Beyond Distributors & Social Media: How One Quilt Pattern Designer Built a Successful Business

Beyond Distributors & Social Media: How One Quilt Pattern Designer Built a Successful Business

From Quilting on the Side by Andi Stanfield and Tori McElwain

April 28, 2026 · 24 min · Season 6 · Episode 16

About this episode

Tori shares the story of Joyce, a pattern designer who successfully built her business by directly engaging quilt shops.

Send us Fan Mail What do you do when distributors keep saying no and social media isn't getting your patterns in front of the right people? In this solo episode, Tori shares the story of Joyce - a pattern designer and client who built a growing pattern business by going straight to quilt shops with smart research, personalized outreach, and a willingness to put the actual product in people's hands. Tori walks through Joyce's step-by-step approach: how she researched shops by studying what the...

People in this episode

Host: Tori McElwain

Topics covered

  • quilt pattern design
  • business strategy
  • entrepreneurship
  • personalized outreach
  • market research

Keywords

  • quilt patterns
  • business growth
  • social media
  • distributors
  • client outreach

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: quilt shops

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