Jane Hauprich – Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting
Jane Hauprich is an award winning quilter and quilt instructor living on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She started piecing quilts in 1998. She specializes in free motion custom quilting and believes that each quilt is special and deserves quilting that accentuates it’s beauty and uniqueness.
Jane offers free-motion quilting classes using home machines, mid-arms, or longarms. These classes enable quilters to finish their own quilts. And offers private long arm quilting lessons. She is a Handi Quilter Ambassador, an Island Batik Ambassador and a Superior Threads Certified Threadologist.
She offers free motion quilting workbooks, wholecloth panels, and quilting rulers.
Show Notes:
Get details on Jane’s Lectures and Classes here
Sign up for her class at AQS Quilt Week Paducah
Find Jane’s website here
Subscribe to Jane’s Youtube Channel here.
Follow along with Jane on Facebook
Check out Jane’s Instagram
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Transcript of the interview with Jane Hauprich:
Carolina Moore:
I love notions, and I’m guessing that you do too. Hey there, friend. It’s Carolina Moore, your favorite sewing and quilting YouTuber and now, podcaster here with another episode.
My guest today is Jane Hauprich, and she is a longarmer, but we’re going to get into that in a little bit. First, I want to learn a little bit about Jane and how she got started in this fabulous quilting journey that we’re all in. So, Jane, welcome to the podcast.
Jane:
Thanks for having me.
Carolina Moore:
How did you get started in quilting? Did you find quilting? Did quilting find you?
Jane:
I think it was like the late 1990s. There was a group of women that were teaching younger women how to sew or piece quilts, and I decided to join in the group. It was a little church group, and so I learned how to piece quilts. I was a young mom with three kids, and I didn’t get to do a lot of it, but I knew I really loved it. So, that’s basically where I started.
I did piece when I could. My problem being is that I had to figure out a way how to get my quilts quilted. At first, I worked on basically small things, but I was really hooked into the whole piecing thing. Then, because I was a single mom, and I really couldn’t afford to send my quilts out to be quilted, I had to teach myself how to get them quilted. I did a lot of straight-line quilting and stitch-in-the-ditch at first until I discovered free-motion quilting later on.
Carolina Moore:
You were quilting, and so you were free-motion quilting your own quilts on your just regular sewing machine?
Jane:
Yes, a regular domestic sewing machine. Fast forward a few years later, I was at a quilt show, and I kept on passing by the Handi Quilter booth. I was drawn to their stationary, sit-down longarm, and I kept on going back. Finally, I would say to my friends, “I’m going back to that booth. You go on without me.” And I would go back and sit down and play. Like I said, this was a few years later, so I ended up leaving the show with a sit-down longarm.
Then, I had all that throat space, and I was just thrilled. I did that for about three years. I just did my own quilts, and I just really loved … There was something about moving that fabric around underneath the needle that really, it just brought me peace and joy. So, I did that. Then, fast forward a few years later, and I decided to take a local class at a quilt shop. It was a one-day thing about how to start your own longarming business, and it really intrigued me.
At the time, I was working as a phlebotomist in the hospital, and I wasn’t thrilled with the schedules I was getting, so I decided to take the plunge. I tell people I traded one needle for another needle.
Carolina Moore:
Yeah, I was going to say phlebotomist is a whole different kind of needle.
Jane:
It sure is. I knew I couldn’t do customer quilts very quickly on a stationary longarm, so I upgraded, and I got a movable-`head longarm and a 12-foot frame, and I did all free-motion. I just started there, and I started … But I have to tell you, because I’m sure everybody faces this, is that after the retailer came and set up my machine for me in my home, I couldn’t go in that room for two weeks. I was scared to death of it. I literally would open the door a crack and peek in and think, “Oh, my gosh, what did I do?” And I’d shut the door and walk away. Eventually, I overcame that. But it’s scary. It’s a big machine.
Carolina Moore:
Knowing that, but then stepping back for a moment, you took this class about how to start a longarming business. What was it about that class that made you go, “Okay, yes, I want to jump into this.”
