Many people who have creative businesses landed in their current profession unexpectedly. Even if you went to art school or business school my bet is that it would have been hard to predict what your current careers would look like. In this series on my blog I’m exploring what that winding path looked like for…
Archives for August 2016
Lessons from My First Job: Anna Graham of Noodlehead
My kids start school this week. I’ll have one in Kindergarten, one in 5th grade, and one in 7th (at a new school!). When I worked as a middle school teacher the coming of fall meant setting up my classroom, planning curriculum, and looking forward to greeting 90 new nervous, hopeful new faces. In honor…
Lessons from My First Job: Wendi Gratz
For many of us our first jobs were really eye opening. In those early employment experiences we learn how hard it really is to earn a dollar and how good it feels when we get that first paycheck. We learn that we don’t know everything, but we’ve got potential. If you are looking a for…
Lessons from My First Job: Allie Olson, Indiesew
Allie Olson is the co-founder of the women’s sewing community, Indiesew.com. She’s passionate about garment sewing and keeping creativity the top priority in her life. Allie curates Indiesew’s sewing pattern selection and fabric shop. She also writes easy-to-understand sewing tutorials to to take the frustration out of sewing your own clothes. Here’s Allie: +++++ During…
Lessons from My First Job: Stacey Trock of FreshStitches
As the kids head back to school and make a fresh start, I’m going to be featuring a series of posts about the lessons we learned at the start of our careers. Specifically, I’m interested in those experiences we had in our very first jobs that we still carry with us today in our creative…
Go Tell It at the Quilt Show Records the Oral Histories of Quilts
Karen Duling and her quilt ‘Catnado’ at QuiltCon 2016. Founded in 1993, the Quilt Alliance is dedicated to documenting, preserving, and sharing quilts and quilt stories. The Asheville, North Carolina non-profit has one full time Executive Director, Amy Milne, and a few part time staff members including Emma Parker, 27, who serves as the Oral…
Podcast Episode #79: Arounna Khounnoraj of Bookhou
On today’s episode of the While She Naps podcast we’re talking about making and selling handcrafted products with my guest Arounna Khounnoraj of Bookhou. Arounna Khounnoraj started Bookhou with her husband, John Booth, in 2002 as a place to combine and market their work. Both Arounna and John started out as artists – Arounna as…
Casey the Crab Free Pattern in Patchwork
I was looking for a fun summer patchwork project and decided to make my free Casey the Crab pattern up with some quilting cottons (the original sample is in fleece). I grew up in Maryland going to the Eastern Shore with my family every summer. We would always get Maryland crabs one night, usually at…
How Instagram Stories Will Redefine the Platform
Yesterday Instagram launched a new feature that adds significant functionality to the platform: Stories. Stories allow users to post images and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Recording a Story is quick and easy, or you can upload images from your camera roll. Like a Snapchat Story, you can add text, handwriting, drawings, and filters….
Podcast Episode #78: Annabel Wrigley
On today’s episode of the While She Naps podcast we’re talking about teaching children to sew with my guest, Annabel Wrigley. Annabel Wrigley is an Australian mom, author, and designer living in rural Virginia. She owns Little Pincushion Studio, a space where she teaches children everything they need to know in order to go forth…