Business focus: Heartbeat Quilting relocated to Veradale
Longtime quilter and businesswoman Wanda Jeffries expanded her company a year ago when she purchased Heartbeat Quilting and moved out of her basement workroom.
At that time, the Greenacres woman merged her home-based machine quilting business called The Stitchin’ Post with the existing Heartbeat Quilting in Mead.
But in December, she relocated her venture to Veradale to be closer to home. The move to the new site was natural when she and her husband, Dave, purchased property adjacent to his auto repair business called AutoCraft Inc. Her 950-square-foot shop opened after an extensive remodel to an existing home on the property, which is across from Ziggy’s Building Materials on Sprague Avenue.
Her business offers quilting services and supplies, including machine sewing services to help others finish their handiwork.
The machine finishing work is completed by stitching the creative quilt top to the batting and backing materials. The work is done using a large, stitch-regulated sewing machine called a longarm quilting machine. Her machines accommodate up to a king-sized quilt.
“The machine runs like regular sewing machine. It’s just bigger,” Jeffries says. “It can finish a larger quilt in a short amount of time … sewing together all three layers of a quilt.
“Quilting is so popular,” she added, “the purchasing of the material, the art of putting it all together and finishing the top, but many people don’t have the time to finish them.”
The longarm sewing machine also is available to rent by the hour at Heartbeat Quilting for those who want to finish the work themselves. Cost is $13 per hour to those who first take Jeffries 2 1/2-hour training class and receive operating certification. The class cost $40. For those who opt to have her shop complete the sewing work, cost is based per square inch of material.
With her expanded business venture, Jeffries went from one longarm machine and quilt finishing services she started some 13 years ago with her mother, to Heartbeat Quilting’s three longarm machines and supply sales that include batting, threads, books, patterns and notions. She also sells batting material wholesale to several longarm operators in the area, and she now has three part-time employees.
Jeffries says she looks forward to new quilting possibilities, including offering making custom quilts with what customers bring to her to use, such as T-shirts and photos. She also plans to sell special occasion quilt packages that include precut material for written messages that then are returned to her for completion.