The Truth About AI's Environmental Impact for Quilters with Theresa the AI Quilter

In this episode of Quilting on the Side, Andi and Tori welcome back Theresa Benson  - the AI Quilter for a fascinating conversation about how artificial intelligence is showing up in the quilting world.

Since her last appearance on the podcast, Theresa has been busy speaking at guilds, mentoring quilters, presenting on the big stage at QuiltCon, and researching some of the biggest questions people have about AI.

Together they discuss:

• How AI is actually being used by quilters today
 • Why some of the environmental concerns around AI have recently been greatly exaggerated
• What Theresa discovered while researching the topic for her white paper
• How AI fits into the creative process without replacing human creativity
• When (and if) AI use should be disclosed in quilting projects
• Practical ways quilters and quilt business owners can use AI responsibly

The conversation also touches on teaching, presenting programs for guilds, and how creative entrepreneurs can balance giving value while still running a sustainable business.

It’s a thoughtful, insightful, and educational episode that brings clarity to a topic many creatives are still figuring out.

Don’t miss an episode! Like, comment, and subscribe for more quilting stories, tips, and industry insights.

Mentioned in the Episode:
Theresa's Book: Digital Muse: Bringing AI into Your Creative Process
Theresa's White Paper on Environment and AI
Opting Out of Data Sets - Blog Post  

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to AI in Quilting
10:27 AI vs. Fabric Manufacturing Water Usage
16:30 The Villainization of AI
22:44 AI's Influence in Quilting
34:15 Navigating AI in Business and Teaching
44:10 The Return of Teresa: A Richer Conversation

Connect with Theresa:

Instagram - https://instagram.com/theaiquilter

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresabenson/  

Website - https://theaiquilter.com

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIQuilter

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Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech & https://www.heytori.tech/

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts & https://truebluequilts.com/ 

Transcript

Andi (00:05.772)
Welcome to this week's episode of Quilting on the Side, and we have another repeat guest. We don't ever have enough time to have conversations with our favorite quilters, so we have to have them back for multiple episodes. And we are here today with Teresa, the AI quilter. And AI is always on the forefront of people's mind in the digital space. And I'm just curious as to how it's impacting the

quilt world right now. So Teresa, give people a quick introduction and tell us what you've been up to lately.

Theresa The AI Quilter (00:41.882)
It is so good to be back. Thank you so much for reaching out. And I agree, there's never enough time with a wonderful host like you. It has been amazing. The response and the questions and the curiosity has made me really hopeful for the creative world.

I still, you know, in the time since we last talked, I still get a lot of concern and questions and I feel like Michelle Obama, I have a t-shirt from her, one of her books, there's a quote that says it's harder to hate up close, right? And what I hear sometimes in the questions is almost like a hate or an anger or a fear of what this

technology is.

But what I love and what I've been deeply grateful for is that people are at least voicing their questions, voicing their fears. And when that happens, it invites conversation, right? And so I've been having a lot of conversations with guilds, with individual quilters. Since we last met, I launched sort of like a one-on-one mentoring program with quilters who have had ideas

their brains and want to get it out in fabric and don't know where to start. I've been doing a lot more teaching, expanded the classes I teach to include stuff about scams that people are perpetrating on other people.

Theresa The AI Quilter (02:20.494)
And yeah, I just got back from Raleigh and QuiltCon where I got to speak on the big stage and that was amazing. It was an amazing, profound gift and I'm eternally grateful to the MQG for putting me on the schedule. So it's been a busy time. It really has.

Andi (02:43.17)
Yeah, it sounds like a lot of exciting stuff.

Theresa The AI Quilter (02:46.266)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tori McElwain (02:50.356)
We'd love to hear what you found that has changed in the AI world since we last talked to you.

Theresa The AI Quilter (02:56.43)
Yeah, so, you know, I had gotten a question, I can't recall if it was just before we spoke last or shortly after from somebody I really respect in the quote world. She had sent me a screenshot of a social media post about the environmental impact of AI. And she was like, I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this. And I read it and it was really alarming. And I thought to myself, gosh, okay.

