. And I found out how wrong I was, right? I mean,

16:24 I really found out how wrong I was. In that time when I started thinking about having a second

16:30 machine, I'm sure a lot of folks think probably are the same boat. Two machines sounds crazy.

16:35 I mean, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of space. It's a big commitment to have two machines. I get

16:41 it. But I knew the dollars and cents made sense. I needed to speed up. And I knew that my machine

16:48 would pay for itself. My first machine doesn't owe me any money. Why would the second machine

16:53 owe me any money? But still getting over that fear of two huge machines, I thought, oh, the second

17:00 one will be good enough. It'll be okay. And I'm telling you, it's cottage cheese and ice cream,

17:05 man. Once you find the one you want, you just can't go back. I remember that. I've had people

17:10 tell me that the Irish butter is significantly better than regular butter. And I've not tried

17:18 the Irish butter for fear that I would have to spend the rest of my life with being a butter snob.

17:24 If I was in front of my refrigerator, I'd open it right now and show you all the Irish butter.

17:28 So we've got a couple of questions from the audience. I'll start with Debra's

17:34 first question. She's asked two now. I'll get to the other one. So her first question was,

17:39 if you quilt for quilters who are putting their quilts in shows. I do. I do. I have a deal

17:47 with my show quilters. Some show quilters want sort of all the glory and all the credit.

17:55 And so, and that's fine. And so they pay one price and that's, we work together on a plan.

18:03 But when the quilt leaves, it leaves, it leaves my life forever. And then on some other show

18:09 quilts that I do, they're more interested in the collaboration and that's most of my show quilters.

18:16 And so that's a different price. And we talk about if the quilt wins a prize for piecing,

18:23 well, then that's yours. If it wins a prize for machine quilting, well, that's mine.

18:27 If at the end of the day, if somebody wants to buy the quilt and there's profit involved,

18:32 you know, we work all that out going into it, especially for the big national shows.

18:36 Now, most of my show quilters aren't putting them in big national shows.

18:40 They're putting it in the local show at the church or they're putting them in the county fair.

18:44 Right. So it's less of an issue. But I do have some, some big quilters out there and that I

18:51 quilt for and we work all those details out ahead of time. And just my philosophy, my business

18:57 philosophy has always been no surprises. If we can iron out all that stuff ahead of time,

19:03 even if it sounds a little ridiculous, it saves a whole lot of heartache later.

19:10 And Deb is also asking, why would you recommend an Ascend over the Statler? She says,

19:17 I've been debating with myself over upgrading. Tell us more why I should.

19:23 Sure. So the Ascend goes, the Statler is an awesome machine. I have to always start there.

19:28 The Statler is awesome. I sewed on the Statler for a long time and I loved it.

19:32 Couldn't tell me any different. And I was not convinced that the Ascend was what I needed,

19:38 but my business was picking up and I thought, man, if it really does go faster, then I can do

19:44 more quilts. Right. And I really believed that the speed and edge to edge was going to be the

19:52 big push for me. That's why I bought the first Ascend was for the speed. But I was, I was wrong.

20:00 I was wrong and I wasn't. It does go faster, but it's really, it goes, it goes, it's more accurate

20:05 at speed. And so things that used to take me a long time to do, like stitch in the ditch or

20:13 click out a boundary, things like that, where I had to surf and go slow and be careful. If I had

20:18 a real intricate pattern with lots of curves or something, I'd have to really slow down.

20:23 On the Ascend, I could speed up. And so really the edge-to-edge, yeah, sure, the edge-to-edge goes

20:29 faster, but the custom work goes a lot faster. And that was fun. And so I knew if I was buying

20:37 a machine to do custom work that it had to have that accuracy because I'd just gotten used to it.

20:43 The Power Assist on the Ascend is a totally different animal than it is on the Statler.

20:49 It's much smoother. And so there are lots of times before when I would have to drop the belts

20:54 that now I don't. I just turn my Power Assist on and go. And sometimes, you know, you think,

21:02 well, that's only a few seconds to drop the belts. But if I'm doing a really complicated pattern

21:07 where I'm using the Statler for part of the pattern and then hand guiding for the other

21:11 part of the pattern, that on and off, those few seconds add up to minutes and hours over the

21:17 course of the week. And so I found that I really loved not having to do that all the time.

21:22 And that was great. So that's why I got the Ascend. And that's why I love it so much.