Jane:
I think it’s just because I do enjoy piecing quilts, but I think I love the quilting of them more. So, the thought of being able to do that for myself and for others just really intrigued me because I find that free-motion is where my passion lies, and I seem to have a good knack for it. So, that just was something that drew me in. The thought of working for myself, and while that’s not always easy, I just figured I’d jump in and give it a try.
Carolina Moore:
Can you change your mind later? When you jump in and buy a longarm is it like you’re really jumping in with both feet, or can you wade into it? Is all or nothing or kind of halfway?
Jane:
Well, I jumped in with both feet. I just started. I loaded fabric. I had already had experience with moving the fabric underneath of my needle on the stationary and on my domestic machine, which I still to this day do. I had the idea of how the designs went, and so it was just a matter of now driving the machine.
That was in late 2012 when my machine was delivered, and it was in early 2013 at a local quilt shop that somebody handed me a quilt and said, “Please custom quilt this for me.” I was scared to death. It was different. It was different because it was somebody else’s quilt. It was different because they wanted custom work opposed to just doing the same design over the entire quilt, and I was all free-motion and ruler work. So, it really did help me.
I find that each quilt that I get to longarm teaches me a little something new that I didn’t know before, and it’s also taught me to be a better piecer. I don’t think I was a very good piecer before, but after seeing quilts up close made by other people, it’s made me more conscientious about how I piece my quilts.
Carolina Moore:
I was really excited to have a longarmer on the season of the podcast because although it’s, I love Notions, it’s I love notions in the context of I love quilting. I learned quilting piecemeal as we do. You take a class. You learn a technique. You read a book. You learn another technique, and you try it out and see how it goes. And I had started with my quilts.
My first quilts were tied, but then doing walking-foot quilting on them, just stitch-in-the-ditch, walking-foot quilting on my quilts. So, the first time that I gave a quilt top to a longarmer to longarm it for me, I told her, “It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just do stitch-in-the-ditch.” She was very kind. Tammy held my hand and said, “Carolina, so stitch-in-the-ditch is not the easiest. It’s easiest for a domestic machine, but it is not the easiest for a longarm. If you want something simple, direct, and easy for a longarmer, that would be edge-to-edge quilting.” That’s the pantographs that go all the way across it.
That transition from being a home quilter, doing it all yourself to, “Hey, I want to bring someone else in on this process … ” And quilting is a community sport anyway, so I’m going to bring someone else in. I’m going to ask longarmer to work on this part with me. But now, it’s learning that whole part of what is involved in longarming because it isn’t exactly a direct correlation from doing it on my machine to putting it on a frame.
Jane:
Right, when you’re doing it on your machine and you’re having to sandwich everything together and try and squeeze it in between in the bed of your machine, and a longarmer has the advantage of having that nice frame and loads everything. The backing, the batting, and the top are all loaded separately, so nothing has to be basted, and it’s just such an easy thing.
And I do. I have upgraded since my very first machine. I do have a computerized system now. I do not use it a whole lot. Still, my passion lies with free-motion, but I do use it. I find that I do a lot of custom quilting for people, and that puts a lot of stress on the body, so I try and schedule an edge-to-edge, computerized job in between each of my custom jobs. And that way it gives me a little bit of a break in between.
Carolina Moore:
Oh, that makes total sense. Absolutely.
Jane:
Yeah.
Carolina Moore:
The other thing that I learned in starting to work with a longarmer is that she was able to give me feedback on my quilts, like having a good relationship with her so she could say, “Hey, have you thought about doing it this way?” You’d mentioned that you became a better piecer by seeing the quilts that were being brought to you and that you’re putting on your longarm. Can you talk about some of those things that you learned or experienced?
Jane:
Sure. Everybody pieces differently, and some people just didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to are their blocks squared up individually before they put their blocks together. So, if they don’t do that, one block might be very full and the other block might be just the right size. So, the longarmer has to try and figure a way to eat up some of that extra space without taking a tuck in the fabric or whatever. And it’s made me realize that squaring up your quilt, your blocks, even though you might only get a little fragment of overage cut off, it’s still a very important step.
