Sewing business owner finally found his niche

The Sunday hours on the front door of Jeff's Sewing and Vacuum: Go to church.

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Tim Rausch/Staff

Jeff Faircloth stands in the showroom of Jeff's Sewing and Vacuum.

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Tim Rausch/Staff

Cathy Alvarez, store manager for Jeff's Sewing and Vacuum, conducts a quilt club meeting. She convinced Jeff Faircloth to add quilting at the shop.

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Tim Rausch/Staff

Jeff Faircloth stands in the showroom of Jeff's Sewing and Vacuum.

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Tim Rausch/Staff

Mr. Faircloth started repairing sewing machines at the urging of his brother, Nolan. He said he'd like to keep on fixing them, even after he stops running the store.

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Tim Rausch/Staff

Jeff Faircloth and his wife, Ruthie, moved to Augusta from Savannah, Ga. He has operated Jeff's Sewing and Vacuum for 20 years, after several years working for other businesses. He started with a small shop on Washington Road and has expanded twice. He said he has enough business to get even larger and wants to expand his repair shop. "It's been slow growth but that's the way I want it," he said.

Jeff Faircloth mingles faith and business. There are Christian symbols on stickers on his sewing machines and vacuums.

"I play Christian music. I don't do that to get sales," Mr. Faircloth said. "That's to remind me that when I walk onto this floor, I'm gonna be held accountable. I got to stand in front of the Lord one day. That's to remind me that this place has got to stay above reproach."

Mr. Faircloth said that his actions have cost him some customers over the years. He is disheartened to lose sales because people think the fish symbol is being displayed as a lure.

"That's the reason we're still here, so I'm going to give him the credit," Mr. Faircloth said. "He ain't gonna ask me how many sewing machines I sold, he's gonna ask me how I sold them."

Mr. Faircloth has been in the sewing business for 35 years, but he doesn't sew.

"I can train you. I'll sell it to you. I'll fix it," he said. "When it comes to sewing a pattern, I'm so blessed to have these ladies here."

His Washington Road shop has nine employees, including him.

"I don't micromanage; I let them do what they're good at, and it works," he said.

Mr. Faircloth's expertise is at the repair bench. The 54-year-old says he'll be willing to keep repairing sewing machines even after he retires from running the store.

"I hope whoever buys this place hires me back as a repairman, 'cause I like to sit back here and work on them," he said.

Ruthie Faircloth, his wife, who is a business development officer with Georgia Bank & Trust, said he's a patient man.

"He is a level-headed person. You would think that it would be hard to work with women, but he's really been good at that," she said.

She said his business makes him well known by people who sew.

When those people see his picture on her desk at the bank and ask how she knows the sewing and vacuum store owner, she replies:

"I'm Mrs. Jeff."

"It drives my kids crazy when we go out to eat. We're going to run into someone we know," Mr. Faircloth said.

Mrs. Faircloth has been in banking for 26 years. Mr. Faircloth has been fixing sewing machines in Augusta for 26 years.

"I can't remember names, but I know what kind of sewing machine they got when I see someone," he said.

Needle time

Mr. Faircloth says that he often hears the same questions: "You're in the sewing business? People still sew?"

"Now, you're thinking momma and grandma and things have changed. With the embroidery machines today ... the six-needle machine out here, that's become a hit. A lot of people staying home making good money," he explained.

He said the store sells a lot of machines to people who don't want to sew, but want to do embroidery.

"You get a lot of friends when you buy an embroidery machine. Everybody wants something embroidered," he said.

Sewing-machine technology has advanced along with other devices. The computers in some of the machines allow for downloadable designs. And the machine is so advanced, getting a project done is as easy as "change the thread and push a button."

The usual problem with a sewing machine is tension.

"Needles will break and it will hook, burr up a needle plate. It'll create skipping, timing problems, shredding of the thread," he said.

With some of the finer fabrics, the machine has got to be set right.

"The ladies that buy these machines, they love them. If it breaks, someone has got to know what they're doing," Mr. Faircloth said.

Jeff's Sewing and Vacuum will hit its 20th anniversary this year.

When he started, Mr. Faircloth rented a small section of a commercial strip across from the Kmart on Washington Road.

"I never thought that I'd fill this up," he said.

But a few years later, he knocked down the wall and expanded into the shop next door. Five years ago, the shop expanded again.

"It's been slow growth, but that's the way I want it," Mr. Faircloth said. "I could use a bigger store. I just don't want the overhead right now the way the economy is."

He'd like to have a larger repair shop. He's training some help.

The store repairs vacuums, too, but he has an employee that handles most of those. The common problem with those? They're cheap.

"What is sad on the vacuums today is most of them is throwaways," he explained. "The box costs more than the vacuum."