21:30 There's a story I tell often. I had quilted a, it was like a panel. It was a lady's panel.

21:41 And it was one of those not very expensive ones. It was digitally printed, but not a good digitally

21:47 printed one. You know, the kind where you punch a hole in it and you get the little white mark.

21:54 And I had forgotten to change the bottom bobbin thread. And so I stopped. I picked out, it was

22:01 probably about 16, 17 inches worth of quilting. Got it all picked out. And I'm looking at all

22:06 these holes thinking I'm going to have to iron this when I'm done and close these holes and

22:12 have to apologize to my customer and everything else. I put the right bobbin thread in and ran

22:17 it again. And that Ascend quilted the design in the same holes, like exactly the same holes. There

22:25 were no holes to close because it just quilted in the same holes again. And I thought, okay,

22:30 I got lucky once. That happened one time, you know, I'm lucky, but it happened again.

22:35 I was quilting, doing the same thing. And when I picked it all out, this time it was a really

22:40 complicated pattern and same thing, stitched right back in the same holes. So stuff like that,

22:46 that kind of accuracy, you don't find it on any other machine. And once you've had it, you just,

22:52 you got to have it. Hard to live without it. The Ascend has beefier belts and motors that holds

23:00 that accuracy a lot stronger. So I, I've got a question here from Marlene and I, I struggled a

23:09 little bit whether I would ask it or not, because what she's asking is that she's curious what the

23:16 brand was of that other machine that you had. And I thought, well, you know, I didn't want to ask.

23:20 And then I thought, well, it's part of the story. And so it wasn't a Nova, a new one, well new to

23:28 me, right? It wasn't one of the old classic ones. I think it was a, it was the newer model.

23:35 And it was the small Nova, their smallest one. That's what I had. Again, I mean, I think if in

23:42 the, on the other side of that, maybe had I not known that it could be easy or it could be so

23:49 much better, then maybe that would be okay. But, but I had been, I learned a lot earlier and that's

23:56 what, that's the language I speak. There's an old saying that comparison is the thief of joy.

24:03 And so you could have been very joyful perhaps with that other machine, but you were comparing

24:08 it. Exactly. And there's a lot of other stuff we don't have to go into on the podcast, but

24:15 you know, I had to work with a dealer that you know, we didn't have the best experience.

24:20 I had to deal with their service that wasn't the best. And of course I was spoiled by Gamble. I

24:28 had a great dealer from Gamble. I had great service from Gamble. Bobby, you know, is sick

24:33 of hearing me call tech sport, right? Because you call somebody answers and talks you through

24:37 the problem. I didn't have any of that with this machine. So even though I had a dealer,

24:44 you know, relatively closer than West Plains, Missouri, I wasn't getting anywhere near the

24:50 same service that I got, you know, from Gamble. So it's not just about the machine experience.

24:57 It's the whole package. Yes. So now that we're in this new world where you've got the two machines,

25:07 I didn't think the story would go that much, but it was interesting. So I'm glad we dug into it.

25:14 So tell us about, you have this thing called the Certificate of Authenticity. So what was your

25:22 inspiration for this certificate and what does it mean to your customers?

25:28 So I buy art. I buy art from galleries sometimes or from art shows or, you know, from artists.

25:38 And almost always it comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. It says these, this artist

25:44 made this piece and it's, this is what it looks like. This is how many were made. And this is

25:50 more or less what it would cost to replace it. Should you have a problem just documenting

25:56 the piece of art? And I thought, well, nobody's documenting my art. I think that I should start

26:03 doing that for myself anyway. So I started making them for my own pieces and pretty soon my

26:11 customers, some of my customers are students and they said, well, could you make one for me?

26:16 And that's, I started making them for them. And it was a good way for me to keep track of my

26:20 customers and, you know, what Martha put on that baby quilt two years ago, right? I've got a,

26:26 a, a, just a copy of that certificate. But something happened unexpected, which was that

26:33 they, there's a real value for them. They feel very accomplished when you give them a certificate

26:39 that they've finished this quilt and that it's art and that it has that kind of cultural value.

26:46 And it's also nice because I include a material labor and quilting breakdown

26:54 in the price and sort of a, this is what it would cost an estimate to replace it. And that's a

26:59 really nice thing to, if you're giving somebody a gift, you know, it's sort of tacky to say I spent

27:05 $500 on fabric and $600 on quilting. So take care of this. But if you say, oh, here's your certificate

27:13 that goes with it from the artist and from me, right. With some care instructions, I think it's

27:18 much less likely to end up in the dog bed or, you know, on a shelf in the attic.

