Handi-Quilter

Recently I got to tour the Handi Quilter headquarters in North Salt Lake. This is an awe-inspiring company. I was impressed by their quality control, their friendliness, the walls filled with quilts, and the family-feel to the company.
I was unaware, however that Handi-Quilter and Golden Threads were sister companies. I was also unaware that such a treasure is right here in Utah!

I have been drooling over these machines for several years, and have purchased many products from their sister company, Golden Threads. 

 This wall spotlights HQ owners recently honored for their HQ Stories for 2011. They were thrown a party. And their pictures grace this wall in the main office

The people here are so friendly. They greet you like you are a long-lost friend and welcome you like royalty.

Darren, CFO was our tour guide. He is showing us the warehouse where all the products and parts are stored.

Darren, our tour guide and CFO first took us to the main assembly room. It was large and buzzing with working machines, and workers busy with their own tasks. 
I expressed how impressed I was that this product is American made. He told us that some of the parts are made in different countries. For instance, the hook on the quilter is imported from Italy, because they make the best, most precision hooks. Impressive. I love that they are all assembled here.

All the machines are quality tested. This room had machines running for 6 hours varying the speeds from slow to fast and back to slow. Once they pass this test, then they are moved back into the main room.




 




Each machine is tested for 20 minutes at least. If there is a problem, they are taken through the checklist again for another 20 minutes to make sure it is running properly.
The quilt sandwiches made for testing are bound and donated to charity.

Here they are assembling the machines.

Two of the women on my tour, DeAnn and Lisa.

The workers there are like a family. 

 As we toured, the woman on the left was a recently retired worker and everywhere we went people jumped up and came to her to give her a hug and chat with her.

 
This room is the studio. Here is where they film tutorials, host retreats where people come to learn how to use their newly purchased machines and throw parties. One woman in our group has flown in from California several times is an old friend to all.

The machines you see in the picture are called Sweet 16. It is a sit-down quilting machine featuring 16 inches of space for the quilt. I got to try these out. It seemed weird at first, then perfectly normal to sit at the "nose" of the machine rather than at its side.









This is the classroom. The walls are filled with quilt samples of what is taught in the retreats.








The office walls were filled with quilts made by employees.

This quilt was done by an employee. I love how he used various metallic thread colors to echo the star.













another amazing quilt
 

Beautiful, inspiring quilts. I wish I lived closer, this would be my dream job to work anywhere in this building.

I quite enjoyed our tour, and getting to play on the Sweet 16 machine. It gives me incentive to continue saving my sewing money so I can have one of these beauties in my own home. Thank you Handi Quilter. You are an amazing and wonderful local treasure.

~a