Kim’s Story
Kim is a high school math teacher in Kansas. We were friends since middle school, but I only discovered she could sew when she volunteered to help make face masks during the first days of quarantine. Normally, she teaches math during the day, coaches sports in the afternoons, volunteers to track stats and run the scoreboards for athletic competitions, works a second job at a local retailer, and then teaches Sunday school. She wasn’t made for quarantine life, and she itched to get back to helping people.
We asked her first to make masks from home, but she kept thinking of different ways she could improve our operation. First, she volunteered to deliver supplies to the remote stitchers so we could keep our attention on other tasks. Then she started to drop off supplies at the studio. But she wouldn’t leave; instead, she organized our shelves, packaged orders, and cut fabric, twice as fast as anyone else. Finally, I asked her to stop sewing and start working full time in the studio to manage the operation. We fulfilled thousands of orders with no more than a ten day turn time largely due to her “I get stuff done” attitude. In the days when customers rang my phone every five minutes, I could assure them that everything was under control — because Kim was behind me making it so.
She also made me laugh. For six weeks, after the first deluge of orders, I worked 16 hour days. I was tired, cranky, and I missed my family. Kim would solve an operational problem, order lunch, and then laugh infectiously at the latest funny meme she saw on Twitter. She kept me sane.
When we launched Madison Stitch, I asked her to learn how to make linen and leather bags. Her experience before was in quilting; making bags and working with leather wasn’t in her wheelhouse. She doubted herself, and perceived the other stitchers as more talented. But she knew how to problem solve, and she would iterate her way through a design until she got it perfect. She developed the leather pleated bag on her own, choosing the colors, the leather, and the style. Already, the bag is our most popular design. I like to think that’s because people can see, in her bag, the beauty that results from logical problem solving — and her infectious laugh.
