Craft Industry Alliance

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about​ building a business in rug hooking with my guest Rose Pearlman . Rose is an artist and teacher who focuses on textile design. Her workshops center on ways of making beautiful home objects with simple, inexpensive materials. As the daughter of two artists, her parents taught her to value a life filled with creating, tink...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about fostering creativity through daily practice with my guest Windy Chien. Windy Chien is best known for her 2016 work, The Year Of Knots , in which she learned a new knot every day for a year. Her work ranges in size from a knot that can fit in the palm of a child's hand to majestic, room-sized installations that are sough...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about collaborations with my guest Angela Smith and Liz Gipson. Angela founded Purl & Loop in 2012 after realizing her “ladder was against the wrong wall” in her sales career and she was determined to find a calling that brought joy and creativity to the world.  While she enjoyed needle crafts, she was more focused on the ide...

On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about building a business as a paper artist with my guest Abigail McMurray of  Yeiou Paper Objects . I visited Abigail in her studio in Arlington, Massachusetts to record this interview which was a lot of fun. With paper as a medium, artist Abigail McMurray combines her background in graphic design and sculpture to create pap...

Today we have a special episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast recorded at Fall Quilt Market in Houston, Texas. International Quilt Market is a trade show for the fabric and quilt industry. It takes place twice a year, in October and May, and is a time when quilt shop owners from all over the country and all over the world come together to see the forthcoming fabric collections from all of...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about building a fiber business with my guest Felicia Lo. Felicia is a designer and entrepreneur, born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Her lifelong passion for knitting, color, and design led her to start the sweetgeorgia blog in 2004. A year later, SweetGeorgia was founded at her dining room table with nothing more than thr...

On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we’re talking about goal setting and getting things done with my guest  Elise Blaha Cripe . Elise Blaha Cripe lives with her husband and two young daughters in San Diego, California. She has been sharing thoughts and DIY projects online since 2005, running an online shop of handmade goods since 2008 and in 2015 launched  GET TO WORK BOOK ,...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about discovering the life you’re meant to live as a maker with my guest Melanie Falick.  Melanie Falick is an independent writer, editor, and creative director—and a lifelong maker. She is the author, mostly recently, of Making a Life: Working by Hand and Discovering the Life You Are Meant to Live, as well as several other t...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about quilting and activism with my guests Sara Trail and Juan Tapia. We recorded this episode in person at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts where there is an exhibit up through December 1, 2019 of the Social Justice Sewing Academy Quilts called Piecing Together Youth Voices in a 21st Century Sewing Circl...

On today's show, we’re talking about the history of Quilts, Inc. with my guest Teresa Duryea Wong . Teresa has authored two books on Japanese quilts and textiles and in early 2019, she published American Cotton: Farm to Quilt. She currently travels to Japan and throughout the US to research, write, and lecture. She holds a master’s degree in liberal studies from Rice University and in 2014, was na...

In this short solo episode, I make an important announcement: the name of this podcast is changing. After 153 episodes as the While She Naps podcast, going forward this show will be called the Craft Industry Alliance podcast. Very little else about the show will be different. Tune in to hear what led up to this decision (a lot of careful consideration!). I'm really excited about this change! We ha...

On today’s episode of the While She Naps podcast we’re talking about building an illustration business with my guest, Stacie Bloomfield. Stacie Bloomfield is the founder of the company  Gingiber , based in Springdale Arkansas. She is an illustrator and printmaker who sells prints, stationery, fabric, and homewares in over 500 retail outlets around the country. She has collaborated with many retail...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about building a business in the sewing industry with my guest, Pati Palmer. Pati is the driving force behind the Palmer/Pletsch publishing company which has published dozens of sewing books and how-to DVD’s and creator of eight Palmer/Pletsch sewing notions products, including PerfectFuse™ Interfacings.  Pati has been designi...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about making a career as an artist with my guest, Lisa Solomon . Lisa Solomon is a mixed media artist whose work has been exhibited and collected all over the world. She received her BA in art practice from UC Berkeley and her MFA from Mills College, and has been a professor in the Bay Area for 15+ years. As a Hapa [her mother...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about running a brick-and-mortar and online yarn shop with my guest, Laura Zander. Laura is the co-owner of Jimmy Beans Wool . Along with her husband Doug, she worked as software engineers during the dot-com boom in the San Francisco area. When Laura and Doug saw the boom begin turning into a bust they quit their jobs and move...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about making a living as an artist and surface pattern designer with my guest, Sarah Golden . Sarah is a painter and surface pattern designer living in Sacramento, California with her husband and 5-year-old twin girls. She paints abstracts, lots of plants and is a fabric designer for Andover Fabrics. +++++ This episode is spon...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about building a new sewing blog and business with my guest, Sarah Kirsten Anderson of the blog and sewing pattern company SARAH KIRSTEN . Sarah is a sewing educator, sewing pattern designer, photographer, and a believer in the magic of making your own clothes. She’s passionate about making sewing and simple pattern drafting a...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about running an indie sewing pattern business with my guest Taylor McVay of Blueprints for Sewing . Taylor McVay is a designer, artist, and educator. She creates sewing patterns for unique, architecture inspired garments. Along with running Blueprints, Taylor teaches fashion design, pattern making, and sewing in the Boston ar...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about quilting as an art form with my guest, Denyse Schmidt . A former graphic designer and graduate of Rhode Island School of design, Denyse Schmidt began creating quilts in 1996. Intrigued by the rich historical nature of quilts and inspired by beauty born of necessity, Denyse adds her distinctive aesthetic sensibility – cle...

On this episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about running a fabric, notions, and gifts company with my guests, Mark, Brian, and Josh Dunn of Moda and United Notions. Mark Dunn got his start in the fabric industry in 1966 working with his father William Dunn at Sewing, Sales, and Services which they founded together.  In May of 1975 when Mark was 29, he moved to Texas to st...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about building a career as artist who makes quilts with my guest, Jane Sassaman . After a varied career in the design world, Jane Sassaman began to quilt in 1980. She found that these “soft paintings” satisfied the draftsman, the craftsman and the artist in her.  Consequently, she is now a dedicated (some say “obsessed”) quilt...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about building a retail fabric and yarn shop, both online and in a brick-and-mortar setting, with my guests Joelle Hoverson and Page Marchese Norman. Joelle and Page, along with Jennifer Hoverson Jahnke, are co-owners of Purl Soho , a fiber arts supply company that brings a modern sensibility to traditional needlecrafts.   We...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about building a handmade business with my guest, Jessica Marquez . Jessica is a life long maker who found her way back to textiles while working on an MFA in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. After countless hours working digitally, retouching images and staring at a computer screen she longed for hands-on a...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about building a business as a quilt pattern designer, author, and blogger with my guest, Amy Friend . I had the pleasure of visiting Amy in her home studio in West Newbury, Massachusetts, and recording this interview in person which was lovely! Amy lives in a mid-19th century home that was formerly inhabited by a comb maker,...

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we're talking about running a wholesale distribution company with my guest, Brad Krieger. Brad is the president of Checker Distributors , a company his grandparents, Bob and Del Krieger, founded in 1948. Based in Maumee, Ohio, Checker is a leading distributor of quilting and sewing products. Independent quilt shops all over the United State...