After 14 years in the grocery business, I was looking to open a small business of my own. It just so happened that I was put in charge of finding embroidered aprons for the grocery store I worked for. I visited a couple of different embroidery and t-shirt shops. While getting quotes from these businesses I thought “Wow this looks like fun” and fun was definitely a priority in whatever I ended up doing.
A wise man once said: “Find something you love to do and you’ll never work another day in your life.”
A short time after I ordered and received our aprons from the embroidery company, I started research on the industry. Over the next 6 months I collected anything and everything I could that pertained to embroidery and garment printing. Like it was meant to be, a national embroidery trade show just happened to be in Seattle. I attended the show and was able to find all the equipment and supplies necessary to run an embroidery business. We were able to hook up with several different apparel suppliers and started many great relationships with a lot of people in the industry. To this day I am good friends with many of the same people.
Eagle’s Nest Embroidery was established in the summer of 1995. At that time in Stanwood, finding a rental space was almost impossible. After three months of looking, all we could find was about the worst location possible. Upstairs in the Granary building in east Stanwood. With very limited parking and horrible lighting, we opened our (at the top of 18 stairs) doors.
Having been a part of the Stanwood/Camano area since 1975, I’ve been able to make a lot of contacts for my future embroidery and garment printing business. It didn’t take long before we were humming along.
The embroidery machines and software are very complex so we definitely wanted to grow slow. Even after over 20 years in the industry, we are still learning. I absolutely love my business and staff! We have SO much fun. Thanks for taking the time to read this. We look forward to providing exceptional service and superior products to you.