Greg Manning, owner of The Sewing Room
Q:Tell us about your business and how long you’ve been open?
A: The store has been open since 2010, 2011. I had a career change in 2015 and bought the store, so I've been here about 10 years.
Q: Tell us about some of the sewing products that you have in store?
A: So we're a sewing store and we also sell sewing machines, embroidery machines, quilting machines, and pretty much everything that someone would need or use or want in the sewing hobby. Fabrics, pins, needles, threads, all of those things. So we pretty much sell everything for somebody who is in the hobby or we also sell to people who are in business. They may make heirloom garments that they sell or for hire that they custom make and also folks in the embroidery business.
We sell to a lot of people who do monogramming and various types of embroidery for people for hire.
Q: Was sewing a hobby of yours?
A: My wife was sort of an amateur seamstress when we bought the store. I am not, but I certainly know how to service the machines, which is what I do.
Q: Tell us about the machines you service and you carry in the store?
A: We sell two brands of machines called Brother and Baby Lock, and certainly we offer warranty service repair on those brands. We also now have someone that will service pretty much any brand of machine.
Q: What has been the most rewarding part of being an owner and operator here at The Sewing Room?
A: That depends on what day you ask. Sometimes it's not rewarding, but just meeting people. I'm a people person, so I love all of our customers and love meeting new customers. I like when somebody who is here shopping and find something they really like or want and they're able to walk out with it, because this is a happy place for people who are shopping here. This is their hobby. … This is something they want to do and something that brings them a lot of happiness. And so that's probably the most rewarding thing, is just seeing that we've made somebody else happy in their hobby.
Q: What is something that others would find surprising about this industry?
A: If somebody who has no familiarity at all with sewing, I think they would be shocked to learn that we have some automated quilting machines that cost over $20,000. I think most people would say, wow, I had no idea. Any kind of sewing machine could be priced that way. But at the same time, you have people who buy those, and they start bringing in an income of $2,000 to $3,000 a month just quilting for people. So maybe even more. So anyway, I think somebody on the outside looking in would say, well, mom's old Singer didn't cost that much. But that would probably be shocking.