Same thing with putting on borders. I am a firm believer on measuring down the middle of the quilt to get and then cut my borders to match that and make them work where because I’ve had quilts given to me where they didn’t do that, and then the border fabric, there’s all this extra yardage in there. One or two inches, I can probably take care of with my quilting and quilt that out, but when you have five, six, seven extra inches in there, that’s really tough to do without taking maybe a pleat in the border fabric. So, it’s just made me be a little bit more careful about those things when I piece.
Carolina Moore:
Sure. I think it was when I first took a quilt to the longarmer that I learned about fullness, which is, yeah, when basically your quilt doesn’t lay flat. If you were to lay it on the ground, that there are parts that are kind of bubbly a little bit, and that’s because the block itself is bigger than the space that you pieced it in, and so the fabric isn’t at equal tension across it. It’s very loose in that area, which will create puckers in your quilt if you just try to quilt straight over it.
But longarmers are magical because a good longarmer will do their best to be able to add more stitching in that area because more stitching kind of sucks up that fabric so that it makes it lie flat.
Jane:
It does. Spray starch and steam work wonders too.
Carolina Moore:
But there’s only so much magic that a longarmer can work on a quilt, yes. When I’m doing a video, and something doesn’t work in quite right, and I say, “Ah, that’ll quilt out,” I’m sure that there are longarmers on the other side watching that video going, “No! No!”
Jane:
Well, and it’s just like the border thing. When I see a border that has some fullness in it or whatever, my first thought is to run some piano keys, which are straight lines, because I can trap some of that extra fullness in between those stitched straight lines, and then that eats up that extra fabric. Yeah, we do learn some tricks along the way, for sure.
Carolina Moore:
Yes, absolutely. If you have a good longarmer they’ll let you know, “Hey, these are the things that I did, and here’s how we can counteract that in the future so that we have more options for quilting instead of having to adjust the quilting to make sure that we’re not putting puckers or pleats in the quilt.”
Jane:
Right.
Carolina Moore:
You were taking on custom work from people that were bringing you their quilt tops, and you were turning them into gorgeous, finished quilts. You’d already mentioned that you do free-motion, but also ruler work. At some point, you decided that you were going to design your own rulers.
Jane:
I did. To backtrack just a little bit, my local quilt shop asked me if I would teach some free-motion quilting on domestic machines, which that’s where I started, so that’s what I thought … I said, “Sure.” So, I developed a curriculum that I thought would be good for beginners, and I started to teach it in my local quilt shop. Everybody seemed to love it. And then in, I think it was 2015, I just had this year that I decided I was going to go for whatever. I am not always very good at stepping out of my comfort zone and going out on a limb, but I decided that year that I was going to apply to some shows to teach and to see what happens because the worst they could tell me was no.
So, I applied to two shows that year, two major shows, and they both picked me up to teach. I was so super excited by that and another-
Carolina Moore:
That’s awesome.
Jane:
It was. It was so good, and I had such a good time. Teaching at shows is so much fun because everybody’s so excited to be there, and it’s always been a great time. But one of the words of wisdom that I had received from another longarmer who taught at shows was you should develop some of your own products to have at shows with you in your classroom.
So, I did develop some rulers, and the reason I did the rulers was because, not just because of that, but because I like smaller rulers that fit well in my hand. And I wanted rulers that would work on domestic machines as well as longarms. So, I did develop a line of rulers for that purpose.
Carolina Moore:
How do you design a quilting ruler? I’ve done a little bit of ruler work, so I have a little bit of an idea of it, but I’m not sure that everyone listening has played either with free-motion quilting and specifically with rulers. How do you figure out the shapes that you’re going to …
Jane:
I wanted a couple nice curves, and so I did develop two curve rulers. My thing, when I am buying a ruler, I’ve always been a thrifty person, and so I didn’t want a ruler that just did one thing. I wanted a ruler. I wanted to have rulers that did multiple things. When I designed my curve ruler, the one side has a nice gentle curve, and the other side has a nice, straight side for straight lines. And it has lots of different markings on it so that you can use it at different angles. That was what was important to me because I’ve seen rulers out there that don’t have much markings, and then it’s hard to know how much you can use them, and they’re very limited to what you can do with them.