27:22 So is every, every quilt that you do now, you do a certificate of authenticity?

27:28 Unless they don't want one. And most people want one. And once I realized how much it meant to my

27:35 quilters, I started, I dressed them up a little bit, you know, put them on cardstock, put a seal

27:40 on them, sign them. That is really neat. And my customers love it. I've had some stories that

27:49 there was a moving company that wrapped a piano in somebody's quilt and it destroyed it. And

27:56 they used the certificate to make a claim and it paid out on the claim so she could make another

28:00 quilt. I had a lady who had it and she- They used the certificate for a claim on the quilt?

28:05 They used the certificate for a claim on a quilt. It's value is documented, yeah.

28:10 Exactly. Another lady had a problem with a shipping company and the quilt got really

28:16 damaged in shipping and she had some insurance on it, but they were contesting the claim

28:22 and she had the certificate and they ended up paying the whole amount. So it's a nice thing

28:28 and it only takes me a few minutes. It's not very expensive to make and my customers love it.

28:35 And sometimes they'll- I've heard through the grapevine that sometimes they'll, if they've got

28:41 a really special quilt, then somebody else's customer, right? Somebody else is doing all

28:46 their edge to edge stuff, but they've got a really special one. They'll bring it to me,

28:50 pay a little bit more so they get that certificate. So I think it's part of the market that I'm in,

28:56 but also now that I've started it, I don't think my ladies will let me stop. Ladies and gentlemen,

29:02 I should say I've got a few guys who I go to. How do you do the calculation as to the- I mean,

29:10 obviously the value of the quilting is whatever your bill was, but how do you do the calculation

29:18 for the materials and labor? So for the materials, I'm a piecer. I make quilts,

29:25 so it's pretty obvious for the most part. I can tell, you know, this is quilt shop quality fabric

29:30 or that was two jelly rolls worth or, you know, for the most part, they're fairly similar in lots

29:36 of those ways. And so I trust my own experience or I ask them, how much did you spend, you know,

29:43 at the quilt shop for this stuff? And they give you a ballpark figure. The labor is a little bit

29:47 trickier. That's what I was thinking. The labor is the hard part. I know what I charge per hour

29:53 to piece because I used to do it. And I also know in my area, there's a couple ladies who

29:59 will make quilts for people on commission. And they're sort of in two groups. There's the

30:05 sort of easy, easy quilts, easier quilts. And then there's the more advanced or more difficult quilts.

30:13 And so those are the two camps I use. Each one is the number that, you know, those ladies would

30:19 charge. And I always round up a hair to make the math easy. And that's what it is. It's not

30:26 outrageous. I always think if somebody has to have this replaced and I have to make this again,

30:33 what am I going to charge? And that's how I sort of figure it out.

30:38 That's fantastic. I love that. I think a lot of people will be interested in that idea

30:45 in their own market, especially because custom quilting is something that not every quilt

30:52 deserves, you know. Not every quilt gets, but sometimes a quilt is really special.

30:58 I have every quilt of mine goes home in a bag. I've got the, I found a local place that

31:06 sells these. They're breathable bags. And so in the bag, it's got the care instructions,

31:12 the certificate, and then a little bag, a smaller bag inside. It's got all the scraps and stuff in

31:18 it. So that little bit of extra, which that sounds like a lot. I know that sounds like a lot of extra,

31:26 but it doesn't cost me very much more in certain. So I can charge slightly more

31:33 than some of the other places in my market.

31:39 So beyond the edge to edge and the custom quilting, what, do you have any other services that you

31:47 offer? Yeah, I have a laser cutter. And so sometimes my, anything I can do to help people

31:53 keep quilting. And so sometimes that means I've got to cut a pattern for somebody. I've done

31:58 that before. I don't always do it on my laser. Sometimes it's easier to cut it with a rotary

32:04 cutter. But I do, I have cut for people. I do bind, I've got some special binding tricks.

32:11 I bind on my longarm. And so that's a no brainer. That's a fast, easy way to have an upsell on just

32:20 about every edge to edge quilt I do. They ask me to put the binding on for them. And that's fast.