To hit the price point needed for big-box retailers, the vacuums that get put on the shelf are loaded with plastic parts that melt. What customers find when they bring it to him for repair is that the parts cost more than the vacuum's retail price.

That's when he tries to sell them a more expensive vacuum that will last longer. German-maker Miele is a popular brand in his store. It might cost $400, but a customer could spend the same amount on the throw-aways over all the years that the expensive one will work.

A lot of inexpensive sewing machines make their way into his repair shop, too.

"We do a ton of training (for those who want to sew). Anyone can take your money, that's the easy part. We usually win our customers after the sale," he said.

The training is free to customers, he said. They schedule only three per day, and the calendar fills up quickly.

"Can't use the product, what good is it? I want you happy with it, 'cause I want you to tell your friends where you bought it," Mr. Faircloth said.

The store incorporated quilting five years ago, and that has helped business.

General Manager Cathy Alvarez suggested it. Women who quilt are loyal customers, he said. A quilting meeting happens monthly at the store.

"A lot of our customers, when they've been in two or three times, I tell them you're family now," Mr. Faircloth said.

He has a family member working for him. His daughter, Julie, keeps the books in her spare time. She also works in the same bank as her mother. Their son is a delivery driver for Coca-Cola.

Mr. Faircloth doesn't have any hobbies. The store is open six days a week. His life is work, family and church.

He teaches Sunday school to fifth-grade boys and girls at West Acres Baptist Church. He also is a deacon and a member of the personnel committee.

Mrs. Faircloth is involved, too, in committees and the choir.

"We space it out, we don't want to be too busy, but we're involved," he said.

Sewn together

Mr. Faircloth started in the sewing business when he was 17 years old.

His older brother, Nolan, was managing a sewing store in Savannah, Ga., their hometown.

Mr. Faircloth was married, and the couple had a baby.

"He got me and said, 'You need to learn a trade.' I was working in a warehouse pulling groceries. I had to take a week's vacation to come over and work that week," Mr. Faircloth recalled.

His brother took him into the repair shop and asked him to learn the machine.

"This is all I got to do? I like this," Mr. Faircloth said.

Mrs. Faircloth said her husband had found his niche.

It was a sacrifice, though, because the job change meant a pay cut from $80 to $70 a week.

"Quit school in 10th grade and got into stuff that I shouldn't have," Mr. Faircloth said. "I got saved at 25 and that saved my life and my marriage. I got more involved in work. Basically, I quit my partying. I settled down."

But finding salvation didn't come without a struggle: three traffic accidents, a friend's suicide and visits from a preacher over the course of a year.

Mr. Faircloth's parents would take his son to church, where Jeff IV got involved in programs. Mr. Faircloth said he went to the programs and dropped a visitation card into the offering plate.

"The next Tuesday night, the preacher knocked on my door. He came for a year, we talked about the Bible. My marriage was starting to go wrong 'cause I was living for me," Mr. Faircloth said.

He fell asleep at the wheel while driving a motor home to Atlanta. He walked away with a few stitches after flipping it into the median.

"You'd think we were shooting a Miami Vice movie. Police come from everywhere."

Someone was trying to tell him something, his wife said.

Two more crashes happened in 1980 before he went to a revival and fell on his knees at the altar.

"It was like the world was lifted off, all that guilt," he said.

Unbeknownst to him, his wife was doing the same thing on the same night on the other end of the church.

"One week I'm at a bar and the next I'm in church," he said.

Where most young people go through wild days single, they went through it as married parents, Mrs. Faircloth explained. People have a hard time believing they were "party animals."

"We lived our hippie days during that time," she said.

After 10 years in Savannah, Mr. Faircloth was looking for a change and was recruited to move up to Augusta to work in a store called The Sewing Center. That was in 1983.

He eventually bought the store, but got burned out running his own business.

"Well, we were so young. We really didn't know what it took to own your own business," Mrs. Faircloth said.

He went to work for Mark Branum and Branum's Sewing and Vacuum Center, running the Aiken store.

"It was a joy to be working for someone else, but I missed it. I thought I never would miss working for myself," Mr. Faircloth said.

Like the other stores, Branum's had sewing and vacuum machines.

"I don't know who came up with that. In Savannah, we never dealt with vacuums. I came up here and that's the way it was," Mr. Faircloth said. "It works."

After all those years working on the sewing machines, Mr. Faircloth embraced the salesman role.

"I felt more comfortable because I knew what I was talking about. I was talking from the inside out," he said.

Because he works on the machines, he knows which ones work.

There are two antique sewing machines in the showroom that still work.

He said he sells about 20 belts a year to go into old-style sewing machines.

"You can't wear those out. They only do one thing, sew straight. And they do it very well," he said.

The antique sewing machines in Jeff's are missing their belts.

"We have to take the belts out because the kids would have a ball with them," Mr. Faircloth said. "I would, too."

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.