So, I developed the two curves, and then I had this other one that was … I love to teach how to quilt feathers, and one of them, the one side kind of looks like a feather spine, and then the other side is straight. That was to help people because people were like, “Well, I don’t even how to do the spine,” so that was the easy way. Okay, well even if you just draw, use this ruler and draw the spine on. At least you can follow that.
Then as the time went by, I added a couple more rulers in there. I added one that has two different size circles or arcs in it and a straight edge. And one that goes around, it’s an appliqué ruler. It’s to help … This would specifically be for a movable-head longarm, but it’s to help guide you and your machine around appliqué.
Carolina Moore:
Okay. Now, most of us in quilting are familiar with rulers for cutting our fabric, but these are quilting rulers, so they’re not for cutting our fabric. They’re for creating stitching lines. Can you describe how a quilting ruler is used?
Jane:
Sure. A quilting ruler is quarter-inch thick for the longarm.
Carolina Moore:
And it’s thicker than a traditional ruler that we would have for cutting.
Jane:
Yes. Absolutely, yes. That is going to butt up against a ruler foot on your longarm, or if you have a domestic machine, you’re going to have a free-motion ruler foot. And that’s going to butt right up against there. The thing I think that when you’re doing rotary cutting, you’re putting your rotary blade right up against the ruler and cutting. But when you’re using a longarm ruler, you have to remember that you’re stitching is actually a quarter-inch away from the edge of the ruler.
Carolina Moore:
Because that distance from the edge of the foot is touching up against the ruler, but then the needle is in the middle of the foot, and so that’s a quarter-inch.
Jane:
Yes. And it does take a while for people to get the hang of that. It really does. It’s funny when I teach a class because they think if they line up the edge of the ruler with the line on the piece of fabric that it should be right there. And it’s not. You have to learn how to judge to keep that far enough away so your stitching hits that line.
Carolina Moore:
Yeah, It’s like a stencil, but instead of stenciling right next to the stencil template, you’re stenciling always a quarter-inch in or a quarter-inch out of the design.
Jane:
Yes. Yeah.
Carolina Moore:
What was the process like for you of getting these rulers made? You just said, “Oh, I think I’m going to make some quilting rulers,” and then the next day they showed up at your doorstep and they were all ready to go, right?
Jane:
No.
Carolina Moore:
No?
Jane:
I wish it was that easy. Fortunately, I had made some friends with some other teachers on the quilting circuit, and I asked a couple of them how they got their rulers manufactured and who they used. This was back several years ago. So, I chose the one person, and unfortunately, he has gone out of business, so I am still trying to figure out what I’m going to do next as far as getting … I have a good supply, but I will need to go and branch off to somebody new.
But I sent my ideas, and I even actually sent some mockups with just some heavy cardboard, and then they put them into their program. We went back and forth with different lines and markings and all until we had it exactly the way I wanted it, and then I was sent some prototypes. I used them for a little while and then gave them the go-ahead to go ahead and print them or make them. So, it was a process.
Carolina Moore:
Oh, sure, absolutely. And then what was that like getting the box of these are the ones that you’re going to be selling and shipping out to people?
Jane:
Well, it’s super cool to think that something that you developed is out there, and people are using it, and it’s helping them. That was my whole goal and everything is just to be able to help people with their quilting. That’s just, again, something I’ve always just loved is wanting to help others love free-motion quilting and ruler work as much as I do.
Carolina Moore:
Now, I am afraid I might be asking you to pick a favorite child, but is there a favorite of the templates that you have? Or if not, is there one that you would say people should start with?
Jane:
I see that question out on social media quite a bit, like “I’m new to longarming and ruler work, what would be some good rulers to get?” I always tell people to get a straight edge and a gentle curve to start out with first and to not spend a lot of money on specialty rulers until they get a feel for first off if they’re going to like it. Rulers can be quite expensive, so just to get a feel for the straight edge and the gentle curve and then branch off from there.
I think my favorite one is my double-curvy ruler. It has a four-inch half circle on one side and a six-inch half circle on the other side, and so you can either use it as just a clamshell or an arc, or you can actually maneuver it and do an entire circle, which it’s just been fun. That happened by a fluke. The way I designed it, just, I don’t know. I was just strolling and doodling and all of a sudden came up with it, and it was perfect, so I really like it a lot.
