Episode Summary
Leanne and Kaytlyn of Whole Country Caboodle talk about the way they have balanced their quilt and design business throughout the years. As markets have changed and a variety of challenges have come up, Leanne Anderson has used the resources available to navigate the tricky business of quilting.
They discuss how Kaytlyn has helped bring a new perspective to the business. The two have collaborated for years now to build a nimble retail and wholesale business that delivers for shop owners and quilters across the country.
Key Insights
- Stay in contact with your customers.
- Connect and build relationships. Those relationships will pay off.
- Do what is right for the customer.
- Sell products that simplify your customers’ lives.
- Decide what you can and cannot handle.
Episode Highlights
- “Having that newsletter has been great. And we actually built that. We had a shift many years ago, kind of out of wholesale into more retail and then built the newsletter through that, and then with the pandemic shifted back.”
- “I’m gonna talk to you and email how I would talk to you in person and you’re gonna get the real us.”
- “It’s all about building relationships in whatever business you’re in.”
- “We just wanna make what’s best for the quilt shop and not necessarily putting money back in our pocket.”
- “We’re trying to simplify the time that it takes our customer. To do a project. And so yes it might be a little bit more expensive, but we’re finding that they don’t mind if they don’t have to take the time to, you know, cut everything out.”
- “I think the number one thing in any business that you’re in is knowing what you can and cannot handle.”
Guest Bio
Leanne Anderson started Whole Country Caboodle in Nashua, Iowa 30 years ago. Although Leanne’s daughter, Kaytlyn Kuebler, had spent years with Leanne in the studio, Kaytlyn officially joined the business in 2010. Together they design a whimsical line of fun sewing projects.
Website: https://www.thewholecountrycaboodle.com/
Transcript
[00:00:22] Spencer: Hello and welcome. Thank you so much for being here. We’ve got Kaytlyn and Leanne from The Whole Country Caboodle in Nashua, Iowa. How are you guys doing today?
[00:00:31] Kaytlyn: Doing great, thanks.
[00:00:33] Spencer: Good. Thanks so much for being on the podcast with us today. I think, you know, to kind of get things started, I’d love to hear, tell us a little bit about The Whole Country Caboodle and how you guys got to where you are today.
[00:00:46] Leanne: Well, I’ll start that because it started 30 years ago. This was my 30th year in the industry. Kate was just a wee little one. And I started just doing machine applique and I went to my first market out in Portland, Oregon in 1992 and ,you know, I haven’t looked back since. It’s been an industry that has provided an incredible business for me. It’s been great for my family. I never, ever thought that I would have a child working with me in the business, and that has been a huge blessing. So, yeah, I started that and then two years later started designing fabric. So, been designing fabric almost as long as we have had the business.
[00:01:28] Kaytlyn: Yeah, I remember going to work with my mom and she had a little shop downtown. It wasn’t a retail store, it was just her kind of studio space. And I would sit in the little front window with my little tight kitchen and just play by myself all day. I think that maybe helped me to make me who I am today. I’m very independent, but my mom, she would forget that I was there until she’d just hear my squeaky little voice in the front window, talking to myself. But yeah, I mean, I never thought I would work with her. Here we are, been working for her now for 12 years and since 2019, full time, and yeah, I mean, we make a great team and yeah, we just keep going.
[00:02:06] Spencer: Wow. That’s pretty incredible. I mean, that’s 30 years, that’s… got some experience. So I’m curious, you know, maybe, tell us a little bit about the progression of The Whole Country Caboodle, you know, going from being in that studio space and maybe potentially, you know, kind of what happened after that and how have you grown your business in those 30 years?
[00:02:27] Leanne: Yeah, I rented a building uptown. That’s what Kaytlyn is referring to, the studio space. And we live in a small community, so it was hard because it was on Main Street and any business on Main Street, you know, they thought was for retail space. And so, I was not a brick and mortar. I wasn’t a quilt shop, it was my design studio. And so it was hard at first because it was like people wanting to come in and out and that type of thing. I was in that building for five years. I was strictly with distributors and in the wholesale industry and it was an old building. With a lot of old features, and at that point I said to my husband, we live out in the country, I said, you know, I think maybe we should just build a building. I said I feel very strongly that this business is gonna have some longevity. We had land and so we found a contractor and we built a big two story building out in the country where we’re still located today. And so we’ve been in this location since I believe, ’98, I think.
