How Much to Charge for Longarm Quilting: Page Johnson’s 25-Year Journey

0:00 Oh, by the way, I'm Andrew, co-host here with Bobby.

0:28 And yeah, so just use that Q&A.

0:31 I expect that that will get some exercise today because Paige's interview is going

0:37 to surely spark some people's questions.

0:40 If you are watching the recorded version and you have questions, we'll talk later on about

0:47 what her website is or how you can find her on Facebook or those different things because

0:54 her story is really pretty inspirational.

0:58 Bobby and I have known Paige for quite a while.

1:01 You've probably known her longer than I have.

1:03 Maybe.

1:04 I don't remember.

1:05 Did we ever go on the...

1:06 Were you on the 2019 tour, Paige?

1:08 Yes, I was.

1:11 You went on tour.

1:12 But Andrew, I met you at...

1:15 And you and Michelle were dealers in upper Midwest because I was at MQX Portland and

1:26 also the Tacoma show that used to be out there, Innovations.

1:31 Right.

1:33 I think I went to the last MQX show that was in Portland.

1:37 So I think that probably would have been like 2012 or something.

1:41 Yep, you were right across the aisle from us.

1:44 Yep.

1:46 You got the memory to beat mine.

1:47 I've had a lot packed into those in between years.

1:51 Yeah, I get that.

1:54 Yeah.

1:55 So your story is really, really cool.

1:59 And when we were on the GAML Educational Cruise last week, I realized that a bunch of the

2:06 shining stars that were there had been interviewed already on this podcast, but not Paige.

2:12 And I said, Paige, would you be willing to be interviewed?

2:15 And she said, yes.

2:19 And we've already got a comment from the studio audience.

2:22 Wow, I can see at least six GAMLs behind you.

2:26 Thank you.

2:27 That was my count as well, Paige.

2:28 Five.

2:29 She said there's only five.

2:32 And her question was about how many employees do you have?

2:36 I have 12 employees at this point.

2:39 For a number of years, it was just myself.

2:43 And I was in my basement.

2:46 And I got to a point where I could move out of the basement to a storefront.

2:52 And then having an open door all the time, I couldn't leave.

2:57 So I started hiring employees.

3:00 So I could go to lunch, basically, is how it started.

3:05 Before we get full on into your story, we do want to adequately—see, you already know

3:12 her.

3:13 You did not adequately introduce Paige.

3:14 Well, let's get started.

3:16 You do it, Bobby.

3:17 Yeah.

3:18 So Paige, whom I have known maybe six years since I've been here at GAML.

3:24 Paige, tell us where you're located.

3:27 Where is home for you?

3:29 I'm in Minnesota.

3:31 I am just south of the Twin Cities area.

3:34 I'm in a suburb.

3:36 Currently, I am in a storefront in a strip center right off a major highway.

3:45 So I've got a good location.

3:49 And I get walk-in traffic.

3:51 I started in my home, but I was still in an outer ring suburb.

3:57 So I was fairly close to population.

4:02 And how long have you been long-arming?

4:05 I have been long—I have been quilting since I was seven.

4:10 And I started long-arming professionally in the year 2000.

4:16 So 2000—so this would be 25 years then for you?

4:20 Yep.

4:21 All right.

4:24 What made you decide to get into long-arm quilting?

4:27 Well, I had quit my corporate job to stay home with kids.

4:34 And as cool as that was, I wanted something else.

4:41 And my Aunt Alice said, you can be a long-arm quilter.

4:45 And I didn't really know what that was.

4:49 And she told me that people will pay you money to quilt their quilts, and you get this machine

4:53 that runs all over.

4:55 And I thought, oh, that sounds great.

4:58 So my friend and I, Mary Reinhart, went to a local show.

5:03 And we saw one of the original handy quilters that had rails that you taped to a table.

5:11 And then you put a carriage on it, and you put your own sewing machine on it.

5:15 So I had like nine inches of sewing space.

5:20 And it was $600.

5:21 And I thought, oh, okay, I'm going to do this.

5:25 So I bought the machine.

5:26 And I called my aunt.

5:27 And I said, I did it.

5:28 I did it.

5:29 And she goes, oh, no, no, no.

5:32 I met this really nice man, Ken Gamble.

5:35 And she bought my first long-arm for me.

5:38 Wow.

5:39 She bought it for you.

5:41 Wow.

5:42 Bought it for me.

5:43 So that was how I got started.

5:45 I was gifted a brand new.

5:49 It was a Classic Plus.

5:54 So it had a stitch regulator.

5:56 Nice.

5:57 That was high tech back then, wasn't it?

6:01 Oh, that was the coolest thing ever.

6:03 That was the state-of-the-art machine.

6:05 As a matter of fact, to this day, it still knocks the pants off most of the machines

6:09 that are out there.

6:10 Oh, hey, it's still running.

6:12 It's right over there.

