Wazzup!?!
The Times They Have Been A' Changin'!
Greetings!
In The Beginning!

When we first married, we worked out of our garage in Santa Cruz, California. Two independent consultants working together. We created a newsletter that we titled "Executive Insights" that was aimed at executives. We used that to promote our approach to business consulting: When you think your system is broken, look around and see that the business is broken, too.

One day we were sitting in the garage contemplating what we should call our company. As we were discussing it, the postman delivered a letter to Executive Insights. And, so it was, a customer named our company.

We expanded up to 19 professionals, not including our "sister company" in the UK. We helped hundreds of companies around the world with their systems and procedural issues during those 20 years.
Forever In Stitches Was Born!

While we were consulting, we moved to Bluffton, Ohio to better our son's education and to be near Ruth's parents, who were in poor health. We were winding down the consulting.

I bought Ruth a Gammill longarm quilting machine from Accomplish Quilting for Christmas. Little did we know that in four short months it would turn into a quilt shop with 2 automated Gammill/Statler Stitcher machines! The shop was beautiful with all custom furnishings, plenty of lighting, and four thousand bolts of quilting material.

Ruth's design capabilities resulted in the creation of Raggedy Ruth Designs(TM). She published three books, 160 quilting patterns, and two tools under that pseudonym. We did up to 18 national shows per year, until our backs gave out. We both had back surgeries. That ended our tours.

It was time to rethink our direction. Upon a quick look at our accounting system it became apparent that the only profitable divisions were Ruth's longarming and Rick's digitized quilting designs. So, we downsized to only those two divisions.

Then it happened: four hospitals in three weeks plus 13 minor heart attacks for Rick. We sold everything in Ohio and moved to Valparaiso, Indiana to be near our son, in case of of eventual future problems.

Jeff also upgraded our 2 Gammill/Statler Stitchers to Innova AutoPilot Mach 3's, one with Grand Format Embroidery [GFE].
Mach 3 Training Was Born!

Around the time that all was happening, Jeff Benedict, President of Accomplish Quilting, Inc., and I had been in a series of discussions regarding training, quality control, feedback, professional procedures, and other items that both he and I had encountered in previous businesses. Specifically we addressed the lack of those controls in the longarming industry.

Jeff was in need of a way to decrease his support calls. Ruth & I had experience in developing procedures and multi-media training materials. I said we could create a training. Jeff was impressed and provided advance money for the training project, which was quickly returned to him.

During the three months that would have been our Christmas vacation, Ruth & I sat down and outlined what was going to be the result: a workbook titled Advanced Training AutoPilot Mach 3. When we had completed that, I then trained Ruth on the screen capturing and editing. The next step was to "turn Ruth loose". That resulted in the videos.

In the end, materials included the workbook, and a USB drive with the videos and all patterns and projects needed to have the self-study, multi-media course on every Function of the Innova AutoPilot Mach 3.
Jeff had a policy of providing free training to his customers. So he contracted us to do the advanced autopilot training and fulfillment for the course. Thus, our training schedule was born.

Jeff is upgrading our 12' machine to the Innova M series with AutoPilot Mach 3 and GFE. That way we will be able to validate the software on the M Series v the Standard Innova. This will allow us to be more flexible and up-to-date.

In Reflecting

It's been a long time since I bought Ruth that Gammill. It started a lot of things in motion. What blessing God has given us!
Al Fin

I trust that this was of assistance or interest. If you have any questions that need to be answered, on this or other longarming or quilting topics, then please write to me at RickG@ForeverInStitches.com or call 219.255.8085.

Thank you for your time and interest.
May The Lord Richly Bless You!
Rick & Ruth Grihalva
At Forever In Stitches our goal is to further the art of quilting and longarming.
 
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