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Who-What-Huh

Who-What-Huh

First, Who - Mark Tuescher opened the doors for business part time in August 4th 1994. Actually it was a patio door leading into a spare room in the apartment building that he called home located in Madison, Wisconsin. Mark began with a single head embroidery machine with no experience in knowing how to run it or how to digitize the designs. A Screen Printer for six years prior, Mark thought he could start up a business of his own part time. Without the room to do Screen Printing, the only other alternative was to dive into Embroidery. It was all learn as you go with many mistakes as first but with all the mishaps came a good knowledge of how to do it right the first time. Mark learned quickly how to use the embroidery machine and how to digitize the designs with few problems. The most trouble were the times coming home after work, to work his Embroidery only to find quite often a UPS slip stuck to the sliding door, then with a quick drive around the neighborhood searching for the UPS truck to get the package for an order that he needed to have embroidered the next day having only till 10:00 to run his machine so not to disturb the neighbors next door. A few times the single head machine had to be carried outside into the his 1-car garage so Mark could Embroider past 10:00, sometimes working all night taking naps while the machine ran, until being woken up when the machine beeped at the end of the design. Leisure Threads was quickly out growing the space that Mark had available to grow into, so now,

What - Mark made the decision to move Leisure Threads into the basement of the Fast Forward skating rink where Mark worked part-time. Now with more space and room, Mark expanded by adding another single head embroidery machine. Now Mark and had more time to keep the machines running without having to drive all over chasing that UPS truck. The only thing was, working in a basement and working in a roller rink meant, that Mark had to run up and down stairs while wearing roller skates which was a bit of a challenge at times but luckily, with no accidents. Those two machines ran non-stop all day and is was a good thing that Mark could skate well, because it sure came in handy to get from skating floor to basement when he had wheels on his feet. Often Mark would be the DJ, spinning songs during a skate session and while the songs would play, he would literally race down stairs to check or make sure the machines were running or to change a hoop with plenty of time to get back up stairs and have the next song cued before the song that was playing had ended. Most of the time Mark was able to leave his Embroidery and work at the rink, but the more Mark did Embroidery, the more in demand his service came and within a few years, Mark had to make another decision of how to get his embroidery done more efficiently, that meant adding another machine. This time a single head just would not do, it was time for a larger machine and with a larger machine, Mark needed more space, and it was impossible to get a six head machine in the basement of the rink, so he had to find another place of business to grow into.

Huh - Maybe it was just fate, but Mark one day was driving around through Verona and noticed this place for sale. It had potential, but it had two large pine trees in front of the building with one large maple tree that was ready to fall at any given moment it seemed by how badly it was rotten. Mark bought the property and began thinking up ideas of what to do.

more to come . . .