6:13 It's still running.

6:15 It's had a change operation.

6:17 Yes, it has.

6:18 It's had a few upgrades.

6:20 Well, I got new hips.

6:24 It got a stabler.

6:26 Uh-huh.

6:27 I don't think we're going to have to ask her any questions.

6:30 She's answering everything.

6:31 So I was going to ask you this.

6:33 So somebody had told you that there's a job opportunity for finishing quilts, which that

6:41 was news to you at the time.

6:43 Yep.

6:44 But you had been a quilt top maker before then.

6:48 Had you not brought your quilts to anybody to have them finished, or you just tied them,

6:53 or what?

6:54 No, I quilted by hand.

6:56 And then when my aunt told me about this, I thought, well, OK, well, I got to see how

7:00 this really works.

7:02 So I found a longarm quilter.

7:04 I asked at the quilt shops.

7:07 And I brought my quilt to the longarm quilter.

7:10 And every step of the way, I was disappointed.

7:15 I wanted more.

7:17 I felt I worked hard on this top, and I didn't feel that it was getting, or myself, the attention

7:25 it deserves.

7:26 So right then and there, I decided, well, that's the number one thing I'm going to do,

7:30 is I'm going to pay attention to the quilter, and I'm going to pay attention to their top.

7:36 And when it came back, it wasn't, it was OK, but I was not impressed.

7:44 Gotcha.

7:45 So the question was, if you had gotten your machine strictly for business purposes.

7:51 I did.

7:53 Right from the get-go.

7:54 Mm-hmm, OK.

7:57 And when you started, did you have any idea whether there was enough business in your

8:04 area to?

8:06 No clue.

8:07 No clue.

8:08 I just knew I was going to do whatever it took.

8:13 I've got a can-do attitude about most things in life, but I knew that it was going to be

8:20 a big learning curve for me.

8:24 And I got a telephone book and a color crayon, and I started drawing in the telephone book,

8:31 and I was going to get better at what I was doing.

8:35 I had four kids, so I was going to sports events with my telephone book and drawing,

8:44 and I just got better at it.

8:48 What ages were your kids when you were starting your business?

8:53 The youngest one was just going into preschool, and so he was little.

9:02 So the kids would go to—I would run kids in the morning to school, breakfast, lunch,

9:08 that kind of stuff, and then I'd quilt all day, and then I'd go and pick them up, and

9:13 we would do the after-school things, and then I'd quilt again at night.

9:19 And all I could think of was, I just want to get back down in the basement, because

9:24 I was having so much fun.

9:28 And my first customers were all my relatives.

9:33 Tell us about how it grew.

9:35 That was your first customers, but that didn't stay that way.

9:38 No, getting customers was hard, because nobody knew who I was.

9:43 So I joined a whole bunch of guilds, and I went to all the quilt shops, and they usually

9:50 had like Quilter's Night Out.

9:54 So I would go to the Quilter's Night Out, and I would sew my binding on by hand.

10:02 I'd already done it on the machine, I'd sew it on by hand.

10:07 Everybody wants to see your quilt, so you hold it up, and you tell them you quilted

10:11 it.

10:12 I took my binding off, I went to the next guild, and I sewed it on by hand again.

10:19 I did that until somebody that was at a couple of them said, you know, you're really slow

10:24 with that hand sewing.

10:26 So I decided, okay, I can't do this by myself.

10:30 So I got a frontman.

10:32 I had a friend who had recently retired, and she really liked to quilt.

10:38 And I said, I got a deal.

10:40 I will quilt all of your quilts if you join these guilds, and you join these Quarter

10:49 Inch Club, or whatever it might be, and you go and talk about the fact that you brought

10:55 your quilt to me.

10:58 And she said, well, I can do that.

11:00 And it forced her to get out.

11:03 She met a bunch of people, she loved quilting, and it was amazing how fast the business increased.

11:14 Because I wasn't promoting myself.

11:18 I had somebody else promoting me, showing my work on their quilts.

11:27 And because one of the guilds I joined, there was like 12 longarmers, and they are all trying

11:32 to do the same thing I was, getting customers.

11:37 And so people were kind of not listening to them.

11:42 But when my friend Jan showed up with her cool stuff, it was pretty cool.

11:50 And that's how I started getting customers.

11:55 Were you working any other job at that time?

11:58 It sounds like this was your only job.

12:01 Because if you're doing it before, you drop the kids off at school, and then all day,

12:04 and then at night.

12:05 I was a professional mom, took my job seriously, and we did all the fun stuff.

12:13 At the time, I was married to somebody, and the money was not an issue.

12:19 Things changed, and I needed to support my children on my own, without any support.

12:26 And then I kind of shifted how I did business, because I had to start supporting myself and

12:34 children, instead of paying for flowers for the garden and an expensive dance studio.

12:42 And for the people watching or listening, the timeline, you said prior to this, you'd

12:49 worked corporately?

