Questions for Longarm Quilters
 

If you LA quilt for others professionally, are you quilting from your home, or do you have a store front site? If you quilt from home, are you in a city/town/urban location, or are you in a rural setting? We're considering moving our quilting business to our home (country setting) from our quilt shop, and Kevin is worried that quilts will not come in as often as they do in our store front setting. He feels the exposure from being in town on main street is what draws in business. I think the quilting business would work from home, so I'm looking for feedback from those who have their business at home. Does word of mouth about your quilting bring in the customers? Or do you have to do a lot of advertising to get enough work? Are you able to support yourself from your home quilting business?

Lots of questions I know, but we're trying to decide what to do, and these are the questions we're asking ourselves. Thanks in advance! :)

Christine

I quilt for others, but not alot. I know alot of local quilters to me have regular pick up/drop off times at a quilt shop. You need to check wtih the shop before you set this up. However, it has been my observation , that unless the shop has a long arm IN it, they are happy for you to bring your customers into their shop. They get more business that way too. I don't have enough clients to justify a store front, but then I don't want to quilt that much. You might try asking over on machine quilters resource. www.mqresource.com Lots of full time long armers over there.

I quilt from my home. I am about 18 miles from the local quilt shop and about the same distance from any real town of any size. I go out of my way to get customer quilts to my home, including meeting people when I run into town, or delivering if I or my husband are going their way. I also try to plan pick-ups so my customers can ride together.

I don't quilt for others, but I know many who do. None of the longarmers I know have a storefront. Their customers either come to their home, or drop off and pick up quilting at a local quilt shop, or at guild meetings, or by other arrangement.

start your *survey* by asking your customers---will you still bring me your quilts if I move to this location? I quilt at home & stay pretty busy, I have many friends /sewing group who make a lot of quilts and bring them to me, word of mouth & referrals are a lot of my business- also I have a smaller number of long-distance quilts come in- people from other states/locations who mail me their quilts- sometimes that is busy (holiday season) mainly. I do ok...it just depends on how your current customers feel about where you are going (can they find someone else closer-who they would use instead?) or do they love your talent (& prices) and tend to send you their friends? do your market survey in your market to help make that decision- about 7 years ago I moved 40 miles from where I started quilting for people- I do still have a few from there who bring me quilts- although some of them I have introduced (referred them) to people who are closer for them to try out- I never have a problem sending someone to another quilter if I feel it would help out the customer- is closer for them- or something I know someone else may be able to do better than me- and I know some pretty busy quilters who have sent me customers a few times when they were back-logged & thought I might be able to take a project and get it done faster.

I live in the country, 7 miles from nearest quilt shop. I had so much business it overwhelmed me. Most quilting I got was from word of mouth. You do a good job, follow thru on your timelines, your business will thrive. :) :) Don't spend tons of money on a storefront. Also, buy some business cards (cheapest are VistaPrint -- they do a good job) and put them around at the quilt shops that will allow it. As for advertising -- that's all I did. Oh, I have a blog (free).....wait before building an actual web site and see how the business is. Good luck!

I have not quilted as a business as of yet, I would think a store front would be very costly!