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Welcome to episode 028 of the Me Being Crafty podcast, where we explore creativity in your life.
In this episode I talk to Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew about her business, her support of other small businesses, her experiences at Quilt Market, and upcoming plans.
I have been reading Allison’s blog for years and love her patterns. Be sure to stop by to see if there is one (or more!) that you just have to make! Thanks again for being on the show Allison!
Allison is running her small business and she allows items made from her tutorials and patterns to be sold with credit to her as the designer. I think that is awesome – it allows other people that are just starting out to offer something that was designed by someone who is designing patterns and quilts for a living. Sometimes people feel like they don’t have the design skills, but they have the sewing skills. Allison allowing her patterns and tutorials to be used in such a way is a good move because it also gets her name out there to a larger audience.
We also talked about her personal life and her quilting business. She said it almost feels like two separate lives when it comes to the two parts, which I think is easily true for a lot of people. She is a quiet person and likes to be in her garden or hanging out with her family, so putting herself out there for events such as Quilt Market is a step outside of her comfort zone.
I’ve only been to a few quilting specific things over the years, but I have walked away thinking that someone was a lot quieter then I imagined them to be. It can be also intimidating to be around all of these people that are quilting and sewing and showing off amazing looking things, but trust me when I say people are in general very nice. Allison took her husband to her first few Quilt Markets and she said that helped her a lot. I attended sewing summit alone but quickly made friends.
Allison and I also talked about that thing everyone is looking for – time to do everything. I have certainly felt overwhelmed at various times in my life. We are all the way through January now and into the start of February so I looked at the swaps I signed up for and the quilt bees I am in. I don’t think I am in that many, but when I took stock and made a list I realize I definitely need to stay organized so I don’t fall behind on anything.
Allison talked about how many too many plans overwhelmed her and she ended up taking a lot of time off instead. If you are a person that can look at a plan for the entire year and you are excited and work toward that, fantastic – use your year long plan to accomplish everything you have on your list. But if you are someone that doesn’t like to see concrete numbers written down, make your plans fit what works for you. You should have some sort of plan though – a few things that can help are the Evernote program and app which helps keep a wide variety of notes such as text, a website or webpage, or a photo, you can also use a planner, or multiple planners. My website is self hosted and uses WordPress and I use a plugin editorial calendar that allows me to see a month of posts at a time so I can drag and drop posts or start a draft. I really love that editorial calendar and as much as I love using the bullet jorunal for my list making and to do list, I haven’t started using a planner for my blog’s editorial calendar just yet.
Where you can find Allison – Cluck Cluck Sew on facebook – Allison on instagram – Allison on pinterest – Cluck Cluck Sew Pattern Shop – Cluck Cluck Sew Wholesale Site
Listen to episode 028 and let me know the latest pattern you are working on!
Leave me a comment and let me know how you were creative today. Me, I’m finally getting somewhere with a lanyard I am beading! I took the beadwork apart once and restarted over the weekend.
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