Shirlene Hendrix, 67, is nowhere near retirement. You can tell by the pride in her eyes when she shows off her shop that the Bayfield business owner loves what she does too much to give it up.
“I love every minute. I wouldn’t trade it,” said Hendrix, the owner of Once in a Blue Moon LLC, a garment printing and embroidery business. “I have people say, ‘Aren’t you even wanting to retire?’ And really, I can’t. I’m 67, and I don’t see that in my future anytime soon. I love what I do.”
Hendrix, who runs the business with her husband, Bruce, started the shop in 2011 out of her home at 984 Ludwig Drive, just five miles north of Bayfield. Eventually, she outgrew her space in the house and moved her wares and machinery into their garage. Bruce runs the garment printing side of their business while Shirlene manages the embroidery work. Shirlene embroiders everything from patches to letterman jackets.
“I’m the only one, that I know of, in the area (that does letterman jackets) other than down in Farmington,” Shirlene said.
Due to county code, Shirlene can run her business in her subdivision, but she cannot have customers there. Therefore, she must pick up and deliver products herself for customers, but it’s a facet of the business that offers a personal touch.
“People love that. They love that they don’t have to gather their stuff up, bring it to me, and pick it up and everything. They like that I’m going to pick it up and deal with all of that,” Shirlene said.
Shirlene has been sewing since the seventh grade. She started embroidering for other people while she worked cleaning houses. People began to ask her to embroider items for them like pillows, leather and placemats, and she decided to stick with it until it snowballed into a business. She started off with a single embroidery machine, and about five years ago, she upgraded to a 10-needle machine.
Much of the couple’s business has taken off via word of mouth. Currently, some of their customers include the Bayfield Marshall’s Office and three different entities with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.
“A lot of my customers, like your Marshal’s Office, they do fundraisers for their scholarships and they do the breast cancer (campaign) in October. With those (orders), they tell us what colors of shirts they want. We order all their shirts and any hats or anything like that. I sew on a lot of patches, do a lot of that kind of stuff,” Shirlene said.
“On my letterman’s jackets, everybody this year it seemed like they wanted their stuff embroidered and not the chenille patches. So this year, I decided to tackle that and all the embroidery this year. I have done all that instead of having it done through a supplier. So that’s gone really well. People have really, really liked that because I let them, like for their jacket backs, they may not want the standard mascot on the back.
“I’ve done a number of them where I gave them a website to go to to look at different embroidery designs, and they build their own designs. They tell me what they want, and I stitch them all out and put it on the jacket backs.”
The opportunity to be creative with the embroidery designs is what especially drives Shirlene to keep working.
“I love the customer contact. I love the embroidery,” Shirlene said. “I love the creativity of the designs that the kids are coming up with for their letterman’s jackets. I really, really do like that.”
To contact Once in a Blue Moon, call them at (970) 946-1162 or visit their website, onceinabluemoonllc.com.