[00:03:24] We’ve reinvented ourselves many times over in this building. The space that we’re in right now used to be a storage room, and we needed a little bit more of a video studio and where we could set things up a little bit easier. We’ve ebb and flowed and we’ve taken some turns and tried to ride out every storm that we’ve had, you know, we’ve had some ups and downs.
[00:03:45] Kaytlyn: But I feel like you’ve been yourself from the beginning. I showed my husband a picture of mom. It wasn’t 30 years ago, but it was maybe 28 years ago and he said, oh wow, her style hasn’t changed much. And I was like, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But we did realize, I mean, she’s been doing appliqué since the beginning and her characters, they have evolved, but, you know, she has stayed true to who she is and, you know, that is one thing. I mean, granted, what she was wearing is now back in style.
[00:04:19] Spencer: Yeah, it goes around, doesn’t it?
[00:04:21] Leanne: Yep. Mom jeans.
[00:04:22] Kaytlyn: Denim on denim but yeah, I mean, you’ve grown a ton in design too, cuz you, when you started designing fabric, it was all hand painted. And I would remember her being out in the shop for hours at night and just painting, hand painting a line. And then Adobe Photoshop came in. So with the years has come, different technologies and learning different things. And then, you know, having me come on board, being younger, and learning, always just trying to keep up with different things.
[00:04:52] Leanne: Well, and always trying to change your skill sets. You know, I said to my older daughter this morning, I said, if I would have to do this podcast by myself, getting everything set up, I said I probably could do it. But Kaytlyn’s skill level in technology is so much greater than mine, and it’s not that I don’t want to learn it, but I don’t have to with her.
[00:05:12] Kaytlyn: But I don’t wanna learn, I don’t wanna learn things she knows how to do either.
[00:05:16] Leanne: So we’re a good team that’s that way.
[00:05:18] Kaytlyn: We’re a good team. Yep.
[00:05:20] Spencer: Yeah I love that. I mean, so you guys are not the first mother daughter team that have been on this podcast, and I think it’s something that is becoming more common in the quilting industry that you have kind of a mother daughter team that really finds a way to bounce off of each other’s skills, right. That you can say there’s youth in one and experience in the other. And you know, you try to fill in the gaps in between there, right? Between technology and expertise.
[00:05:45] And a lot of that comes into just how the industry has evolved in the last few years, right? The need for more technologically savvy shop owners, , and you know, so many things have gone online. You guys have gone online, you have an online presence and we’ll probably talk some about that. And so, yeah, I just, I think it’s so neat to kind of see the mother daughter, you know, symbiosis that’s going on between the two of you.
[00:06:09] So, um, alright. Well, just to set the stage here, The Whole Country Caboodle has, you guys have an online shop, right? You sell direct to consumers from an online store. You’re also in quilt shops. Tell us a little bit about the difference, maybe starting with your online shop and your direct to consumer store, and tell me a little bit about how, you know, that has built over the last, you know, recent years.
[00:06:32] Kaytlyn: Yeah. It’s kind of built differently in the sense of design. We’ve had multiple different websites and then so thankful when I heard about Like Sew, and was really excited to switch it from what we were using to going to that and then learning more about that. But we have built a newsletter for both retail and wholesale. And so that has really helped with the online sales because yeah, we’re not a store for people to come to a physical location. And so having that newsletter has been great. And we had a shift many years ago, kind of out of wholesale into more retail and then built the newsletter through that, and then with the pandemic shifted back.
[00:07:14] And so we’re always just kind of ebb and flowing with the tide of where we need to be and we try to send out one newsletter a month to both retail and wholesale kind of targeted differently. And try to keep it as updated as we can.
