News
Company turns sales inside out
After 11 years, sewing notion goes local
By PAUL MACOMBER
Fasturn
Junction sewing notions and accessory shop is a reversal on the normal
flow of marketing. Don and Emma Graham tackled worldwide retailing first,
then opened a store in the Rogue Valley.
They launched their business in Medford 11 years ago when engineer Don Graham created the Fasturn, a tool to turn fabric tubes inside out.
"I gave my husband a tube to turn and he was trying to do it with a knitting needle," Emma Graham says. "He thought it was very chaotic. The next day he came up with the idea for a tool. People have been turning tubes the hard way for hundreds of years."
The device consists of a wire within a tube that cleanly draws the sewn tube inside out.
They patented the Fasturn and began marketing it in trade shows, national and global distribution networks. It sells all over the world.
"It seems that when you have a business in an area, the local stores don't want to participate," Emma Graham said. "It's not just here, people all over say this."
(Some of their products are now offered at Calico Junction in Jacksonville and Rosebud Quilts and Cottons in Medford.)
After a decade of worldwide marketing, they have opened Fasturn Junction at 3859 South Stage Road, southwest of Medford.
"We decided to educate the people in the valley," she explained. The store, open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, offers a variety of sewing tools, hard-to-find notions, patterns and unique fabrics.
They hope to offer classes daily in a state-of-the-art sewing classroom with Husqvarna Viking sewing machines donated by Terry Smith, owner of Viking Distributing Co., Medford, and video monitors.
"I plan to involve the support of many organizations and hold community sewing events here, creating clothing, baby items, quilts, etc., for local shelters and charitable organizations," she said.
In addition to the fabric turner, they've patented a foot lifter -- a device that elevates the sewing machine's foot -- and two other innovations. They've copyrighted about 20 patterns.
The products are manufactured next door to the store. Plastic parts are injection-molded at Proto-Mold Manufacturing in White City.
The business employs 10 people altogether in the manufacturing of products, design and fabrication of patterns, catalog and retail sales. They don't disclose annual sales.
"We're getting ready to publish our first coloring book in conjunction with doll designs," said Debra Elwood, who helps manage the business.
Much of the equipment was developed by Don Graham, who was a nuclear engineer with General Electric in San Jose, Calif.
His wife was working for a dentist who needed somebody to fabricate crowns, so he went into business with a dental lab called the Crowning Touch.
They moved to Southern Oregon and started a remodeling business called the Crowning Touch. Crowning Touch also became the parent company of their Fasturn Junction and the Fasturn product.
Sometimes the name Crowning Touch causes confusion.
"A lot of people think it's a hair salon," Emma Graham said. "That's another business in town.