12:50 Yes, I was a corporate employee.

12:54 Tell us that timeline.

12:56 I worked corporate stuff until, I think I quit to stay home in 94, because my third

13:08 child was born, and he had some health issues, and daycare was too much.

13:17 And so I thought, well, I'm going to find something else.

13:22 And I didn't really need the money until later, and 2000 is when I started quilting

13:30 and trying.

13:31 I knew I was going to do a business, and I had to figure out how I was going to make

13:35 more money.

13:36 So with your first machine, how many years, if you remember, how many years did that machine

13:44 carry you before you needed a second machine?

13:48 I got my first machine in 2000.

13:51 I added a statler to it in 2006, because I could run down, load a quilt, make it run,

14:01 run up, do a load of laundry, put breakfast on the table, run down, advance the quilt.

14:07 So I was using it to quilt more.

14:13 I got my second machine in, I think it was 2010, because I had more business than I could

14:25 handle, and I wanted to make more money.

14:31 And at that point, I was doing more custom.

14:35 I did travel with Mary Reinhart, who wrote a machine program for running the business

14:43 side of longarm quilting.

14:46 And so I was traveling to the big shows, and I was taking the classes from the best of

14:53 the best.

14:55 And as I told people in my classes, I would write down everything I did, and I would pick

15:02 five things that I would go home and use on a quilt within the first two weeks, because

15:10 if I didn't use it, I'd lose it.

15:14 And education is what catapulted my skills, but I had to use it.

15:22 That sounds like a key thing.

15:23 It is.

15:25 It truly is.

15:27 That education is what catapulted your skills.

15:31 We need to write that quote down.

15:35 It's true.

15:36 I do have one question.

15:38 Another question that Joan is asking, which you already alluded to, ask if you started

15:44 with edge-to-edge or custom.

15:47 I wanted to do both only because I had so many ideas, and so I was doing both.

15:55 I did three whole pantographs, and I didn't like that, so I moved to the other side, and

16:02 by drawing, I would learn how to do more custom.

16:07 Like one quilt was a mermaid quilt.

16:09 So I got a little mermaid coloring book, and I started trying to trace or draw.

16:17 Mine ended up looking more like Barbie than Little Mermaid, but, you know, that's okay.

16:24 So I was doing custom.

16:27 When the custom really kicked off is when I went to the Statler because, and it was

16:35 a learning curve.

16:36 I had to learn the computer and all that.

16:40 I started with precision stitch, and I had fun with it, but when Creative Studio came

16:49 along, it was another game changer.

16:54 I could really visualize things and do a lot more custom quilting.

17:04 You've seen a lot of improvements in software over the years, and that's one of the questions

17:10 that we get to later, but I would like to point out that all the software updates to

17:17 your machines, even the oldest machines, GAML doesn't charge for software updates,

17:23 and so that allows you to have...

17:26 Oh, no, and there are other brands that do, and I'm very lucky I bought the right machine

17:30 up front.

17:32 Yeah, you are.

17:36 So tell me about, well, one quick question, because your first machine, we know how you

17:45 got that one, and then four years later, you needed to...

17:51 After you got the Statler on there, four years later, you needed a second machine, something

17:54 like that.

17:57 Did you ever need to finance any of your machines, or was it all just kind of the prior machines

18:04 paid for the next machines?

18:06 Well, because I was in the house, I could turn around my profits back into the business

18:13 without having to pay for electricity or rent or all that kind of stuff.

18:20 And what I started doing is more thread, because is three greens enough?

18:27 No, you need 26.

18:29 I now have 900 colors of thread, and so I have options.

18:36 I started with one roll of backing, and when you sell it, you get enough money to buy two.

18:44 And so I did put money back into my business, and I did set aside every month money.

18:53 I used to do it for a car, but I'd rather have a sewing, a Gamel, than a new car now.

19:00 But I would set aside a certain amount every month, and I got to the point where I could

19:07 buy half a machine, and then I got the other half from my mother, which I paid her back.

19:17 And I think she gave it to my kids, honestly, when it came right down to it, but I did pay

19:22 her back, and I continued to set more aside.

19:27 So the second machine I did borrow money for, but the third, fourth, and fifth, I had set

19:36 aside every step of the way.

19:39 And the fourth and fifth came very quickly, because I could see that I really had the business.

19:50 And by learning more, the quality of everything I did went up.

20:00 I mean, there's more to getting the customers, but you gotta keep them.

20:08 Well when you first started as opposed to now, were you able to or how many hours did

20:17 you put in like in the beginning versus now or is there much more now I'm not running

20:23 kids around.

20:24 I love this though.

20:25 This isn't work, you know, other my friends are all retiring and they're coming and hanging

20:30 out here.

20:31 Well, I didn't say hours of work, you know, I know it's not work for you.

20:36 I'm here seven days a week.