Carolina Moore:
That’s the best feeling where your brain is ahead of your hands, and by the time it gets to your hands, it’s just done. Your brain has figured it out for you.
Jane:
Yes, definitely. Yeah, it’s just fun to have a product out there, like I said, that can help people, and they can use and love, hopefully, love as much as you do.
Carolina Moore:
Yes, for sure. Now, your rulers are used by longarmers and domestic machine quilters?
Jane:
Yah.
Carolina Moore:
It’s the same rulers. It’s not like if I have a longarm, but I still quilt on my regular sewing machine as well, I don’t need two sets of rulers.
Jane:
No. The only thing I caution people about on domestic machines is if you have a low-shank machine that you keep your rulers, your longarm … You can still use the longarm rulers, but you’re going to want to keep it towards the front and the side of the foot just so that the shank doesn’t come down and hit the ruler from the back. But truly, you wouldn’t want to use it across the back underneath the shank anyway. But they work perfect because I’ve been teaching with them for years on domestic machines.
Carolina Moore:
Oh, and that’s a good tip of where to have your ruler.
Now, are there any accessories that people should have with your rulers, things to make it grippy or handles, or any of things like that?
Jane:
It depends. There are times when I use them on my longarm without grip tape, but that’s maybe I’m wanting them to slide along. Especially my appliqué ruler, I wouldn’t want grip tape on that because I’m using that ruler to guide the machine. But when you’re on a domestic or a stationary-head longarm, you definitely want to use grip tape on it to help guide because you’re guiding the fabric around, and that ruler has to have a firm contact with the fabric for sure.
Carolina Moore:
That makes total sense. Now, you mentioned your appliqué ruler again, and that made me think because it was a question early when you first mentioned your appliqué ruler. You’ve got one ruler that works with all different kinds of appliqué, whether it’s a flower or a bird or a basket. What’s the magic of that?
Jane:
There’s a little indent in there that the foot nests in, and the way it works is for me … I’ll try and describe it as best as I can … I have one finger below my foot and one finger behind my foot. The foot’s on the same plane as my fingers, and I can guide that along and help to guide it to where I want it to go. It just helps move the machine along and keep it … Stitch-in-the-ditch work around appliqué can be pretty tedious and slow, and so that just helps guide your foot around all those things.
Carolina Moore:
If I’m understanding this, when I’m machine-quilting on my regular sewing machine, my hands are right there by the needle, so I have this control very close to where the needle is. But when you’re moving to a longarm, the handles are up higher, so the distance from the needle to your hand is further away. Now, this ruler gives you the ability to bring your hand closer in and have that control right at the point of the needle.
Jane:
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Carolina Moore:
That makes total sense. I could totally see how that would be helpful, especially for someone who started with their hands so close to the needle and then have moved to them being further away.
Jane:
Right, yeah.
Carolina Moore:
Do you have a preference? If you have a quilt, like your own quilt that you’re going to free-motion quilt, will you always take it to the longarm, or do you sometimes quilt it on your domestic machine?
Jane:
Well, I have a stationary longarm, and I have a movable head longarm, so I go between both. Sometimes for smaller things for myself, I will go back to my stationary longarm and move my … There’s just something about sitting down and moving that fabric around that just I really enjoy, so sometimes I’ll do that, especially if I’m doing, say, a whole cloth where I need to do a lot of fine micro-quilting and everything. I find it easier if I’m sitting down right there at the machine. I have a little bit better control for me for that particular piece. But for the most part, I do go to my moveable-head longarm.
Carolina Moore:
Well, I love that you kept the stationary machine, the stationary-head machine. I had the assumption that you upgraded to a longarm on a frame, but it sounds like you added the longarm on the frame but didn’t replace the machine.
Jane:
Oh, well, I did get rid of it at first, and then when I started teaching at shows, I was teaching at a show, and I was in a stationary longarm room teaching. It was a Handi Quilter-sponsored room, and they approached me after teaching and asked if I would become an educator for them. So, I decided to go ahead and get … Because I had missed my stationary longarms, so once I was an educator for them, I went ahead and got another stationary longarm to have the both and be able to do that. I did the educator thing for them for about five years, and now, I couldn’t commit to travel as much as they would like, so I am now a Handi Quilter ambassador.