[00:07:26] Leanne: Kaytlyn and I kind of like to say that we have a tendency to reinvent ourselves over and over and Yeah, like she said, for years I was strictly wholesale and then, you know, the markets changed. And so then my husband retired from education and he and I decided to go to some retail shows and we loved that. We got to travel together. We did that for about seven years, where we were doing probably 11 shows a year. And so, then that’s where we really built up our retail sales and our newsletter, our email list And then, like Kate said, when that pandemic hit, it’s okay, what are we gonna do to survive? And we just dove right back into the wholesale distributor industry and we will not go back to shows.
[00:08:11] Spencer: Okay. Okay. Curious. So, from what I’m understanding, you started getting into direct-to-consumer by going to retail shows. Mm-hmm. And found some success through that. And then when the pandemic hit, you said, look, we’re not even gonna be able to go to shows anymore, potentially. Who knows how long this could last for? We need to dive back into, you know, getting into retail spaces. I’m curious, how have you found like, new ways and you know, how does one go about getting their product into a retail store like that?
[00:08:44] Leanne: Well, a lot of ours gets there through distributors.
[00:08:46] Spencer: Okay.
[00:08:47] Leanne: I was selling to maybe two distributors off and on, some different ones that kind of came and went in the early years and then I have sold to a couple of distributors very regularly since I started. We are with, I think, seven or eight different distributors now, which that helps us get into the quilt shops. And then just like the recent quilt market that we were able to attend in Houston, it was just a renewed kind of a vibrant feel from people as far as we were concerned.
[00:09:17] Kaytlyn: Yeah. You know, and we try to really promote, if we’re gonna do a newsletter or we try to do a video in our newsletter. If we’re doing a retail newsletter, we tell them, go to your local quilt shop and tell them about our products, tell them about our fabric, and we would love, you know, to get it into their shop and we want them to shop local first if they can. And really just cross promoting each other and yeah, and probably word of mouth too, getting into some different shops.
[00:09:45] Leanne: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:09:48] Spencer: Oh wow. That’s, yeah, that’s really interesting. I mean, such, such a neat way how you guys have like, really adjusted your business over the years, right. To come back and forth between, you know, retailers and going into shops.
[00:10:00] Okay. So let’s talk a little bit more about marketing as far as how you guys are marketing your business. and, and kind of specifically talking about social media. What have you guys done on social media in the most recent years to try to develop a brand presence?
[00:10:15] Kaytlyn: Great question. We’re still in the process of doing it. Okay. It’s a constant battle. So, you know, with being home, we were excited to be able to maybe do some more videos and different things even on social media. But then design took over and our presence is not where we’d probably want it to be. We’re, you know, in the process of having someone help us with it. But it’s a constant thing where, I just would love more time in a day to do more with the social media presence that, you know, that we aren’t able to do right now.
[00:10:47] But I think, you know, with the newsletters that we would do, we would always try to do a video. Our biggest thing is we want people to feel like they can come to us and if they have an idea for something or whatever, that’s what we miss with being in person with someone, is just, we love building relationships. That’s what we feel like this industry is. It’s about building relationships. And so that’s what I would kind of want. You know, it’s that balance of what is your social media presence? Is it, you know, just products or is it just kind of letting you in behind the scenes on your company? I mean, so we’re, it’s, we’re still just like really in the process of trying to figure out the best ways to go about all of that. So it’s a growing challenge for us.
[00:11:25] Leanne: It is, and I feel like it’s the one area that, you know, when I started, it was just me for many, many years.
[00:11:32] Spencer: Sure.
[00:11:32] Leanne: And then Kaytlyn came on board part-time, at first. She had another job and so, you know, I was able to bounce some things off of her.
[00:11:40] But actually since just before the pandemic, I’ve been able to hire two full-time people plus two part-time people, plus my husband, who we have doing all kinds of jobs. We find we’re spreading ourselves a little bit thin. So that’s where I know it’s hard. We know what needs to be done. But it’s just hard to know how to get it all done.
[00:12:04] Kaytlyn: Yep. So then our social media has always taken the backseat to everything, but yeah, we’re working on it.