20:39 But if I need to take off, I can now I just did a cruise I I do other things.

20:50 And if you hit a quilt show, while you're traveling around, it's part of my continuing

20:57 education.

20:59 It's written into my job description that I must have 48 hours a year of continuing

21:04 education.

21:05 I, I blow that out of the water, of course, but then when you're on your own business

21:12 and you're traveling and looking at quilts and stopping at shops, that's a business right

21:18 off to.

21:19 Mm hmm.

21:20 Yes, it is.

21:23 So give us an idea about the the market there in Egan, Minnesota, how what's the per inch

21:33 rate for edge to edge quilting and custom quilting?

21:37 I know it varies depending on the quilt.

21:40 It does vary and it will depending on your area.

21:45 I'm in a major metropolitan area and my quilts are about thirty dollars a square yard.

21:55 Now I don't go per square inch.

21:58 I never did.

22:01 Most of the competition was square inch, but I didn't care.

22:05 I wanted other things to set me apart over price.

22:10 I am on the low side of the market for this area.

22:15 My thirty dollars includes thread, batting and set up.

22:21 And I do carry ten kinds of batting so you can go up and go up.

22:28 Most people buy the backing from me now.

22:31 I have over three hundred and fifty wide backs and the ten kinds of batting and the

22:39 nine hundred colors of thread.

22:43 And I'm getting new customers constantly.

22:50 Quilters that have been in the area, I've always been very open to sharing my ideas

22:57 and being helpful.

22:58 If quilters come, long armors came in and asked questions, I was very helpful.

23:04 Plus I taught.

23:05 So I was, you know, teaching at the local shows and things like that.

23:11 And when they retire, they're referring to me.

23:18 And so I'm still getting the word of mouth, not only from somebody that just found me,

23:24 but somebody who's been in the business.

23:27 I also have a website.

23:30 It's not a very good one, but it's a website.

23:33 I always thought I was going to really get a really good website to draw all these customers

23:39 in, but I don't need to anymore.

23:42 They just need to be able to find me.

23:46 Yep.

23:47 For those who are curious, I did a little math on the back end and thirty dollars per

23:52 square yard works out to about 2.3 cents per square inch.

23:58 If you're trying to do that math, and that seems reasonable in a metro area.

24:05 I'm on the lower side.

24:08 There's plenty of two and a half cent or three cent.

24:10 Yeah.

24:11 And there are people who say, oh, I heard she's so expensive.

24:16 Well, my high end custom is on the high side.

24:22 It's not on the low side.

24:24 And I'm taking, I have a list and people can get on that.

24:31 And I'm out two years if you want to be on there.

24:35 But if somebody comes in and they need something sooner, I can squeeze in.

24:39 But those are the people that are working on that hand applique that's going to take

24:45 them five years to make anyhow.

24:47 So they get on my list now.

24:49 Those quotes aren't even done.

24:51 Gotcha.

24:52 Yeah.

24:53 So, so can you give us an idea how what what your business does for revenue in a good year

25:02 or in a bad year?

25:04 Well, I am this year I'm on track to do two hundred and fifty thousand.

25:13 And when it all comes down to the end, I don't really make too much because I put a

25:22 lot of that back into the business.

25:25 I now have a vehicle that the quilting page bought and the quilting page, you know, buys

25:34 cell phones and obviously I need.

25:36 And it covers your travel expenses.

25:39 It covers my travel expenses.

25:41 But obviously, I need a new domestic machine to do the bindings on.

25:47 We are a full service.

25:49 We do everything from your first baby quilt up to you want to go to Paducah and we do

25:56 binding and backings and you found blocks that your grandma did in the attic and we'll

26:05 put them together in a top and finish it.

26:09 I do a lot of vintage stuff as well.

26:14 And Paige, now versus when you started, how many quilts were you making like for in a

26:22 year?

26:23 Oh, when I remember keeping track and saying, OK, I hit a hundred and whoever the hundredth

26:30 person was, they got a gift certificate for I can't remember what it was, ten bucks or

26:36 something silly.

26:37 And then it would be seven hundred and it got to the point that I was hitting those

26:43 hundreds very quickly.

26:47 As I added my machines, I mean, I could go back and tell you exactly how many quilts

26:53 because I've got the records, but I am at eighteen thousand five hundred at this point.

27:03 Total.

27:04 Total.

27:05 And that doesn't include donation quilts or staff quilts.

27:14 That's just the invoice numbers.

27:20 And those have gone up faster all the time.

27:24 Yeah.

27:25 So so you've obviously, you know, you don't you don't run a business for twenty five years

27:30 without running into challenges.

27:34 What's been the most challenging part for you?

27:36 And I don't know if it's fair to say dealing with employees, because a lot of our quilters

27:43 who are looking at the they're not going to have employees.

27:47 Let's pick something other than that.

27:49 OK, I got the answer for you.