If my whole thing is AI is okay to use you can use it responsibly blah blah blah But there's this information out here that says that it's gonna destroy the planet. Well, those two things can't both be true Let's go figure out what the truth is. And so that set me off on like a two-month research project I felt like I was back in high school, right and I I read stuff from water and wastewater organizations

I looked at university research. I looked at a lot of the articles and books being published about the environmental impact of AI and I wrote this white paper called Thirsty Intelligence and it puts in context for folks.

the water consumption of artificial intelligence, which I'll explain what that is in a moment, it puts it in the context of our digital footprint in general, like right now, right? We are on a platform that's cloud-based, which means it's resident in a data center somewhere in the world, right? And so,

Like in the context of our digital footprint, what is AI doing? But then even more in the context of our footprint as human beings on this planet, whether it's hamburgers or car manufacturing or...

Theresa The AI Quilter (04:54.914)
The most recent research I found, I live across street from a golf course, is how much water golf courses consume. it turns out it's actually pretty minimal. But then the craziest thing happened in December. In December, there was a correction issued from this author of a book called The Empire of AI.

she had to issue a correction that the numbers all over her book, and she's an MIT educated researcher who had a publishing house and editors review her work, and then early copies went to The Economist and the New York Times and everything, and editors read it and wrote articles, and all of a sudden, she had to issue a correction that she was off not by four times.

Not by 45 times, but off by 4,500 times when it came to her estimates of the environmental impact of an AI data center on a community.

And so I was like, God, well, if I was that one of my sources, did I get it all wrong? You know, like, what's weird is I don't it's not weird, but I don't see that correction making its way through the same channels, right?

They say in journalism if it bleeds it leads right but Corrections in the old timey days when there were print newspapers it was like after the garage sale announcements in the Classifieds and just before the obituaries there'd be like a three-sentence Correction right hey this catastrophic the sky is falling horrible terrible news that we published six months ago Was actually completely overblown and it's

Theresa The AI Quilter (06:49.142)
real, right? It's that tiny and nobody covers it. So fortunately it turned out that my numbers were the right numbers and she had to correct back to something more close to mine, thank God. Thank you for clapping. Because I was really worried, you know, if I'm gonna say that it's okay, you know, I better have done my homework.

But yeah, so the thing about AI using water, and I actually had a lot of people come up to me after my QuiltCon talk to talk about it more. The way data centers work is air conditioning isn't enough. So they pump cold water in pipes and also thin metal panels all around the servers to try and keep them cool.

and there is an amount of water that gets released as steam. But for the most part, not all data centers, but for the most part, these tend to be closed systems.

They often use what's called non-potable water. It's not water that we would be drinking anyway. And in some cases, depending, they actually clean the water before they return it to an aquifer. So they're actually doing something good. And what gets confused is the concept of withdrawing water from a community water supply versus consuming water. And people...

conflate those two terms thinking they're the same, that if you withdraw water from a supply that means that you've consumed it, it is no longer available to the community in which that data center lives. When in fact the withdrawal just means it comes out and comes back, whereas consumption means it comes out

Theresa The AI Quilter (08:51.552)
some amount is lost to steam and the rest is, you know, in a closed system, either re-cooled and re-circulated or clean and returned to the community. And so I'm trying to get that word out a little bit that it, hi kitty cat. I'm trying to get that word out that maybe, just maybe,

The alarm is, it should be paid attention to. Don't get it twisted. Environmental impact of our digital footprint is huge, but maybe it's not near as bad as what we were led to believe last summer. Yeah.

Tori McElwain (09:33.39)
I'm out, I'm getting a sign.

Andi (09:33.484)
Yeah, that's really important so that you have good information and then can make informed decisions about what you said. And you were mentioning that you have some information that compares AI water usage to overall fabric manufacturing. that would be...

Theresa The AI Quilter (09:39.264)
Exactly, yes.

Theresa The AI Quilter (09:51.512)
Yes. Yes. So here are some statistics. So the best estimate that we currently have for how much water is consumed, like actually used and lost from steam, in a conversation with an AI is for roughly 20 to 50 prompts, which a prompt is that

It's like when you're messaging somebody, it's a prompt and a response. That's one. Okay.

