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| SUMMIT PHOTO BY MARY LODEN
Rhonda Jordal, owner of Memories & Keepsakes Quilts, shows off one of her many quilt patterns with a matching accessory. |
Local entrepreneur has gone international
Memories & Keepsakes Quilts has hit international market and will be featured in magazine
By Mary Loden
Of The Summit
After six years of leaping entrepreneurial growth Rhonda Jordal still can't help but be amazed at the success of her businesses, Memories and Keepsakes and Memories and Keepsakes Quilts. “It's crazy because it happened so fast,” Jordal said. “To think where we were and now six years later..”
Not only has one of her friends and employees broken off to start a business of her own but Memories and Keepsakes Quilts has now hit the international market - while still being located in the basement of her home.
Let's rewind and see how it all started.
Jordal was working full-time in sales and promotions for KIOW radio in Forest City. In her free time she enjoyed making craft items such as fashion pins, pillows and appliquéd garments, which she was lucky enough to sell at eight area stores.
When the demand grew for her products her husband, Dale, told her she needed to quit her job and go into business for herself.
She admitted that is was scary walking away from a comfortable, safe job, but with all her business, accounting and marketing skills she was already half way there. She also had a large clientele base and lots of networking opportunities.
In the midst of all this her friend and sorority sister, Deb Schultz, “wanted me to learn quilting. I said I had no time and no patience, but she came over on a Sunday afternoon and we made a wall hanging,” Jordal said. “After that I was hooked.”
After she added quilts to the products she was marketing she knew her old Montgomery Ward sewing machine just wouldn't be able to keep up. Being a dutiful husband, with an eye on the future, Dale bought Rhonda a new baby lock sewing machine with a special embroidery feature.
She went from appliquéd garments to a full scale custom embroidery, screen printing and direct -on-garment printing business and was even able to offer her customers promotional items after she hooked up with Robert's Specialty Company in Austin, Minn., where her son had gotten a job.
This would have been enough. She had a business most people would envy, but Schulz and a few other sorority sisters had a different idea. They knew that with Jordal's background in writing, sewing and quilting she should be writing patterns of her own.
“In 2004 I wrote my first pattern,” Jordal said excitedly. “I had an idea come to me about a snowflake quilt.”
In 2001 she started sketching her ideas. With the aid of a computer program she was able to transform her sketches into a software program that enabled her to move blocks around and play with colors. But it took her another three years to find the exact material she wanted to use.
“That was just the art work. Then the real work comes,” Jordal said. “I had to write the program.” She wrote it up in three different sizes, wrote the instructions out row by row and calculated the fabric yardage for each color and the whole quilt.
After the quilt prototype is made the pattern instructions go to two different testers, who make the quilt and look for errors in the instructions. “I make corrections and reprint the pattern,” Jordal said. “Then it goes on to a retired high school English teacher, Alice Lewellyn, and she proofreads the pattern.”
The Jordals do all their own pattern printing, photography and packaging in their own home. “It's a family thing. When we need patterns to go out the door than everyone is bagging,” Jordal said with a grin.
Marian Lenz and Barb Snitzer were the first two pattern testers. “They've been on board since the very first pattern,” Jordal said. “By the third pattern we had two more testers, Jayne Shaffer and Elaine Shultz. Then Deb Schulz started doing all my professional long arm quilting and started her own business, Wren Haven Quilting.”
She has since added two more testers to her quilting family, Charlotte Hippen from Nevada and Sharon Hill from Waukee.
Jordal now has almost 200 finished patterns in a drawer just waiting for the right material and is working with eight different fabric companies.
One of those companies, Maywood Studio in Portland, Org., displayed a Memories and Keepsakes Quilt pattern at the annual Spring Market two years ago.
They were so impressed that when they introduced a new line of fabrics, “they asked if I wanted to make a pattern for those,” Jordal said. “I was the only designer for that line of fabric.”
Each Memories and Keepsakes Quilts pattern is made for every quilter - beginner to advanced - Jordal said. Each also contains a pattern for an accessorized piece and a coordinating recipe.
She has now written five quilt patterns for Maywood Studios and they continue to send her artwork for new fabrics. “That doesn't just happen. It's hard to get to that point. There are so many designers and everyone is looking to get with a fabric company,” Jordal said.
The pattern displayed by Maywood Studios was picked up by a U.S. distributor, a company that sells patterns. “Then there was a second distributor. Now my patterns are sold internationally,” Jordal said.
But there is more.
When Maywood Studios displayed more of her quilts at Fall Market 2007 they were noticed by representatives of a new quilt maker's magazine, who told Jordal they would like to put her quilt in their magazine.
“It's a really big thing to get accepted into a magazine. Now I'm working with two others to get accepted,” Jordal said, fairly bubbling over.
“My goal is to market 12 to 20 patterns in 2008, which is really aggressive. But I couldn't do it without the help of everyone else,” she said. “It's a “we” thing. I really value all the gals that help with this.”
Story created Jan 29, 2008 - 16:00:12 CST.
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