The Men Behind the Quilted Twins!

You didn't really think we do all this ourselves, do you?

Nah. We might write blogs, buy fabrics, design quilts, sew quilts and figure binding amounts, but we don't do much of the heavy lifting.

We want to give some due diligence to all the men in our lives who have helped us in so many different ways.

First, on Rachael's side of the twin equation:

There's Ken Woodard, my husband: (click on the picture to see more of what he does, as it's a slide show)

Ken has been the mastermind behind building all the shelves... and is constantly thinking about ways to make things run a tad bit more smoothly, especially in the building department. He likes to build shelves, plan shelves, buy buildings and rearrange what I've done! On the weekly front, he's taken it upon himself to be the one to put away the fabrics after they've been cut off the bolts. He works non stop at nights bolting up flat folds for us here as well, which makes it easier for me to cut the half yard packs. Ken also puts up without complaining, of having an entire house filled with fabrics.

Then, there's Michael Ritschard.

He's the husband of Sarah, my daughter, who cuts, cuts, cuts, makes fat quarter packs and fills orders. Michael, however, does none of that. He builds shelves that Ken plans, moves stuff and generally puts up with all of us females wanting to go and "play in the fabrics," which means he gets "child duty." (Sarah and Michael have 2 adorable girls, but they do not play in the fabrics with us.)

Matt Hurst has helped Michael build and move many a shelf and boxes. He says that he doesn't play well in fabrics, so he leaves that up to the women folk. His input is minimal, and he avoids females, fabric and children as much as possible, so he sticks with the shelf building! (The funny thing is that he's quite capable with a needle and thread and has been known to sew things out of camo fabric for his stints in the woods working as a re-enactor!)

Micah Felber is our local hands on go-to guy who has helped design our postcards, our banners, our signs and works with our technical equipment to be sure we have a decent internet and all the other gadgets that make this whole thing work. On the weekly front, he's the one who takes the money! He's constantly making in-house signs for us and makes up anything else we need computer related! (Everyone needs a person like this around!) (He also happens to be the Assistant Pastor to my husband, whose main job is NOT support staff to Rachael, but rather, pastor of Temple Baptist Church, here in Dade City, FL.)

Steven Woodard, (Rachael's son) is the guy behind our website updates. He currently is residing in Ohio, where he works from behind the screen to make the website "do" whatever crazy notion that his mama comes up with.  Recently he made up the "fabric choices by dot colors" that resides on the landing page, and the sign in sheet. There's a bunch of pictures on here, too... Just click around to find more pictures).

Peter Woodard, (Rachael's son),  came down for 2 weeks recently, and helped unbury me by taking photos of fabrics pretty consistently over 2 weeks, so we could get the fabrics out of the garage and up on the shelves and onto the site. When he lives here he's pretty good at the entertaining Joan aspect, too, so Sarah and I can get a lot done!

Andy Woodard, (Rachael's oldest son), played a vital role at the beginning, when he helped to build the website, initially, but has moved mostly out of the picture into planting a church in NYC, though he does have a pretty vital role of  "Go, Mom, go," which, in and of itself, is pretty important. Plus, he did come down at Christmas time and he and Peter took to cleaning out the current Quilted Twins fabric warehouse building with gusto, to make room for the current fun that we're having.

David Tillman, our older brother, has generally been an enthusiastic helper in many ways. He's an accountant by trade, so naturally he delights in dealing with numbers. The first week we had him taking money. Then we've had him collecting email addresses as well as helping to show people where the fabrics are. He's good with people and has lots of enthusiasm for our "store project."

Then, on Becky's side of the Quilted Twins equation:

Michael J Petersen, Becky's husband, puts up with a tremendous amount of fabric mess and quilting and all that stuff! I'm sure he does lots more, even if it's just very behind the scenes, but having our husbands' support is extremely important in this adventure we're having!

He is more minimally involved, but he did make Becky a nice wooden chair/ladder to help her reach all the high places in her fabric shelves! I got to see it and was able to use it when I went back last summer! It's really amazing. Here is another picture of Mike working on a bookcase for holding fabric!

Also most recently he was found sanding the table top where Becky sandwiches all her quilts - and takes lots of pictures too!

Tim on the left, and Mike, on the right - working on the table.

Tim, in FL is on the right. Tim is Becky's second child.

Tim Petersen (Becky's son) stopped in for 5 days in February, and in one day alone he spent 8 hours doing nothing but photographing fabrics for me. Between Tim and me, we got up over 100 bolts of fabric on the site that day alone.

Daniel Petersen, (Becky's youngest son), was here last summer, and he was vitally important in getting Quilted Twins moving in the pace that it's moving now.

Last summer, he worked consistently hour after hour, taking pictures for us. He also built the master computer that we have now and set up our photography station where we take the fabric photographs.

His help was critical in getting our "system" in place, since he set up the photographs to automatically link to the computer. When we take a picture, it's automatically loaded into the master Quilted Twins computer! How cool is that?

Also, when you see a really amazing picture of a quilt on the blog, there's a 99% chance he took the picture!  He also helped Becky get up her clothes line in Poland where she now hangs up all her quilts to get pictures. (Becky added these!)

That's Daniel up on the ladder and Tim, when  he was visiting in Poland a couple of years ago, holding the ladder for him.

And now you know.... What looks like a Quilted Twins Duo project could more aptly be called, Quilted Twins Family Duo project, as we definitely could NOT be doing this without our family's involvement!

Three cheers for the men in our lives who help us so we can help you to have fun helping others!

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We trust you have a wonderful day, wherever you are reading this!

And now you've got a chance to buy some of those bundles that some of the men behind the QT have helped so much with!

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