So 20 to 50 prompts is 500 milliliters, half a liter. Now for me, given that I've been in the space for long time, I've written the book on how to write good prompts, I can typically get to where I want to go with only one to two prompts, which means for me, that's 25 conversations, not one conversation. So I can get 25 conversations

out of an AI platform for half a liter of water. Here are the crazy statistics. Yes, exactly. Precisely, precisely. So, but here are the statistics. I'm gonna look so that I don't get them wrong. To just the wet processing for dyeing fabrics. So this does not include the growing of the cotton and everything else. Just the dye.

Andi (11:03.888)
the size of your drinking cup.

Theresa The AI Quilter (11:25.678)
process alone. For one yard of cotton fabric is anywhere from eight to 23 liters of water. So think about your stash, right? Think about your stash at home. Think about your clothing, whatever. Like, think about how much water was consumed, you know? For that fat quarter you swiped, you know, in a moment of weakness, even though you already had a huge stash at home, right? A hamburger.

from birth to bun, right? So from the moment the cow is born until that quarter pound of beef is on a bun, that's 2,500 liters of water for that one quarter pounder, right? A t-shirt, if you're wearing a cotton t-shirt, that's 2,700 liters of water. And golf course, yeah, hi, a t-shirt, right?

And a golf course, right? So a golf course, depending on, you know, regional temperatures and whatnot.

they consume anywhere from 380,000 liters to one and a half million liters a day. A day, right? And when I tried to get some statistics from some international golf association websites and reports and stuff, there's approximately 43,000 18-hole golf courses in the world. So,

3,000 golf courses. Let's say half of them are at a million and a half liters a day. Half of them are at 380,000 liters a day.

Theresa The AI Quilter (13:08.354)
I have a feeling that there are impacts far exceeding a prompt here and there for the purpose of refining and crystallizing a vision of what you want to design using AI. Now that's my opinion, you know, but it is grounded in actual data. But I do think that

And here's the thing, we are in the midst of what's called the villainization cycle, right? Where it's essentially the denial and anger and bargaining stages of grief or change.

where people are insisting it's cheating, people are insisting it's unconscionable, people are insisting it's stealing, not necessarily grounded in facts or data, but it's more emotion because this is a part of humanity that had been sacred for so long. The automation of labor happened forever ago, but the automation of thought, the automation of imagination,

the automation of creation to a certain extent. We, think, all thought was somehow holy and sacred. And when in fact, think what we actually, and I think some of this is cultural, I think we were all taught that somehow suffering is

Good, you know, like struggle is good, right? Even in education they talk about productive struggle of a student going from not knowing to knowing Right. And so I think there are folks I think I think there's some fear and anger that come from well, hang on I Had to struggle through creating this it's not fair right? It's not fair and

Theresa The AI Quilter (15:10.018)
I'm just hoping we can all receive that information that maybe just maybe worshiping at the altar of struggle is not where any of us as creatives ought to invest our time and instead let's invest it in the parts of our creative process that bring us delight and joy, you know? So.

Tori McElwain (15:36.014)
I'm running through all kinds of thoughts and emotions over here. But it's, think it's a really important conversation. And as someone who is also advocating for AI, built custom GPTs for my digital marketing program. And I did so to cut down on the number of prompts that they would need to have. And hearing you go through that hearing not only because I was hearing the fear too. I was hearing questions about it. I didn't dive into research as you did.

Andi (15:39.054)
You

Tori McElwain (16:05.326)
It sounded like it was hyperbole, but I thought it was very similar to what you're describing, which is that struggle of change. And then when you walk through that, all of the numbers, the comparison, it makes me feel relieved. Because as somebody who grew up in the desert, right, I was, as a child, we were told for 19 years, I grew up in desert.

Theresa The AI Quilter (16:10.784)
Yes.

Theresa The AI Quilter (16:22.158)
I'm so glad!

Tori McElwain (16:31.166)
And was in California where we always have a drought or at least we seem like we always have a drought. So hearing that a golf course takes up way more water than a conversation with an AI or GPT. It just it gives it comparison to me because I have that real world like even now we live in Michigan, which has nowhere near drought and I still find myself conserving water because that's just how I grew up. It's all my practices are around conserving water at every.

every time I can. And so that's where I'm at right now. I'm like, okay, I feel relieved that I am still able to advocate for AI because I do think it has a very powerful role in helping small businesses stay current and to keep up with the climate that is demanded of us to keep making content and keep showing up in order to have a successful or semi even successful business. And yet I guess that's where I'm at.

