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].