32:27 I mean, probably, that's probably my most profitable service that I do, even more

32:31 profitable than the quilting because it goes so fast. If I can do it on the longarm, it's

32:38 worth every penny. What's your per inch rate for applying the binding?

32:46 I'd have to look at my chart. I want to say it's 10 cents a linear inch, something like that.

32:51 And then I charge them to make the binding a flat fee. I also have a serger. And sometimes

32:57 if they want it completely put on, so, you know, both sides of the binding. I don't do hand binding

33:04 anymore. I just don't have time for it. But I will sew it on the back with my serger with

33:11 fusible thread in the lower looper. And then I can iron it to the top. And then I fire it through my

33:18 industrial machine. And I can do a pretty quick machine binding that way. And so I'm still able

33:27 to do that. And that one's more, I think that's 25 cents a linear inch. But folks take me up on it

33:32 all the time for binding. Another one that folks take me up on is I do two kinds of labels. I do

33:39 one called an economy label where you flip the batting up and you stitch on the, I'm sorry,

33:45 you flip up the top and you stitch just on the batting and the backing. You have to reverse it

33:51 in CS. Now you're using the text feature that's built into Creative Studio. Yeah,

33:57 built into Creative Studio. And I mirror it so I can, you know, so it reads the right way on the

34:03 back of the quilt. That's my economy label. And those are for grandmas who want, you know,

34:09 their name on it, but they don't want to spend a lot of money on a fancy label. And then I have

34:14 an embroidery machine that I have set up for labels. And for my edge to edge quilts,

34:21 that's an extra fee. And it depends on how big the label is. But for my custom quilts,

34:28 every custom quilt that leaves my studio gets a label. And that's how I make sure that my name

34:33 goes on it. It's free. It's a free label. Whether they sew it on or not is up to them. But it does

34:41 leave the studio with a label ready to be sewn onto the back. And it has, you know, name of the

34:46 quilt. Well, whatever we decide together, but at the bottom, you know, longarm quilted by me.

34:52 Right. So I, I'm a little bit confused, but I think you can clarify. I had understood that

34:59 you had an all-in price, which I heard is, you know, all-inclusive. But now we're talking about

35:04 a lot of different extras. So, so tell me about what's in the all-in price. And then obviously

35:10 some of these other things are extra. Sure. So some longarmers will have a loading price,

35:18 or a thread price, or a price per bobbin, or a needle fee, or a trim fee. So I say it's all-in

35:27 for me. It's, it's the, the batting, it will be, will, it's 80-20 is what I quote. And if they want

35:36 something different than that, then that number might change slightly depending on if they want

35:41 a real expensive batting or something. But most of the time I'm using 80-20. And so that's,

35:49 that's one variable in the all-in. But I don't charge a needle fee. I don't charge a trim fee.

35:54 I don't charge, you know, any of that stuff. I started out with how much money I want to make

36:00 per hour, and I worked backwards from there. And then I figured out how much it would cost

36:06 for needles and thread and all the things. And then that's how I set my prices per inch,

36:13 per square inch rather. And so at the end of the day, there's a quilting price, which has got all

36:19 of those things in it. It's already got a trim in it. It's all got that. And then if they want

36:23 something extra, like a label, or they want me to put the binding on, or something that, that's not

36:30 sort of essential to the quilting, then that, you know, that's extra.

36:37 Got you. Well, you've worked with non-traditional quilters, like Girl Scout Troops,

36:48 Senior Centers, Recreation Departments. Tell us a little bit about that.

36:55 You haven't lived until you've had like a whole Boy Scout Troop in your quilt studio.

36:59 I do a thing where I have, there's a couple no-sew quilt block methods,

37:08 mostly using fusibles or different kinds of adhesives. And I've been contracted half a

37:15 dozen places, and then that's, they've had me come back either annually or, you know, when different

37:21 folks come through their programs, and they'll make a quilt. And so everybody in the program

37:26 might make a block, usually with fusible. And I take my scraps from my own piecing and from my own

37:35 work, put fusible web on the back, and then sort of curate the colors so it makes sense

37:42 based on a theme, whether that's, the one I'm thinking of was fall leaves. We did one about

37:47 leaves and trees at a Senior Center. And then we sit around the table, everybody gets to,

37:52 if you can wield scissors, then you can make a quilt block. And everybody cuts out their

37:58 fusible prepped fabric, say that three times fast, and build their quilt block.