And yes, it's fast too.

Theresa The AI Quilter (17:28.14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, water isn't the only thing. There's CO2 emissions of these locations. There's, you know, people, the next argument when I say those numbers, they'll be like, yeah, but there's billions of people using it all day long. And yes, there are people who have formed very intimate relationships with AI chatbots that, you know, are

Honestly, going through morning at the moment because OpenAI, obsolete at a couple of their models, which were used by a number of companionship, software platforms. yep.

There are those people who are using it more than I might use it. But on the average, just like a golf course in Arizona or in the desert of California is going to consume more water in a single day, they're going to be on the one and a half million liter side versus somewhere where it rains a lot, Portland or Seattle. On the whole, in the grand scheme of things,

AI is one portion of what's inside that data center. Our software platforms, Canva, Microsoft Online, Google, Netflix, all of that, anything that is in the cloud means it is running on very hot servers somewhere in rural or suburban America or the world.

And so we need to instead be talking with our lawmakers about why are you giving infinite tax breaks to these, you know, multi-billion dollar corporations to install buildings that contribute to noise pollution and, you know, are consuming power and putting a load on the grid and everything else. Like, why do they get tax breaks? They aren't

Theresa The AI Quilter (19:35.256)
going to be employing near the number of people that a call center might or other things that still rely on human engagement. So why is that happening? And those are the actions that we as people with agency and ability to affect change should really, in my opinion, be focused on.

Yeah, that's where I think it's at is we've really got to number one, put AI's use in perspective. It's also used to solve environmental crises. It's used to detect cancer sooner than ever before. It's used to help people be able to speak who can't and can use eye tracking. It's used to help find missing children. It's used to help prevent forest

It's used to do all of these. Netflix can't do that. I'm sorry, but it might be a next door neighbor of AI, but it also consumes resources and certainly cannot do any of what I just said. And so where might our priorities and our efforts actually be better spent? And I would say it's how about we make them pay more in taxes and improve our schools, our roads, our educational systems.

Andi (20:39.234)
Hahaha

Theresa The AI Quilter (21:04.68)
our social services and other things due to the tax benefits that we reap from a data center being put in our community. That's the conversation to have. But it's weird how somehow corporations tend to figure out how to do the divided we fall, united we stay and divided we fall. Instead of looking at the people who are getting all of the benefit,

from these tax breaks. We pit people against each other and blame each other for, you shouldn't use AI, you shouldn't do this, you no, no, no, hang on. Hang on a second. Let's not turn on each other. Let's look upward at the people in power and insist on change. And so that's what I'm about.

Andi (21:52.396)
Nice, nice. I'd like to bring the conversation back into quilting. And we said you just recently got back from QuiltCon. So I'm wondering if you saw a lot of AI influence in the quilts that you saw and a kind of correlated related question is what do you think our disclosure policies need to be about when and how we use AI in our

quilting process.

Theresa The AI Quilter (22:23.726)
That's actually, I've gotten like three questions about that on Instagram. No, seriously, like in the last day. Yeah, so the first thing I would say is there is no way that I could...

Andi (22:25.643)
You

Theresa The AI Quilter (22:42.292)
say for certain which quilts were informed by AI as part of a creative process. And I think it would do a disservice to the quilt makers to try and guess because something that I really advocate is to retain agency and authorship. It's important that

the output of AI, whatever it might be, if it's text, if it's colors, if it's an image that you then take in a fabric.

that isn't the end. Like you don't just click a magic button and all of sudden you have a quilt. It's one step of this infinitely longer process. And so I think we're sort of in a unique place that quilting very much is still very human, very tactile and that sort of thing. even if AI were to generate an image, if that quilter were to then

interpret that in fabric, every choice of print or solid, every designer choice, every, you know, do I applique, do I do...

needle turn or do I do like light steam, steam two, you know, do I piece it? Do I turn it into an FPP sort of pattern? Every one of those decisions is a reflection of human agency, right? And so,

Theresa The AI Quilter (24:21.39)
I can't begin to know which ones were informed by AI unless they did in some way disclose that AI was used, but that brings me to the second part of your question, which is when and how should we disclose? And it becomes really, really hinky to be honest, and that's a technical term, hinky. It becomes really hinky, right? Because

Andi (24:45.655)
Hahaha

Theresa The AI Quilter (24:50.094)
AI as a practice has been around 70 years this year. It was coined as a term and a body of study in Dartmouth in 1956. AI has been a part of design tools that we've been using for years already, right? And now generative AI is relatively new, but the principles of it and the technologies underlying it have been around a lot longer.