[00:12:11] Spencer: Sure. No, I mean, and I think that, like at the end of the day, social media is a marketing avenue, right? It’s not the marketing avenue. And I think that if you’re able to find different ways you know, whatever it may be, whether that’s a newsletter or it’s, you know, YouTube or it is, you know, actually being in person and going to Quilt Market and shows like that, you know, I think social media is where a lot of eyes are, which is why we’re talking about it, right? Like, you know, it’s very possible that people spend a significant more amount of time on social media than they will on their email, right? Or that they will be going to a show this year, which is why there’s so much talk about it, but it doesn’t mean it’s the only way or the most important way for you to market. So I think that’s important.
[00:13:54] Spencer: Okay, so Kaytyln, you said something I want to explore a little bit. You said something to the effect of, you know, this business is about relationships and with you guys being an online retailer how do you guys develop these relationships? Right. You know, typically I talk with brick and mortar stores, which the easy answer there is I build relationships when people come into the store, right? And we chat and, I suggest this fabric or this pattern, or whatever. How are you guys building those relationships?
[00:14:23] Kaytlyn: The good thing is we had a lot of pre-built relationships before, you know, we kind of all went online. But we still value, you know, if someone calling in, or in how we respond in an email. We kind of bounce back off of each other with, we feel like customer service is really important and we’re gonna do what we can, you know, to… I’m not saying that the customer is always right, but like we’re gonna find a, I wanna find a win-win, you know? Yeah. And sometimes those don’t exist, but I just always want in, how I am talking to someone in an email or whatever, in a message like, for them to be able to understand where we’re coming from and that we are there for them in any ways we need to be. So you kind of just keep, again, just shifting of, I’m gonna talk to you and email how I would talk to you in person and you’re gonna get the real us and Yeah. I mean, but it is just hard. But I would always prefer to do a phone call over an email because then you can really explain yourself and you can hear your tone of voice and different things. And you know, if there’s an issue with something, I’m like, Hey, let’s just, like call them on the phone and have that kind of a conversation.
[00:15:32] Leanne: Another way, Spencer, is, you know, I mean I’ve been going to market, you know, two markets a year, for up until the pandemic. And so for me you know, those first years we wrote lots and lots of orders and then it became more of a networking and we designed fabric for Henry Glass Fabrics now. And so our idea, up until this past, this year really, has been to go to network to continue to build those relationships with people that we’ve either started to work with or areas that we want to go into. For instance, we have a program where we’re doing pillow wrap of the month and we use a little towel and we use a Dunroven product. And so, you know, I had met them before but I made it a point to go to their booth and to show them what we were doing. And to have a discussion about it, I think in person is incredibly important. And I’m old school enough that I have to have that, you know?
[00:16:29] And I’ve always felt like as a business woman, and I’ve been in business even before this for over 40 years, it’s all about building relationships in whatever business you’re in, so that’s just always been a critical part of what I’ve wanted to have in the company and Kaytlyn has continued that as well.
[00:16:47] Spencer: Yeah. I love that. I, I think it’s so neat to hear about the different ways that you guys are building relationships when you’re not necessarily having people come into your store every day, right? Because it seems like that is such an integral piece of what you guys are doing, yet I wouldn’t have guessed that before we started, you know, before we kind of gotten the call today. I was like, yeah, I mean, probably not talking to people, you know, face to face every day, but there’s a brand there and the brand, I mean, the brand is Leanne and Kaytlyn to a degree, and then the products are kind of what comes out of that, the fabric designs and the appliques and stuff like that, how do you establish that? So just really neat.
[00:17:25] So, I’m gonna shift gears here a little bit again. I’m curious, you know, most people listening to this podcast are gonna be quilt shop owners and if I’m a quilt shop owner and I’m wondering how I can promote the sale of products like yours, for example, appliques, specialty fabrics, things that I wouldn’t say are like the most like, you know, kind of mainstream fabrics that are just solids, you know, Bella solids or whatever, right? What do you guys say to a shop owner that’s like, I’m having a hard time promoting the more specialized, you know, fabrics and appliques.
[00:17:58] Kaytlyn: I think one thing that we really promoted at the quilt market was trunk shows. And you know, they might not, I know some people are afraid, like the shop owner themselves, they don’t maybe like applique. But their customers might, but it’s a risk to carry it into their shop. Like to get…
[00:18:14] Spencer: yeah, no, that’s exactly what I’m asking. Right. Like if I’m thinking this is risky, how do I take a chance? How do I know that I should take a chance? Yeah.