Carolina Moore:
That makes sense. It is a lot of travel to travel teach.
Jane:
It is.
Carolina Moore:
Did you see any really fun places when you were travel teaching?
Jane:
I did. I got to go to England and teach at the Quilt Festival over there in Birmingham, and I got to go to Karlsruhe, Germany and teach at a show over there. That was probably the most fun experience because first off, there was definitely a language barrier in Germany, which I guess I wasn’t expecting, but I did have a translator, which was good. And I found that the people taking the longarm classes didn’t really know what a longarm was, but they just wanted to take the class to find out what it was about.
So, we had the best time in there. It was all new people who didn’t have a clue, that they just were amazed. I even took some notions from over here, some different things that I normally passed out to students when I have classes over in the States I took to pass out there. And they were things that they had never even seen before, so it was just a lot of fun.
Carolina Moore:
Well, since this podcast is called I Love Notions, I’m intrigued at what notions you brought with you overseas.
Jane:
One of them was, it was the little bee stencil from Full Line Stencils and the pounce pad, and they were just amazed. They were so excited to get one to take home. Just even some of the marking utensils, like the blue, water-soluble pen and things like that, that were just … They had no clue. They had no idea.
Carolina Moore:
Quilting overseas is a little different than it is here in the U.S. for sure.
Jane:
There was one that it was a father and daughter that decided to take the class just to see what a longarm was, and it was just … I still can remember their faces when they saw it stitching out, and they were just so amazed and so excited.
Carolina Moore:
Yes, And even just the language of calling it a longarm. The first time I was talking to someone who wasn’t in quilting and that I forgot. I was talking about, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got to go drop this quilt top off at my longarmer.” And they were just looking at me like, “So, there’s people with … Their arms are long, like their elbow’s in a weird spot on their … What is a … “
Jane:
Yep. I have a really hard time explaining. People always say, “What do you do for a living?” And then I say, “Oh, I’m a longarmer.” And they’re like, “What is that?” Sometimes it’s hard to explain. I have a picture on my phone, so I can pull that up and just say, “I have this machine, and that’s what I do.”
Carolina Moore:
Yeah, there are times where depending on the situation I’ll say, “Well, I have two really great kids, and I’m raising them,” and forget the whole quilting business because sometimes it’s just … It’s a lot to explain.
Jane:
It is. It really is. And then people are like, “Can you really make a living at that”? Well, yeah, quilting is a big industry.
Carolina Moore:
It definitely is, and many, many people do make their living in the quilting industry, and I think that that’s phenomenal that we get to do that, and pinch myself every day that this is what I get to wake up to and do.
Jane:
Absolutely.
Carolina Moore:
What else do you have coming? Are you working on new ruler designs or new classes or new patterns?
Jane:
No. When I came up with the rulers, I also came up with workbooks, and I have five free-motion quilting workbooks. They’re all designs, but the unique thing is that each page is a different design with arrows showing you how to go. And each page has a clear plastic overlay page that you use a dry-erase marker to get your muscle memory down and to learn the designs that way before you commit them to stitches and fabric.
Carolina Moore:
Smart.
Jane:
Those have been very successful. And my biggest thing in classes hearing from students was that I wish the designs that you taught were printed on fabric, and so I thought about that for quite some time. I did a little bit of research, and I found somebody who would take my designs and print them out on fabric with water-soluble ink. So, I have some free-motion quilting practice panels.
There’s two practice panels. There’s a feather medallion. There’s a feather practice panel, and they all have made YouTube videos to complement those so that if you need the help and seeing somebody stitch it out, it’s out there for you. Now, the people can take those whole cloths, and they’re about fat quarter size, so it’s very manageable for people and that they can go ahead and stitch those out. Once they’re finished stitching with them, they can soak them in water, and those printed lines go right away. And it looks like they did it themselves, so it’s a great way to practice. And they have been highly successful.
Carolina Moore:
Oh, I’m sure. That’s fabulous. Now, are these straight free-motion or also ruler work?