How I answered one person was that

You know, I asked, well, hey, look at it this way. Let's say the questions that you asked of AI were asked of a friend, a human friend of yours, right? And they gave you answers that informed your quilt and how you laid it out or whatever it was that you did.

would you feel bad slash guilty for not giving them credit for having participated in your quilt project? You know, would you would you be worried if that person were to walk up to your award winning quilt at Quilt Con?

and not see their name in your artist statement. If yes, then maybe, just maybe, it might be useful to say that AI was used, however.

Theresa The AI Quilter (26:32.503)
AI is so much more than just generating an image. Spell check decades ago was a much simpler, almost like lookup tables sort of thing. It was declarative or imperative AI. Then we've moved into neural networks capable of doing grammar check, translation, intention, semantics, all of these different things as part of just simple word processing platforms.

Well, if we ran our artist statement through AI to condense it, do I need to disclose that?

the example I used actually in, at QuiltCon was, and I'll, I'll do this thought experiment with you, like imagine for a moment, just in your mind, a log cabin quilt made of a variety of red prints and white on white fabric. Okay. Imagine that quilt in your mind. Okay. Have, let me, let me stop and say, have either of you made a red and white log cabin quilt?

solely red and white. just want to make sure. No. Okay. All right. So you have that picture in your mind, right? Okay. Well, since neither one of you have made one before, you are referencing two things. You're referencing log cabin quilts that you've seen at quilt shows or at your guild or, you know, log cabin quilts that you've made previously, right? So, so you have all of this data input.

from your life experience having observed those types of things. And you're also referencing copyrighted surface pattern designs from fabric manufacturers.

Theresa The AI Quilter (28:23.5)
when you think about the red fabrics that you put in your imaginary quilt, are you stealing? Are you stealing from the creators of log cabin quilts who came before you? Are you stealing from fabric manufacturers in your thought of what this red and white quilt might look like? Is Eleanor Burns somebody that you need to go at? I have still stripping or whatever it was, you know, the log cabin.

Yeah, so do you need to give Eleanor Burns credit even though she also didn't invent the log cabin quilt block, right? That is how AI works. AI is image text pairs. They are not photocopies. It is reference material that is then brought together in the context of the request made. And in this case, my request was imagine a red and white log cabin quilt, right?

And then you put together a red and white log cabin quilt. Each one of you, guarantee, one's probably furrows, the other one's barn raising, one's like deep burgundy reds, the other one's bright reds, you know, whatever. But you independently...

And without copying anyone before you, took all of your pattern recognition and put it together in your brain, and that's how AI works. And so, you know, there's a lot of folk who are upset and feel that AI is stealing, but we as quilters do that every day. Every quilt show we go to, every show and tell we see, every Pinterest pin, everything informs our next quilt design.

You know, and none of us are setting out to copy somebody. If we did, we'd just buy the kit, right? And do it exactly that way. And then everybody gets all the credit because, you know, it's more, you know, you like I went and learned a technique with terra fana and squircles and rainbows, right? I am going to take that technique into a future quilt, but I am not going to write down that I took a class with terra fana at QuiltCon 2025 or 2026.

Theresa The AI Quilter (30:36.624)
And as a result, I owe her my life. No, she taught me something and five years from now when I make that quilt, I might remember I learned it from her. So.

Tori McElwain (30:49.39)
I love how you put that in perspective. think that that is a really important, again, another very important conversation to have when it comes to AI. Because as you said, I've seen a lot of conversation of people talking about AI stealing. And please don't use AI. AI is stealing. And I think that is very important to consider exactly how it works. And may I suggest that if you want to see more about this to get her book?

And Teresa, can you tell us the name of your book? Because I read the whole thing, but I don't have it in front of me.