[00:18:22] Kaytlyn: Because I mean, we have pre cut applique dogs and we have over a hundred dogs. And so that could take up an entire wall in the shop. Yeah. But think about doing a trunk show with a few different ones. We provide a flyer. You know, like I said, we’re always gonna be willing to do what we can do to get more information. So if you get 12 of our best selling appliques, or our 12 best selling dogs, I’m gonna get you a flyer that has all the different ones on it, and then your customer can pick and choose which ones they want so you don’t have that overhead. And so then with the Trunk show, that’s a great way to do it. We don’t have a cookie cutter trunk show. But then you can kind of see the engagement of the product in the shop and your risk is pretty low.
[00:19:04] You know, we haven’t, but we’d be willing to do a zoom, like a virtual video, like a virtual call or something where, you know, we kind of know, even having gone to the retail shows, no one sells your product like you do. And we’re very passionate about our fabric, like the different collections. Mm-hmm. . And so if we could do, you know, again, it’s how to promote that, that we would love to do a virtual call.
[00:19:29] Again, we also have all these ideas of what we would like to be doing. I would love to do a video with each fabric collection that goes with it, that really explains the why behind and what the fun things are that you can do and then how you use our pre-cut, perfused appliques with the fabric lines, but time. So, okay. It’s just a thing. But yeah, I mean, we’re willing to do whatever.
[00:19:51] Leanne: Yeah. And like Kaytlyn said, with these trunk shows and it was something that we did early on and kind of got out of it. Now we’re really getting back into it, and I’ve always told every shop that I work with, or that we work with is, you know, we will work with you as far as what works best for you. And that’s what Kate was talking about, that the cookie cutter, you know, like we don’t have set trunk shows where it says, okay, this trunk shows dogs. You have to get all these dogs. This trunk shows this. No, you can look through our website. You can say, oh gosh, we’re really focusing on some quick, easy projects. So we’d like this, or we’d like “Christmas in July.” And so we work individually then with the shops and then with our products as well. You know, whether they’re precut or patterns, we just wanna make it what’s best for the quilt shop and not necessarily putting money back in our pocket, if that makes sense, you know?
[00:20:42] Spencer: No, I think that definitely makes sense, that like, there’s not a one size fits all solution for how to promote you know, more specialized products, right? And that, you know, a lot of times talking to the people who designed it can be the greatest resource because then you can draw on, where did the inspiration come from? You know, where did this line come from? How do I communicate that to my customers, right, ultimately, because I think that is where, when people see the passion behind the designs that are being created, I think they’re so much more apt to want to buy and sell that product, right?
[00:21:17] And when I’m going to make a quilt or a pillow or towel or whatever, and I’m like, oh, well this is why this dog is on this towel, right? It’s really easy to say, oh, that’s because Leanne said this, right? And I think that communication is really what brings designs to life in so many ways.
[00:21:33] Kaytlyn: If only we could go to every shop…
[00:21:35] Spencer: yeah, sure.
[00:21:35] Kaytlyn: And just be there to talk about stuff.
[00:21:39] Leanne: Well, and you know, it’s like every shop owner knows that models help sell. And so if they don’t have to make all the models, you know, and can get a trunk show for a couple weeks or something it’s gonna sell product.
[00:21:53] Spencer: All right, so as we kind of look forward over, you know, what the future of the quilting industry is, you know, gonna do, where do you guys see the industry heading in the next few years?
[00:22:04] Leanne: Well, that’s anybody’s guess, you know?
[00:22:07] Spencer: Sure.
[00:22:07] Leanne: I know for us personally, we have found that the quicker we can make projects or, you know, kits for people as far as their time that’s involved and let me explain that…. Years ago, you know, when I was doing applique, it was all, you know, you traced and you ironed and you cut.
[00:22:25] And now with our laser business, we have three big lasers that are running all the time because we’re trying to simplify the time that it takes our customer to do a project. And so yes it might be a little bit more expensive, but we’re finding that they don’t mind. If they don’t have to take the time to, you know, cut everything out, if it comes to them all laser cut.