27:51 It is being consistent, shaving off time over what you do or finding a system that works.

28:00 And like when I first started, I wanted to load faster.

28:06 So I started tracking my movements and saying, I'm always going to do this.

28:11 I'm always going to do that.

28:12 I turned into a robot.

28:15 Very much like you talk about muscle memory for learning the designs that you draw.

28:22 I was making a system for how I loaded the quilts.

28:27 So I do that over and over.

28:29 And I will sit down and evaluate like where my bobbin station is and how my thread is

28:36 stored and how my batting stored.

28:39 And I'm constantly doing that to make things more efficient.

28:45 And I think that's something that somebody that unless they were in a business other

28:51 than this, maybe doesn't cross their mind.

28:57 How do I store all this batting?

28:59 How do I we make binding from leftover fabrics?

29:06 So you have to store it and you have to figure out pricing and all that.

29:12 Those are all things that you need to overcome.

29:15 Pricing was a big one.

29:17 But by taking it into steps, it becomes easier.

29:26 But you have to figure out how you're going to get there.

29:29 My intake process was something I overhauled.

29:35 I've done overhauled that several times.

29:39 I used to have a big old book and people look at it.

29:43 No, too much time.

29:46 Efficiency is a key thing, would you say, for somebody who is starting out?

29:53 Absolutely.

29:54 Absolutely.

29:56 Use the same movements and have all your tools, have duplicate tools.

30:04 Have them in the same spot all the time.

30:08 For most people, from the height that they can reach up to where they can put their hand

30:14 down, that's their most usable space.

30:18 And things should be within one or two steps and a reach.

30:24 My machines have things hanging on them so that I have all my tools where I need them.

30:32 And all that kind of stuff.

30:35 My intake is a process.

30:39 We measure the top.

30:41 We fold everything in quarters.

30:44 I measure it with a long tape measure so it's only half the quilt.

30:49 And then I fold the tape measure in half so I'm not trying to add or making a mistake

30:55 in adding.

30:57 And I measure the top.

30:59 I fold the back in quarters and I put that on top so I know it's good.

31:04 I then get a thread.

31:07 And the last thing I do is the design process.

31:11 I have all the details before I move to the computer.

31:16 And I have put on our front counter a second monitor that shows I've got Creative Studio

31:24 up and I have an intake project.

31:29 And it has, well, I'm reading it right now.

31:32 It's got geometric, feather, flower, leaf, animal, kids, curl, basics, circle, star,

31:39 holidays, hearts, and we'll put them all together in the last one.

31:45 So if I click on one of those groups, I may have 15 flowers showing.

31:55 And those are the ones that I've used recently.

31:59 So I can go in there.

32:01 They can see it.

32:03 We're not flipping through the book.

32:06 And I pretty much show them what I think your quilt wants instead of going through

32:15 letting them look at a million things.

32:19 And we'll talk about the quilt.

32:20 On your quilt, I see, you know, there's some fish and some seashells and stuff like that.

32:28 So I'll have a category over here that's nautical.

32:33 And that's where I go first.

32:37 So what I hear you saying, and I don't want to try to boil it down to something that's

32:43 too simplistic.

32:45 So correct me if I'm wrong.

32:46 But what I hear you saying is that you have found that being specifically intentional

32:54 about the different steps and being maybe a little bit analytical about, wait a minute,

33:01 this is something that I'm going to do on every single quilt.

33:05 So how can I optimize this process?

33:07 How can I perhaps spend less time with the customer and yet have it be quality time that

33:15 gets us a design that they're happy with that also doesn't waste an hour of my time, you

33:21 know?

33:22 Exactly.

33:23 And I give reasons for my suggestions.

33:28 And I can read body language.

33:30 If they don't like it, I'll say, can you give me a category you'd like to see?

33:37 Or, you know, do you want this to be floral?

33:40 Do you want it to be geometric?

33:42 And then we can go from there.

33:44 But a lot of my customers now, they just wait.

33:50 And then they'll say, well, whatever you think, okay.

33:55 And the new ones will give me suggestions.

34:00 And then they'll say, well, what do you think?

34:03 And then I'll say, well, I just showed you what I thought, but it's your quilt.

34:08 We can go in any direction you want.

34:12 And they come back to my suggestions the majority of the time, because I have 18,500 quilts

34:22 worth of experience.

34:25 I was going to ask you how many patterns are in your pattern catalog, approximately?

34:31 Oh, I have for overall design, 10,000.

34:37 But I take a pattern, and I take the leaves out, and I put different leaves in.

34:43 Or I will take a pattern that I purchase and change things up a bit so that they nest a

34:51 little different.

34:54 Now for somebody who doesn't already own a Statler, I hear you say that, and I'm like,

35:01 okay, so she's spending five to 15 minutes to customize the pattern for this customer.

35:10 People that don't have Creative Studio, they have no idea what kind of time you're talking

35:14 about there.