Theresa The AI Quilter (31:18.126)
Thank you. Yeah, I know it's called Digital Muse, Bringing AI into Your Creative Process. And yeah, the whole first half of the book is all about how does it work.

Is it really stealing? And I think I have sections on ethics in three different places because it is so important to me that we get this right and we deeply understand. Now, is the sourcing of those image text pairs problematic? Yes. There was a research consortium that created what's called the Lion 5B data set. It's 5 billion.

image text pairs and what they did is they crawled the internet looking for images and then they would look at the names of the files, they'd look at the captions, the alt text, the description, and then if it was in a blog they would take a link to the blog post.

And just like we learn what a dog is, you you see a picture of a dog, this is a dog. You see a picture of a giraffe, this is a giraffe. That's how AI learns. Well, it was all intended to be for research and what happened was a couple of companies monetized the way that the machines learned patterns. But again, it's not photocopying the images and not all AI platforms use that data set. There are other options.

options out there. That's another thing since the last time we talked. I've got a blog post. I'll send you guys a link so that we can put it in the notes. But how to pick platforms that are doing it better than others, how to opt out if you are an artist, how to opt out of data sets. And your mileage may vary on the types of output that one platform not trained online 5B might give you over another.

Theresa The AI Quilter (33:13.887)
But it's kind of like for me, don't shop at Hobby Lobby anymore. I haven't in a long time. And you figure out how to find things other ways. So you just might have to work things a little bit harder to get the results you want. But if it's really important to you, then make the choice.

Andi (33:32.002)
Yeah, that's great. I want to pivot a little bit from our direct AI conversation and take it more into your business because I had the pleasure of attending one of your guild lectures and it was fantastic. So I would highly recommend that people bring Teresa to talk to their guild all about AI. It was wonderful. And then you had some follow on classes. So can you tell since our listeners are

Theresa The AI Quilter (33:50.062)
Thank you.

Andi (33:58.774)
A lot of them do have quilt businesses and they do want to teach, but there's always that question about how much do I put in a lecture or on a free YouTube video and how much do I, you know, put behind that paywall of my paid class and how did you make those determinations?

Theresa The AI Quilter (34:16.44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Man, I'm still navigating it. It is hard. It is really, really hard. So my background is more B2B marketing and B2B sales versus B2C. So this has been a bit of a steep learning curve. And it's funny because for the most part, it was B2B in predominantly male industries. So that's another thing that I had to figure out.

But I'm a big believer in like value, value ask sort of relationships with my served market. So for every ask that I might make of someone, I want to ensure that I have given them.

at least twice as much value first. So that's why I publish white papers or that's why I put together free patterns, you know, that are available to my newsletter subscribers. That's why every Wednesday I do fun little thing. I have like a little news broadcast that comes out every Wednesday night because I want to like, I want to ensure that it's a fair exchange and that I've earned the right to ask.

And then in terms of sort of what goes where, so in 45 minutes, it's really, really difficult to go over the, like getting everybody on the same page about what AI is first.

Theresa The AI Quilter (36:03.385)
Then setting the stage of what is the current feeling, challenge, problems in the quilt world. You know, because when you walk into a room, you don't know where everybody is, so you kind of have to start here. Hope the ones who are already ahead are gonna be patient, you know, while I bring up the others. You can only do so much in 45 minutes.

And so sometimes I'll get feedback like, I thought you were going to do a demo or I thought you were going to do this. And they say in show business, leave them wanting more. I want to make sure that I fulfilled what I committed. And I do to a large degree hope that somebody will want to learn more and that

My lecture is the beginning of a conversation and finding out, what do you need? You know, maybe I can serve you.

in a different way. Maybe it's a half-day class that I offer online. Maybe you talk to your programs person and yes, I lectured in January, but if you want to do a class in August, I don't care. Like, let's do it, you know. We have made these arbitrary rules as guilds that

If they lecture on Tuesday, their class is on Wednesday and that's how it runs, right? It doesn't have to be that way. Let's get creative. And so it's really hard that balance of giving value while still asking for money, compensation, for my time, effort, and energy in creating that value.