[00:22:51] So I’d say simplifying, in our would be the thing that would probably be the one thing we could see happening. You know, like Kaytlyn had said earlier, we have always said that staying true to ourselves, I know for me, when I first started, I kind of floundered a little bit. I was over here and over there. And once I stayed true to my design style, I’m very whimsical, we both are, it just worked. And so we’ll continue to do that and to move to the direction that we see, you know, people asking.
[00:23:23] We listen to our customers. That’s another thing that’s very important. We’ll get a suggestion, you know, I mean, that’s why we have over a hundred different dogs. I started with 12 dogs and every person that would come to my booth at a show would say, “Ooh, those are really cute, but do you have a….? And then we would do that dog, and then we would do that dog. And now, I mean, to have over a hundred different laser cut dogs, and that’s just one small portion of our business because we do an applique line with every fabric line that we do. So we just continue to listen.
[00:23:55] Kaytlyn: And I think in the industry as a whole, it’ll kind of ebb and flow with technology, too. And so we know that at some point in our business, we would love to get into more of the embroidery fill stitch or applique embroidery. And in time, you know, we might be able to do that, but you don’t know what you don’t know, so what is the next thing? Like kind of have that goal set of where are we gonna go? Keep doing what you’re doing. And then when you get a little break, like, hey, start learning about it. Or bring in someone younger or different, like a different perspective. I know people are always like, being younger in the industry, where’s it gonna go? I mean, I don’t know. I’m different, where like, I don’t sew. I know how to, I don’t enjoy it. I love design.
[00:24:40] Spencer: Whoa. Can you say that on this podcast?
[00:24:43] Kaytlyn: I said it.
[00:24:44] Spencer: Oh, we’re gonna have to, I don’t know if we’re gonna have to cut that or I, what we’re do, I mean, geez…
[00:24:50] Kaytlyn: out of my own very mouth…
[00:24:52] Leanne: I did teach her though, Spencer.
[00:24:54] Kaytlyn: Yeah, I know how.
[00:24:55] Spencer: Okay. Okay. Leanne, at least you’ve done your due diligence, right. You can wash your hands of that.
[00:24:59] Leanne: That’s right.
[00:24:59] Kaytlyn: I don’t… it doesn’t bring me life, but what it does bring me life is creating products that’s gonna bring life to someone else, that they can sew. And so I love to design a quilt or, you know, I love to design. And so, but then I can’t just keep designing if there’s not people to sew. And so I think it is just gonna be interesting to be able to pass that down to generations.
[00:25:21] And yeah, the industry’s growing older, but then there’s always gonna be people behind, too. I don’t think it’s ever going to die. I think that it’s gonna just maybe shift in different ways, but I feel like it has a great base. And like we’ve said, when you have those relationships built too, and the passion, I feel like an industry built on passion is not gonna go away. And you just keep kind of listening to one another and you just keep moving.
[00:25:46] Leanne: Yeah. I also feel like quilting is a form of art, and I just don’t feel like art’s gonna go away. You know, people are gonna find different ways to do quilts and projects and you know, I just, I can’t see it. I can’t see it going away.
[00:26:03] Kaytlyn: Yeah. Might look different, but, Yeah. Who could know?
[00:26:06] Leanne: right.
[00:26:10] Spencer: Yeah. Okay. It’s fascinating. So, I love your thoughts. I think, you know, real quick, if you listen to the last podcast that I did with Smile Spinners, I think there was like a line in there that was like, “quilting is a science,” right? And Leanne just barely said, “quilting is an art,” right? And I think like, it is both and I talked about that a little bit in the last episode, and I think for you guys it does seem like more of an art because you are in the designing part of it, right? You’re in literally creating art.
[00:26:38] And as I was kind of thinking about this, you know, what does the industry look like in three years or five years, or 10 years? And that can be a little bit anxiety inducing almost, probably for a shop owner where you’re like, man, do I need to be on the cutting edge today so that I’m not behind in three years or five years? And I think that’s across the board, right? Whether you’re a brick and mortar store owner, or you’re a designer, you know, the anxiety to be on the cutting edge is constant and I think that at the end of the day, what I’m hearing from you guys is, if you are designing, if you are selling and creating a place where people can, you know, ultimately, solve a problem or fulfill that passion that they have, you’re gonna be on the cutting edge, right?