35:16 Well, this is something I have invested my time in, because my time I spend today is

35:23 an investment in my future.

35:25 I took classes.

35:26 I have pushed myself to learn it.

35:30 And I can do that much quicker.

35:32 And I'm not doing that design for one person.

35:37 Chances are, I'm going to use it over and over and over again, because it works.

35:43 Some designs, the centers of the leaves, they got too much in there, so I'll clean

35:48 it up a bit.

35:50 And they like it.

35:53 The more you practice it, faster you get at it, and the better the end product is.

36:02 Again, that's education.

36:05 If you don't know how to do this stuff, education helps.

36:10 And then it's just practice.

36:12 Football games are not one-on-game day.

36:15 They're one-on-the-practice field.

36:17 There you go.

36:18 Football games are not one-on-game day.

36:21 Yep.

36:22 Now, I'm assuming that you have all your machines logged into the same account, and they all

36:26 share the same group of patterns?

36:29 Well, actually, I screwed it up pretty bad when I first started, because when I was saving

36:37 my designs, I would make a change and save it, make a change and save it, and I'd end

36:42 up with like five or six of one design with subtle changes.

36:48 And I was syncing them all up to the cloud.

36:51 So I have to go in and clean that up, but I do a lot of putting things on a stick.

37:01 So if I make a change, I think I have three sticks that I use, that I put those on, and

37:09 then they go around to the different machines, and they'll upload whatever is new.

37:15 And it might be five, 10 different designs.

37:19 And then I use sort by newest first.

37:24 So when it does come in, and I'd say, I just changed this catch a falling star pattern,

37:32 I can type it in, and I may have three others in there.

37:37 And that point, I can delete out the old ones, because I know the one on the top is good.

37:43 But that was a mistake I made right from the get-go by not learning how to use the cloud

37:50 like I should have.

37:52 But I do, from my main desktop, I go up and down to the cloud now, and I still am cleaning

37:59 up the cloud.

38:00 Yeah, when you've got a lot of patterns in there, it can take a while to get mistakes

38:05 cleaned up.

38:08 So with building this business, your mom came to mind right away, because this question

38:17 is, who was your biggest cheerleader and support system as you built your business?

38:23 Well, when I started, it was my Aunt Alice, because she was convinced that this was something

38:31 I could do, and I could work from home, have the kids, and still feel like I was doing

38:40 something.

38:45 I needed more than just being a stay-at-home mom.

38:48 I wanted more.

38:51 And this fed my creativity.

38:56 The overall designs pay my bills, but the custom stuff feeds my soul and my purpose.

39:04 And because of what I do and the wonderful gifts that were given to me with my talents

39:11 and my enthusiasm, I can go out and do things for my community.

39:19 We do a bunch of donation quilts here, and I've been doing that for several years, but

39:27 it's ticked up a bit.

39:29 And we have done about a hundred a year for several years, and I'm at 57 by the end of

39:41 April here.

39:42 So this year is going to go way up.

39:46 And those all go out to needy organizations in the local area, the Twin Cities area.

39:57 I was a regional coordinator for quilt

40:00 of Valor for a number of years, and we tried to keep those quilts local, too. But then I shifted,

40:09 and I found different charitable organizations. We're doing a lot with

40:19 Sleep in Heavenly Peace. They make beds for kids without beds, and so we give them a lot of quilts.

40:28 There is another organization that is for young adults that have been forced out of foster care,

40:37 or grown out of it, let's put it that way. So it's 18 to 26, I believe,

40:45 and they have a place to live, and we give each one of them a quilt. There's another group here

40:52 that I always screw up the name, it's Avivo or something. They make little houses in giant

41:00 warehouses for homeless shelters, in lieu of a homeless shelter. They get a little box that has

41:08 a toilet, a sink, a bed, so they can have privacy, and then they have a common area.

41:15 We give a lot of quilts to them, and the vets home, and Quilts of Valor still, too.

41:22 That's amazing. That's a big part of what drives you, isn't it?

41:27 Oh, absolutely. It's my ministry. I give back that way, and that's what a lot of the people

41:35 come in here on weekends. That's what I'm doing on the weekends. We're quilting the tops.

41:42 We found a close friend of mine passed away, and when people would bring in bags and bags

41:53 full of fabric. My mother passed away, and she used to bring her quilt here. Will you take this?

41:59 Yes. And so we were making quilts out of it. Not me, I wasn't piecing them. And then I decided I

42:08 need to take how I think about things into that. So what we have now is when the bins come in,

42:20 I have probably 50 different bins, and they're sorted by kid fabric, colorways, and we'll get

42:29 a pattern. And one of the village people, because we have a village that does this,

42:35 they'll go around and select fabrics and make kits and even pre-cut many of the kits.

42:43 So I have, I've got a bin over there if I could show, where is it? See those bins on the table?

