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In this special episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we’re celebrating the second anniversary of Craft Industry Alliance, the trade association for makers, designers, suppliers, and content creators in all areas of craft. Founded in October of 2015 by myself and Kristin Link (of Sew Mama Sew) Craft Industry Alliance now has over 1,300 members!

For this episode we’re bringing five of those members onto the show to talk about their businesses and their relationship to the organization. Plus, we ask each of them to recommend great stuff they’re enjoying right now. Kristin and I co-host these conversations.

First up, we have Kate McKean. Kate has been a literary agent for over a decade with the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. She represents authors of all stripes and has sold over 40 craft books in her career, for crafters like Allison Hoffman’s Crafty Is Cool, Red Handled Scissors Haley Pierson-Cox, Mighty Ugly’s Kim Werker and Dollar Store Craft’s Heather Mann. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

Kate recommends Amy Tangerine’s Instagram feed.

Next we talk to Kara Gott Warner. Kara is the host of Power Purls Podcast, mentor and business coach, and the former Executive Editor of Creative Knitting Magazine. Her mission is to inspire, educate and empower yarn crafters and makers.

Kara recommends Wordflow (which has now been discontinued and replaced by SwiftKey), Asana, Dropbox, and Evernote.

We also chat with Ann Martin. Ann is a paper quilling enthusiast and author who has been exploring the worlds of creative paper art and paper craft on her blog, All Things Paper, since 2009. She features paper-related DIYs, trends, and book reviews, as well as interviews with established artists and emerging talent. Ann has written three paper craft books; the most recent is a new release from Interweave, The Art of Quilling Paper Jewelry. She loves inspiring others to look at paper in a new light.

Ann recommends Laura C. George’s blog and the Dear Handmade Life podcast.

And finally we talk with Traci Vaspol and Karen Katin, the co-founders of Stitchery, a brick-and-mortar craft teaching space in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Karen teaches sewing and Traci teaches knitting. Their shared passion for the preservation and instruction of traditional needle arts brought them to the realization that an instructional studio space would be a perfect environment for sharing and nurturing the joy of such traditional arts.

Traci and Karen recommend the website builder Yola, Cosmos embroidery floss, and the Screenlight app.

As a member of Craft Industry Alliance you’ll receive a twice monthly professionally written digital journal with articles about industry news, trends, and best practices. You’ll also have access to our monthly webinars taught by industry experts as well as our legal Q&A sessions. Members interact on our secure online forums as well as in our Coffee Klatsch virtual meetups twice a month.

Craft Industry Alliance membership is affordable for businesses of all sizes. Although membership rates have stayed steady since we opened, they’ll be increasing after October 31. Join now to lock in the lower membership rate!

You can listen to this episode by clicking on the green arrow below, or subscribe to the Craft Industry Alliance podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher so you never miss an episode. If you enjoy the show, tell a friend about it! Thank you so much.

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