[00:27:25] Whether you’re like, designing the most recent technology or you know, whatever, I think, you could do that but if the passion is there from your side, I think the customers are gonna feel and find that.
[00:27:38] Leanne: Yeah. I agree.
[00:27:39] Spencer: And so that was just kind of my quick thoughts there.
[00:27:41] Kaytlyn: Yeah. And I think no matter if we go back to like, full in-person things, you know, or what shops are gonna look like, as long as somehow you’re able to build some sort of community, I think you’re going to have success, whether that’s an online community or an in-person community, I think that is what got us through such hard times was, you know, even though you were scared to sometimes be around someone to be too close, but family and community got you through the hardest of times and so I think as long as we can kind of build that in.
[00:28:13] Plus science is also very important. You know, I think you have a good balance of both and yeah, something’s not working, then figure out the why isn’t working and kind of reimagine it.
[00:28:24] Leanne: Well, and like Kaytlyn had said too, there are certain things that we’ve been asked to do that we want to do. But when we talk about the hours in the day something has to give to pick up something else, or, and, you know, we were talking about this as well, do we need to hire more people? You know, there are pros and cons to all of that. And so, I think the number one thing in any business that you’re in is knowing what you can and cannot handle and if you try to handle too much, you’re not gonna do justice to any of it, and I believe that’s why we’ve been around for 30 years because we’ve tried to do justice to what we’ve done and not tried to… we’re in a little bit of a point where we might say we’re pushing the envelope right now with how much we are doing.
[00:29:17] We have this saying that we can’t wait until we get the cart caught up with the horse because we feel like we’ve got it completely backwards and it’ll get there. But, you know, if we don’t design, we don’t have new product. Right.
[00:29:33] Kaytlyn: It’s also a good problem to have.
[00:29:35] Leanne: Yes.
[00:29:35] Kaytlyn: And you just take each day as it comes and try not to look too much in the distance because it’s a little daunting. So it’s like, what do I need to accomplish?
[00:29:45] Leanne: Yeah.
[00:29:47] Spencer: Yeah, those are great parting thoughts I think to kind of allow people to rest easy a little bit, you know?
[00:29:53] Kaytlyn: Right. You’re doing great! Everyone’s doing great!
[00:29:56] Spencer: I know. That’s what I want to tell shop owners. You know, I I talk to quote shop owners every day, all day, and I’m like, yeah, I mean, it’s gonna be all right. You know, like there’s a lot of uncertainty right now out there you know, with the economy and, you know, like I said, how does the industry look like in five years? You know, there’s concern about the longevity and, I mean, I don’t think there’s mass concern, right? I think it’s just, you know, here and there and we just have to say, look, you know, there’s passion in the quilting industry and, you know, people are gonna carry that through. People are gonna teach that to their daughters and to their sons, hopefully, people like me, right? Like, I mean, you know, I didn’t grow up quilting obviously, but you know, now I’ve got some of the passion.
[00:30:36] Alright. Well, Kaytlyn and Leanne, tell us you know, I guess kind of parting thoughts and, you know, tell us a little bit about where we could find you. Yeah, and, you know, hear from you.
[00:30:44] Kaytlyn: Yep. So you can find us a lot of places online. We have a website thewholecountrycaboodle.com. We have that set for retail and wholesale ordering.
[00:30:54] We’re also through, you can find our products through distributors. We’re on social media at The Whole Country Caboodle on facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Don’t get mad if I don’t post all the time, but I really try to get stuff out there. And yeah, I mean, feel free to email us.
[00:31:11] Leanne: Our fabrics are through Henry Glass Fabrics. So you can contact Henry Glass Fabrics or you know, any of the major distributors. Or contact us, because we don’t typically sell fabric wholesale, but we have a lot of fabric and I’ve filled in for a lot of shops that are running out of pieces of our collections and so, you know, never hesitate to give us a call.
[00:31:33] Kaytlyn: Yeah.
[00:31:34] Spencer: Perfect. Well, thanks so much guys.
[00:31:36] Leanne & Kaytlyn: Thank you.