42:50 Yeah. Those are all pre-kitted, pre-cut kits. And my better customers, I give them a kit,

43:00 and they bring them back, or not, because I don't care, I've got so many. And a lady came in today,

43:08 and she says, you gotta quit giving me these kits because you're not making any money. I'm not

43:13 bringing you my stuff anymore. And she gave me $500 to go towards the donation backings.

43:20 It just works. A lot of people with big hearts. Yeah. We had a guest who's watching who had a

43:34 question. Her name is Holly. She was, I think the first question I can answer, she was asking,

43:41 when you have more than one Statler machine, do they all need their own computer, or can they be

43:46 linked and use different designs? And the answer there is they each have their own computer,

43:52 but through the Pattern Cloud, they can share a common group of patterns. But if you design a

43:58 new pattern on one of them, you'll need to hit the sync button to send it to the cloud account.

44:04 And then on the other computer where you also want to maybe quilt the same design, you have to

44:09 hit the sync button again in order to bring it in. The other question she had, though,

44:14 which I couldn't answer, was how many quilts do you generally do there on an average day,

44:21 and how do you determine if the quilt is a donation quilt? Like, have you had people try to

44:26 slip their own quilt under the radar? Oh, no. People will come in, customers, and say, well,

44:33 this is a donation quilt. And I'm very clear. I choose my donations. You get to choose yours.

44:39 And if you want me to quilt it, there is no discount. If it's for another donation,

44:47 then that's fine. They can do that. But it's not my donation. The donation quilts are only run

44:55 on the quilts on the weekends. I also allow the staff to run their own quilts on the weekends.

45:05 And that's how they're learning, because they want to do something custom. And I'll show them

45:13 how to do it. I generally do the pattern work. And then I'll show them, and they get to do it.

45:19 And then I'll say, yeah, do that 87 more times. And in the meantime, they're running a donation

45:27 quilt on another quilt, on another frame, I mean. So, we're running five machines all day,

45:35 every day. I have some people that come in at 7 a.m., and then I have some people that stay till

45:44 6 or 7. So, we really can keep the machines running by staggering the staff hours.

45:53 Mm-hmm. And Paige, for someone who's watching, who's not nearly as far along in the process as

46:01 you are, what would you tell them if they ask what kind of impact the money and the control

46:10 of your personal schedule has made in your life? Oh, the Statler was phenomenal, because I could

46:22 multitask. The Statler's running, and I'm doing something else. I'm dealing with a customer or

46:31 putting binding on, or I do a lot of binding, and I put it on by domestic machine. And if you're a

46:41 night owl, quilt at night. That's okay. I mean, I used to get up really early just so I could

46:50 get to the machine, because that's all I think about, is that's where I want to go back.

46:58 You do have control, and the Statler is like another employee. It's going to work, and you

47:06 can sit and have a cup of coffee and practice changing a design, practice playing with the nodes

47:13 and doing all that stuff. And you can schedule out. I used to, on my calendar, put, you know,

47:23 well, we had a Boy Scout trip, or there was a dance recital. And so I knew I'm not going to

47:31 take any quilts that have to be done right before the end of the year dance recital, because Sammy

47:38 was in five shows and eight numbers, and I'm doing costumes. So you can adjust it.

47:51 And that's what you did. I don't have the kids anymore.

47:55 There's nothing to get in between you and your quilting. So is there, you know, is there any

48:03 part of this that was kind of a surprise to you, and that you really wish somebody

48:09 would have warned you about before you got started in the quilting business?

48:17 Some of the costs of taking your business out of the home,

48:25 that I didn't really consider all that. Like, whereas we had insurance at home,

48:32 and we had an umbrella that covered machines and things like that, but you need more insurance.

48:39 And then when you start having people come in, you need riders on that. And hiring staff,

48:49 I use a third party payroll system, it's Gesto. But they handle all the taxes. And I

49:00 tried doing some of that, and that was difficult. So I found I leave it to the professionals.

49:10 Are there times that you long for those days when you had two machines in your basement,

49:15 and no employees? No, no. No, it's worth it. Because I'm, I have so many more friends now.

49:25 And people will stop in. And if you're going to chat, you chat. And the machine will run. And if

49:35 it stops, I'll say, well, come over here. And they'll come over, and they'll do it. But a lot

49:40 of my friends now have, they've come in, and they've taken classes. When they first start,

49:46 they got to pay me to, like, rent my machine and take classes, learn how to do this. But

49:53 they'll come in, and they'll run donation quilts, and then toss in one of their own. Or

50:01 it's not unusual on any given weekend that whoever was here doing donation quilts

50:07 loads one of my money quilts on Sunday afternoon. So that when we hit the ground running on Monday,

50:15 we just all take care of each other. You've got a neat little community going on there.

50:22 Oh yeah, I got a hen house. Except we got two guys now. We got two guys in our hen house.

