Conversations with Beth Gabel

Today we’d like to introduce you to Beth Gabel. 

Hi Beth, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My mother was very artistic and talented. She taught my sisters and I to paint, sew, quilt, crochet, cook, and so much more. We did craft shows on the weekends and we sewed and crafted during the week. I worked for a shop called Theatrical Accessories, in Findlay, OH while in high school and college, making costumes. Went to college for banking and spent 15 years in banking before the brand-new JoAnn ETC store opened up at Polaris. It was the first of its kind. I was the education coordinator and designed classes to teach students how to use the products that we sold at JoAnn’s. Spent another 15 years there. JoAnn’s was no longer the family-owned company I had started working for, and frankly, their education program was a mess. So, I ventured out on my own and started Inspiring U. I partnered with a friend, Jessica Rudolph, who owns a non-profit called My Very Own Blanket. She had a great shop where volunteers came in to work on blankets for foster children. The shop was only being used in the mornings. So, I began running classes there in the evenings and weekends. She had all the machines, tables, chairs, irons, fabric, and everything I needed, so I didn’t have to make a huge initial investment. We decided to move to a busier shopping center in Westerville in 2017. Once we did that, both of our businesses took off and we needed to separate, so she moved next door to me, in the same strip mall! We still help each other out all the time. My primary business, and passion, is teaching sewing and crochet. I love to teach the quilting, painting, jewelry making, macrame, wood-burning, and clay classes, but I am kept super busy with the demand for sewing and crochet classes. That’s our bread and butter. I have 8 other ladies who also teach at Inspiring U. They teach things that they are specialists at, like cake decorating, knitting, paper quilling, card crafting, long-arm quilting, and others. 

We teach both kids and adult classes. The majority of my business is in the summer with our Summer Kids Camp programs. We offer both Sewing Camps and Art and Craft Camps. We also have lots of local daycares bring their school-aged kids to our shop for some Artistic Field Trips. We have kids at the shop all day, and then adult and kid classes in the evenings and weekends. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I was in a car accident and shattered by spine and had to have part of it replaced with cadaver vertebrae. This happened the 6 months before I opened my business. It was one of those moments when I realized that life was short, and I always wanted to own my own business, and now was the time! I deal with lots of pain from that, but I manage. Then 3 years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had surgery 6 days prior to my summer camps starting. Because I didn’t rest appropriately, I had to have a second surgery in August of the same year, then followed it up with radiation that fall. All is well since then, however. 

Then of course, there was Covid. I closed Inspiring U, just like all other businesses for a few months. In order to continue to have income, I went back to a side-gig that I had done for many years when my own children were growing up, and that is making t-shirt quilts for people. You see, lots of college kids came home when Covid first started, and parents had them clean out the stuff from their rooms, and that included all those shirts they collected over the years. Also, lots of people were dying, and I have made many quilts from the clothing of a loved one. So, I posted it on Facebook on both my business and personal pages, and I was instantly swamped with quilt orders. I even hired a friend to help me with all the orders. We used the tables and space at Inspiring U and became kind of a quilting factory! 

When we went back to having classes in person, it was slow to get started. I taught lots of private lessons or groups of people who were all related to one another. But now we are back and busier than ever! 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I personally specialize in sewing skills and crocheting. There are very few places that teach crochet, and we get customers from all over Ohio. I have taught myself to crochet left-handed too so that I can help all of those students as well. What sets apart from the other stores is that we don’t sell anything, so we are not in business to get you to purchase a huge, lengthy, and expensive list of supplies like the big box stores, or quilt stores do. Our mission is to pass on the love of being creative. As our website says “Our Mission is Inspiring U!” JoAnn’s requires a minimum of 3 students to hold a class. At Inspiring U, if you sign up for a class, we run it! All of our beginner classes have all of your supplies included so that you don’t have to go and try to figure out what the supplies are for something you know nothing about yet. We teach you in the Beginner classes what all the tools of the trade are, and all that you need to know to make smart purchases for your supplies. 

And lastly, we are known for our patient instructors. We teach because we love what we do and we want to pass that love on to others. There’s not a lot of money in it. We are just passionate about our crafts! 

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I firmly believe that the crafting industry is going to continue to skyrocket! As we spend more and more time on our computers, and cell phones, we yearn for the tactile creativity that comes with working with yarn, or fabric, or paint, or clay. Crafting creates endorphines that make us happy, and I believe the world is just beginning to figure this out. 

Contact Info:

• Email: inspiringuclasses@gmail.com
• Website: https://inspiring-u.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspiringuclasses
• Yelp: Inspiring U