38:07 And then usually somebody in the group is well-intentioned and will sew the blocks together

38:12 for me. If not, I got to sew 12 blocks together. These aren't real difficult pieces usually.

38:18 And then I load it on my longarm, and I do the applique on the longarm. So I'm doing applique

38:25 and quilting at the same time. So it's like a one-and-done kind of procedure.

38:34 And it's a lot of fun when you're done, you have something that looks like something. You know,

38:38 a lot of these like no-sew projects, they're, you know, they're not real great. These look

38:43 like quilts because they're really nice quilts. And the organization can raffle it off, or the

38:48 Girl Scouts can take it to the NICU to donate it. And so they have something, a real quilt that they

38:55 can use, which is awesome. And here's the best part. I'm using up stuff that would otherwise

39:02 end up in the landfill, right? So there's not a lot of money spent on putting this together.

39:08 And I'm charging for the quilting. I'm still getting paid, right? And all of that group,

39:16 that whole group of moms and grandmas and dads, right? Oh, you know what? That was pretty cool.

39:24 You know what? I think I could make a quilt. And so I've picked up a lot of customers from those

39:30 kind of events. And folks who do quilts, who show up to a quilt-making event,

39:37 thinking it's going to be a traditional quilt-making event, and find it something

39:40 totally different, they have a good time, and then I'm their new long armor. So that's been

39:46 really good. And, you know, sometimes I don't charge the group, right? If it's a cause I

39:52 really believe in, then, you know, and that's something I can do. I know sometimes as quilters,

39:57 we can get bogged down in charity quilts.

40:00 And so this is a way for me to give back to the groups

40:04 that I believe in and care about and want to succeed

40:09 and not get bogged down in miles and miles and miles

40:14 of charity quilt work, which is important work

40:17 and I'm glad people are doing it.

40:20 But that's just not where my business is right now.

40:23 This is how I do the charity work

40:25 by working with those groups.

40:27 And those Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts,

40:30 I've had three of the kids become my customers,

40:34 or their parents, I guess, are my customers,

40:36 but kids who really had fun

40:38 and who really liked the procedure

40:40 and go home and do it for their birthday party.

40:43 That was the one girl.

40:45 Another kid liked it so well,

40:48 he wanted to make a quilt for his teacher.

40:49 And so he made his teacher a quilt

40:52 and I long-armed it for him.

40:54 So it's just a different way of working,

41:00 making your long arm pay for itself.

41:03 Yeah.

41:04 It also, it makes really cool memories for those kids.

41:08 It's interesting thinking about

41:10 when children start to quilt,

41:13 there's a lot of fascinating neuroscience, brain science,

41:18 about what happens to you when you engage

41:21 in a creative pursuit that's so immersive.

41:24 And the change in a child's brain, especially,

41:30 will influence them for a lifetime in a positive way.

41:33 I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm just a fan.

41:37 I've been very interested for years.

41:39 Yep, I don't work on brains,

41:42 but the way brains work, constantly rewiring themselves

41:47 based on the challenges that you throw at them

41:50 is nothing short of miraculous.

41:52 And to see kids engaging in a pursuit like that,

41:56 the world these days doesn't give them

41:58 a lot of things like that.

42:00 Well, and not just kids, right?

42:01 I mean, the elderly, right?

42:03 Folks who might spend a lot of time in front of the TV.

42:07 I teach a method, a piecing method.

42:09 Well, it could be any creative method.

42:11 I call it enlightened quilting.

42:13 And it's just about what you're talking about, Andrew.

42:15 It's sort of unlocking the power of our brains

42:20 to feel better and quilt better.

42:23 And to have more fun doing it.

42:25 And that's the lecture I give at Quilt Guilds and stuff,

42:29 is, well, someday the book will be completely finished

42:33 and everybody can learn.

42:35 But it's-

42:36 Yeah, maybe I'll just show up at one of your lectures

42:38 and get it for free.

42:39 I would love that.

42:39 Yeah, I'd like to do it.

42:41 That's actually why I started quilting.

42:43 My advisor, my PhD advisor said,

42:47 my PhD's in theater, and she said,

42:49 you can't do theater anymore as a hobby.

42:53 It's your job now.

42:54 So take my advice and go find something totally unrelated.

42:59 And for lots of reasons, I started quilting.

43:02 And as I was sewing, the act of piecing the blocks,

43:08 and then later on, free motion quilting

43:10 was what did it for me.

43:12 I started to solve a lot of problems in my brain.