Jane:
There’s definitely some straight lines on there, but mostly free-motion. There’s no reason why you couldn’t throw some ruler work on them also. When I show how to do them, I’m just usually showing the free-motion side of things.
Then, just, I’d say, three years ago, I became an Island Batik ambassador, and so for two years, I did projects every month for them because I love other people’s patterns, but I had some ideas of my own. So, I started branching off and doing some of … I only have two published patterns, and one I’m working on, actually, two I’m working on right now. So, I have branched off into that side of the business too.
Carolina Moore:
Generally, when I speak to people, they start out with, “Okay, I got into a hobby of quilting, and then I really loved it. And at some point, I created my own design.” Then there’s usually some form of either I wanted to publish it or someone said, “Oh, that’s great. Can I buy that pattern?” And that pushes them into pattern. Then, from there, they go into notions. But you went, “I started quilting and really fell in love with the machine-quilting portion of it, then created these tools and then went,” to me, backwards, but not for you. You then added the pattern design bit onto the other side.
Jane:
Yes, and I think what happened is when I did a quilt design, and I came up with it myself, and we all had to share … All the ambassadors had to share each other’s posts … somewhere along the line, a few people said, “Is there a pattern for that? We would really like that.” And I’m like, “Well, why not?” Why not go ahead and write that pattern? So, I did.
Right now, I’ve only really done PDF patterns off of my website, but I’m trying to figure out the other end of it as doing the actual physical patterns and having them out there too.
Carolina Moore:
Yeah, we can absolutely have a conversation about that off the podcast. I love all the parts of quilting, including the business part of quilting because I’m just multifaceted, abnormal in that way.
Jane:
That would be great.
Carolina Moore:
Yeah, I love all the things. Anything else that we want to make sure to add on before we go?
Jane:
I’m trying to think. I do teach. I am contracted to teach longarm classes at the AQS Paducah Show in 2024. That’s in April, so I’ll have those available. I was teaching online during the pandemic. I had a lot of virtual classes going. Then, this past December, I had rotator cuff surgery, and it took me quite a few months to recuperate from that. So, I haven’t really started back up with online teaching, but it is my plan because I have had people ask me recently when I’m going to restart my classes again. That’s been fun too.
I think that’s been the surprise for me is it’s fun teaching through Zoom. I didn’t think that that would go so well, but I’ve done shows virtually, and teaching individual classes virtually has worked well because I can hit people … I would’ve never had all the people in one place, one physical place, as I have had in my classes throughout the country. And I do. That is something else I can add too, is that I do offer lectures, virtual lectures for guilds, and that has gone really well too.
Carolina Moore:
Oh, I bet. That’s fabulous. I’ll make sure to have links to all those in the show notes, including where people can sign up for your class at Paducah next year.
Jane:
Perfect.
Carolina Moore:
I’m sure people want to check that out as well. Speaking of which, where can people find you online?
Jane:
Online, I’m at stitchbystitchcustomquilting.com.
Carolina Moore:
Then, are you on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, any of the wild and crazy places that we hang out on the interwebs?
Jane:
I haven’t branched out to TikTok yet, but I am on Facebook. I am under my name, Jane Hauprich, and then Stitch by Stitch. Custom Quilting is my business page. Instagram, I’m on there as Jane Stitch by Stitch. I am on YouTube. I do have a YouTube channel that I try and offer as much as I can get on there as far as free-motion tutorials. Like I said, I just want everybody to love free-motion like I do, and so I try and do … I haven’t done any lately, really since my surgery, but I have a whole list of ones I want to get to in the future.
Carolina Moore:
Well, I will make sure to add those links in the show notes as well so people can also subscribe to your YouTube channel and get those tutorials as they come out.
Jane:
Thank you.
Carolina Moore:
But Jane, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. This was really fun.
Jane:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Carolina Moore:
Friends, that’s our episode for today. I hope you loved it as much as I loved having this conversation. Remember that you can find all the details that we talked about in the show notes, and those are all at ilovenotions.com. Make sure to leave this podcast a review in your favorite podcasting app. Leaving it a review will help the podcast algorithm show this podcast to other people who love notions just as much as we do.
Friends, that’s all I have for you today, but I will see you right here real soon. Bye for now.
