Over the coming weeks you will see some pretty big changes around here! You may have already noticed our name change. Let me share our story:
In 1980, I was bitten by the no-so-rare, but life-changing quilt bug. If you are reading this you must know there is no cure and you never recover from that bite. Using patterns found in magazines, I learned a little more with each quilt I made. I had finally found my creative passion! In time, I began to create my own designs and found tremendous satisfaction in my work. In 1994, I purchased my first longarm quilting machine and taught myself how to just let go and quilt FREESTYLE! What fun!! From this passion, FriendFolks was born!
By 1999, FriendFolks had the pleasure of opening a Quilt Shop on the square in Graham, Texas - the largest square in Texas! Our shop was located in the old Liberty Theater. We made a lot of new "friendfolks" while our shop was open!
In October of 2000, we took our growing business to our very first Quilt Market - WOW - was that fun! FriendFolks was a success and we made several important connections that began moving us into a new direction...designing and publication.
In 2002, I created Turning Twenty® and FriendFolks was forever changed. We established FriendFolks Publishing Company and now market our books and patterns to distributors and quilt shops all over the world.
In 2005 we closed our quilt shop to focus entirely on designing and publishing our own patterns.
In 2006, Gary retired and we added digitized machine embroidery to our ever growing line of products.
After 19 years working for a local company, our son, Scott Cribbs, joined FriendFolks. He is now Director of Warehouse, Distribution and Customer Service.
After 20 years in sales training and corporate management, our daughter, Michelle Barnett, joined FriendFolks. She is now our Director of Sales and Marketing.
In 2012, Turning Twenty® celebrated it's 10th birthday! We decided to celebrate by launching an entire new book series and Turning TEN® was born!
Which brings us to today. We have been so blessed with such amazing friends in this business. Our customers, shops, and distributors have made us who we are today! We could never thank you enough for all the love and support you show us each and every day. We are blessed to have been able to create a family business. Not many people experience the joy of working with your husband, son and daughter! Now, our grandchildren are becoming involved in the business. It's a wonderful life!
FriendFolks was born in 1994, but we are known around the world as the "Turning Twenty®" people, so this year we decided to officially change our name. We are now Turning Twenty®! This launched us into a total makeover of our entire business and thus..."The Change" has begun!!
Keep watching - you'll be seeing some wonderful things happening as we finish out 2013!
Blessings,
No comments:
Post a Comment