43:15 Problems that, like schoolwork problems,

43:17 or how was I going to direct the next play,

43:20 or man, I'm really struggling to communicate with my mom

43:24 about something, right?

43:26 All of that, my brain sort of found new ways

43:30 of solving those problems when I was sewing.

43:34 And so I kept sewing because it was like a superpower.

43:38 I found if I could sew long enough

43:40 and get into creative flow and find the zone,

43:42 then I could figure stuff out.

43:46 And I decided that's what I was gonna do with my life,

43:51 because it's great.

43:52 It's fun.

43:59 So you touched on it briefly.

44:00 You're highly educated.

44:03 You've got that PhD in theater and education,

44:07 and a master's in fine arts.

44:10 And so how does,

44:13 does that change how you approach quilting?

44:17 I think most creative projects,

44:22 a lot of my quilting vocabulary comes from the theater.

44:26 I think about my quilts,

44:28 they have to tell a story just like a play does.

44:31 They have to be,

44:33 they've got design just like a play does, right?

44:36 The pieces have to,

44:38 sometimes the pieces or the blocks

44:40 are kind of like the characters in the story, right?

44:43 I don't think I cognitively do that.

44:45 Like I don't make a chart or anything,

44:48 but I certainly think about unity

44:51 and those design ideas that I was taught

44:55 and we practiced in the theater.

44:56 I apply them to quilting every day.

44:59 And something happens when you're an artist

45:01 that that muscle where you can see something

45:04 and know if it's right or know if it's wrong

45:06 or know if it needs just a little bit of another color

45:09 or it needs more hard shapes

45:13 or whatever,

45:14 know that muscle that some people are born with

45:18 and it's real sharp.

45:19 I wasn't born with it,

45:20 but I spent, like you say, a lot of time practicing it.

45:24 And I was surprised to find when I was making quilts

45:30 that that skill,

45:33 I could apply it directly to quilt making.

45:35 And it works.

45:38 It works really well for me.

45:41 And I think that one thing about the theater

45:43 is that theater is a very expensive art form.

45:46 You gotta get a lot of people together.

45:48 They've all gotta eat.

45:49 They've all gotta be safe, right?

45:51 You've gotta rehearse a lot.

45:53 They all need clothes to wear.

45:55 And then all the things,

45:56 you need a space, you need props.

45:58 I mean, theaters,

45:59 there's a lot of pieces to making a play happen.

46:02 And in quilting, there's a lot of pieces too,

46:05 but I am in charge, right?

46:09 I can do them all by myself if I have to,

46:11 but I don't have to do them all by myself.

46:13 That's the other great thing about quilting

46:15 is that you can invite the Girl Scouts over and make quilts

46:18 or you can work on something.

46:21 I love to quilt with my mom.

46:23 And so it doesn't have to be a lonely art form,

46:27 which was what I was worried about

46:28 and still apply all of that great design language.

46:31 And even that the history,

46:33 the art history that I learned in theater,

46:36 I can apply to the quilts that I make,

46:39 especially if I'm looking at a traditional quilt,

46:41 I can go, oh yeah, that reminds me of.

46:44 And then that's how I come up with ideas

46:46 for long arm patterns or regular piecing patterns,

46:52 that kind of thing.

46:54 I think for me, they're one in the same.

46:55 They all just kind of,

46:58 my theater friends think I'm nuts, right?

47:00 Like you left, you did all this training and study

47:05 and they don't see the connection, of course.

47:09 To me, it's.

47:11 Well, you've laid it out really well for us.

47:14 It's just the words change, but the ideas are very similar.

47:19 So tell us what you,

47:23 when you went into quilting,

47:27 you were drawn in by what probably the color

47:32 and the beauty and the people and the artistic flow.

47:38 But really at this point,

47:45 it sounds like you're living a completely different life

47:48 than what you would have been living before.

47:51 It's true.

47:52 I wish it were that romantic.

47:55 I was cold and I was poor

47:57 and I had a lot of clothes in the corner.

47:59 And my mom said, why don't, instead of throwing those away,

48:02 why don't you sew them together and make a quilt?

48:04 And I said, that's a good idea.

48:07 And then I found all of the beauty

48:09 and the flow and all this stuff, right?

48:13 The necessity birthed the beauty.

48:16 And I fought it for a while too, right?

48:20 This is really fun.

48:21 Oh no, I can't do that.