50:30 So we've gotten to question number 24, the end of the list. Okay. So it has been now 25 years

50:40 since you started this crazy quilting business. And that was when you got your first Gammill.

50:46 Um, what advice would you give to somebody who has heard your story, and she thinks,

50:52 well, I'll probably never have five machines, but I want to try this. What advice would you give her?

50:57 You don't need five. Get to where you want to be and be comfortable with it. I keep thinking,

51:04 oh, the next thing I could bump out this wall and add some more, but I don't need to.

51:09 I'm at a point where I'm happy. I'm comfortable. I'm making an impact on the friends that I have.

51:17 And together, we're all making an impact in the community and helping out there.

51:24 You gotta try it. And it is scary. And one of the scariest things is actually talking to people.

51:31 Um, getting past that, I found a customer in the, uh, checkout line at the grocery store,

51:39 have your business cards on you at all times. Uh, she picked up a magazine and said, oh,

51:46 this looks like a quilt. And so I, you know, I talked to her. Oh, are you a quilter?

51:52 Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta walk through the fear, walk through the fear. Moving out of the house

52:00 was the biggest, scariest thing for me. And honestly, Karen McTavish, who's a very well

52:07 known quilter from Minnesota. I used to meet her in the airport all the time, going to different

52:13 shows. And so I went up to visit her in Duluth and I said, I'm thinking she had a storefront.

52:20 And I said, I'm thinking of doing the same thing. And she said, it's scary, isn't it? And I said,

52:26 oh, it's really scary. And she said, you just gotta walk through that fire, just get out the

52:31 other end. And it's like, okay, if, if you know, you can do it, you can quilt, you can do a quality

52:44 product, just jump in there and do it. And a lot of people buy these machines thinking I'm

52:53 going to run a business and they get to the point where they paid it off. And then they say, no,

52:58 it's just for me and my friends. And if that's where you want to be, that's fine.

53:04 I just kept pushing myself because I was having way too much fun.

53:10 Yeah, you got to do what makes you happy. You know, life is too short.

53:16 Yeah. Well, Paige, I think we have gotten countless nuggets of wisdom from you in our

53:26 visiting this evening. No, we so much appreciate it. We really do.

53:32 If people would like to check out your website, sad though it is, or see you on Facebook or

53:41 whatever, where would they, where would they catch up with you?

53:45 Okay. I am the quilting page. So you can go to the quiltingpage.com. Paige is P-A-G-E. It is my name.

53:56 My dad named my business. He said, well, you are the quilting page. What else would you call it?

54:02 But okay. So I have a business. I'm in Facebook. You can find me. I'm on the Statler

54:11 Facebook quite a bit. I do have some patterns on the pattern cloud.

54:18 If you have questions or want something, call me up. I live and breathe this stuff.

54:28 I can drive down the road and talk to you about, about quilting. It's fun. And people do stop in.

54:38 Yeah. Well, I've been to your shop, I believe twice. I, I know the first time and maybe the

54:45 second time too, there was one of your machines that needed professional attention and hopefully

54:52 I'll get back there again sometime when the weather's good. It's not always great.

54:57 Yeah. Well, it's Minnesota, you know, you can put more clothes on. It's not that bad.

55:04 And I have called, I've talked to Bobby so many times on the phone.

55:10 I love your videos that you guys do because I can fix a lot of the stuff myself.

55:16 And I do a routine maintenance usually once a year because the machines are busy. Yes.

55:25 I have Statler, Stewie, Stella, Stormy, and Optimus Prime.

55:32 I love that. Those are her machine names in case anybody missed that.

55:40 Well, Paige, thank you so much. It has been a pleasure to do the interview with you and

55:46 we'll have it. Obviously a lot of people were not here for the live, so it'll be

55:53 so it'll be within a few days we'll have it up on YouTube and somewhere else. Paige,

55:58 if you are speaking with somebody and they don't know where to find it,

56:03 they can go onto YouTube and they can search Quilting Business Success or if they know how

56:08 podcasts work on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever platform they happen to be using,

56:16 they can use that same search which is Quilting Business Success. So thank you so much for

56:23 joining us. Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. This was a pleasure and I just came off the

56:31 cruise. I loved that. I haven't been teaching on a national scale for a while and it was kind of

56:40 like a relapse. I loved it so much. It was good to go back. We were talking before we got started

56:46 how much fun it is when somebody's in a class and sometimes the class is, you know, teaching a

56:53 concept and you give them the example and then you walk them through it again and you walk it through

56:57 it again and the fourth time through the light bulb goes off and they're like, oh, I get it.

57:03 And you realize, okay, their life has been changed forever now that they know how to

57:08 concatenate a pattern or something. Yep, it's amazing. The classes. Take classes. That's all I can say.

57:18 Yep. Awesome. Cool. Well, we will see you all back in two weeks for the next

57:26 Quilting Business Success. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much.

57:38 you