Almost 18 years after its initial conception, it would be no fabrication to say that A Stitch in Time has certainly sewn and grown. After its humble beginnings as a shop for sewing machines, the Bemidji business has now become a large thread in sewing, embroidery and quilting circles.

“It has grown to today where we do a lot of quilting machines, embroidery machines, and recently we’ve started getting into industrial sewing machines as well,” said A Stitch in Time owner Jay Stauffer.

The store also provides a vast array of materials for numerous crafting needs, including thread, transfer paper, fabric, and vinyl sheets.

Another aspect of A Stitch in Time is its repair services which can be done in-house to ensure no machine meets an un-seam-ly end.

“We do about two to three thousand machines a year as far as service work,” explained Stauffer. “We put on about 20,000 miles a year doing in-house servicing, primarily just for industrial machines that we sell or the long-arm quilting machines that we service all around northern Minnesota.”

In addition to selling sewing machines as well as the products that go along with them, A Stitch in Time also offers instructional courses for how to use the machines.

“For me that’s really fun because I get to play with some really high tech toys,” said A Stitch in Time Sales Manager Keith Johnson. “And I get to introduce those high tech toys to my customers, who are like, ‘I didn’t know this was possible, I didn’t know I could do this in my own home,’ and that’s really really fun to learn along with them and teach them the stuff that I’ve learned as well.”

That sense of stitching store and customer together and maintaining a connection with the community was after all the very reason A Stitch in Time began.

“My passion is still in the interaction with people, that’s what I enjoy, having them come in, being able to find out what their needs are, and having a product to fit that,” said Stauffer.

By — Justin Othoudt