48:21 I gotta stay doing this serious thing that I do, right?

48:24 I'm not gonna become a quilter.

48:27 But when I switched over,

48:29 I think having kind of goes back to that freedom

48:33 of being able to take a day off when you need to,

48:38 to go look for inspiration when you need to,

48:42 to do those things, quilting has allowed for that.

48:47 I'm an open book about my life for the most part

48:50 and I have a neurological problem

48:52 that makes it hard for me to,

48:55 there are days I just can't work, right?

48:57 I just can't do it.

48:59 Physically, I can't do it.

49:00 And on those days I don't,

49:03 maybe I read a quilt book or I look at other stuff, right?

49:06 I can do other things.

49:07 I can still work on my business without quilting.

49:10 And that's awesome.

49:12 That's very different if you're the director

49:15 of a Broadway play and you've got to stand up

49:17 in front of hundreds of actors and people

49:21 and all their teams and make something happen.

49:25 So quilting has offered me, like I said earlier,

49:28 kind of another way to use those skills directly.

49:33 And it's connected me with a whole new community.

49:35 I didn't know these crazy people existed

49:38 when I first started.

49:40 And the women, mostly women I work with are former CEOs,

49:48 former teachers, former doctors, former engineers.

49:52 I've got bus drivers and moms.

49:55 You've got the whole cross-section of America,

49:57 black and white and every other color

49:59 that you could person can be.

50:01 And in New Jersey, that's pretty normal,

50:03 but it's not so normal to see everybody working

50:06 on the same thing and passionate about the same thing.

50:10 And that's exciting.

50:12 It gives me hope.

50:15 Excellent.

50:17 Well, Doc, it's been really great having you on here tonight

50:22 and we really appreciate it.

50:25 For the people that are watching,

50:28 is there any way they can see more of your stuff

50:31 or do you have a website?

50:36 Give us some information with that.

50:37 My personal website is quiltdoc.com, you'll find me.

50:46 That's where you'll find mostly my business information,

50:49 my rates and some pictures of the stuff that I make.

50:52 Quiltdoc.

50:54 Quiltdoc, yep, .com.

50:56 And then I teach for GAML.

50:59 So out on the road for tours and online video content

51:03 and that kind of stuff, I teach for GAML

51:07 as long as they'll have me.

51:08 I love teaching long-arming.

51:10 That's been sort of the newest,

51:12 my newest venture is teaching how much I love my Ascend

51:17 to other people.

51:18 So that's a lot of fun.

51:20 They can find me through those offerings

51:24 on the GAML education portal and on Facebook.

51:29 That's where most of my sort of day-to-day

51:34 social media stuff happens.

51:35 That's where I share pictures

51:37 of what's under the needle today

51:40 when I've got time to do it.

51:41 That's where it happens.

51:44 And that one is, you'll find me just the Quilt Doc.

51:47 Actually, it's Doc-Andy.

51:50 My given name is Andy.

51:53 So Doc-Andy.

51:55 If you put that in there, you'll find me.

51:57 There's only one Doc-Andy out there in Facebook land

52:00 and that's how they can get me

52:02 and all my contact information's online.

52:05 Fantastic.

52:06 And I wanted to mention too,

52:08 if somebody wants to pick up more of your story,

52:13 when we interviewed you previously,

52:16 that was our episode six.

52:18 And so on GAML.com slash Quilting Business Success,

52:24 they can look up episode six or they can go to YouTube

52:27 and they're all there in order or whatever.

52:29 So thank you, Doc, for sharing a little bit.

52:33 It's interesting to me, I had thought going into this

52:37 that I would know most of your answers to these questions

52:40 because I do know you fairly well.

52:43 And sure enough, you surprised me over and over again.

52:46 So thank you very much.

52:48 You're so welcome.

52:49 I hope if anybody out there who's listening to this

52:51 is thinking about starting a business with their long arm,

52:55 I was just like you,

52:57 just somebody who thought I had a wild hair of an idea.

53:01 And I always say it was the most reckless decision

53:04 I ever made and the best decision,

53:08 probably after getting married, my best decision.

53:11 And go for it because it's so much fun.

53:19 Well, Andy, Doc Wigginson, thank you very much.

53:23 It's been a great pleasure.

53:25 And we will see you guys next time

53:29 on Quilting Business Success.

53:32 Thanks a lot.

53:33 Bye-bye.

53:40 Bye-bye.