Theresa The AI Quilter (37:57.32)
I don't think it gets any easier either. But like this year, I'm going to be doing on demand classes and some live classes via Zoom. Now that I've been able to do it live with some guilds over Zoom who couldn't afford or didn't want to have me travel.

and they've worked out really well. So it's like, hey, OK, if that worked well, I thought my community would be interested in me. And so that's the other thing is I sometimes put polls in my newsletters and I'll say, hey, if I did a class like this.

Here are three choices. Which one would you want the most? Right? So it's incumbent upon us as business owners to do our market research. Right? See what else is out there. Yes. But also ask the people what they want.

because I can create the best class, but if it isn't what you need to know, then I've wasted money, you've wasted time and money, and you're not going to return to buy anything else from me. So I want to make sure that I'm delivering value. Does that answer your question? Yeah.

Andi (39:07.33)
Yeah, great perspective. Thank you for sharing.

Tori McElwain (39:15.47)
So I have to go pick up my kid in 10 minutes.

Andi (39:15.478)
Anything else, Tor? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we need to get to rapid fire. And I'll make these questions a little bit different than we've had before. What colors did you use in your last quilt?

Theresa The AI Quilter (39:29.902)
I used brown and cream for the background and I used fuchsia, mustard, and teal for the foreground and it's beautiful. Yeah.

Andi (39:38.168)
Hmm, yeah.

Andi (39:44.27)
You have on tour?

Tell us where you do most of your shopping.

Theresa The AI Quilter (39:51.758)
Yeah, okay. Like, well, the grocery store. No, we have a wonderful local quilt shop called So Modern Chicago. Shout out to them. They're lovely human beings. So I do a fair amount there. Bernina of Naperville is my other favorite shop. That's about an hour drive, but it's worth it. But really, I shop my stash a lot.

Andi (39:52.386)
for fabric, I should say.

Theresa The AI Quilter (40:15.022)
I've really like turned inward a little bit and reflected myself on consumption, you know, and so I tend to buy more at estate sales, shop from my stash. That's why I teach classes about color theory to teach other people how to be more confident shopping their stash rather than buying the next big thing.

And it's not because I don't want all the pretty stuff, I mean, look at the numbers of how much water and everything.

Tori McElwain (40:51.828)
What is one prompt you wish every quilting business owner had on a sticky note?

Theresa The AI Quilter (40:58.294)
Okay, that's a wonderful question. market analysis. So here as an example, perform a pricing sanity check for my product against the current market. My product details are the following. And then you put product name or type, core offering.

Included assets make sure you list everything that's included your current price and then aim it at three to five URLs that make something similar and a couple that are maybe more or less than what you offer and Then ask it to to write a report for you. I did it and realized Thank you. I realized that I was charging like half of what I ought to be for one of my products. So

Yeah, big, big, big thing. you can also automate, like every Monday, have it go out and check highly volatile prices. And if you report, are you middle, high, low compared to everybody else? And like the CSV files, like if you don't make updates on your pricing.

Andi (42:09.474)
Very smart. Thank you.

Tori McElwain (42:11.198)
I absolutely love that use of robot for research.

Andi (42:14.445)
Ha ha ha!

Theresa The AI Quilter (42:14.502)
Yes, use the robot for all the grunt work, know, like hey am I charging too much or just right for this Silicon math, right? And when I teach in person, I actually bring a price list, you know, and I will put Hey, here's my price in comparison with these five other brands. You can decide to buy it from me or not up to you, but

If I'm only 25 cents more or 50 cents more than the next person, gosh, wouldn't it be nice to buy it from me? You can afford 50 cents or you can afford a dollar in the grand scheme of things. And you're helping me as a human being that is in front of you versus Amazon or the algorithm or whatever.

Andi (43:02.99)
Sure. Great perspective. Well, Teresa, remind people where they can find you.

Theresa The AI Quilter (43:08.27)
You can find me at the AI quilter calm you can find me on Instagram at the AI culture YouTube same thing I'm on Facebook a little bit less, but I'm still there too I have classes my book my white paper on the environment how to opt out of data sets And I've got a newsletter that is not a nightmare. It comes out once a week It usually has a story some sort of practical tip and only every once in a while do I talk about?

bye bye bye so yeah come say hi thank you so much for having me back

Andi (43:41.496)
Wonderful. Yes, yes. Thanks so much for being with us today.