Threading the Needle: Balancing Creative Passion with Entrepreneurship

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In the new season of Measure Twice, Cut Once, I'll be delving into the behind-the-scenes of building a creative business. The season features personal experiences and guest interviews about navigating creative entrepreneurship. I'll shares my creative journey of turning a quilting hobby into a thriving business, sparked by the challenges of the 2020 pandemic. Despite the demands of the business side, I'll emphasizes maintaining the joy of the craft, balancing creativity with necessary online presence, and learning new skills. This season is designed for those dreaming of starting a creative business or interested in the intersection of passion and profession.

00:00 Welcome to the New Season

00:29 A New Direction: Creative Entrepreneurship

01:29 Reflecting on My Creative Journey

02:09 From Hobby to Business: My Quilting Story

03:33 Building a Digital Presence

04:56 Balancing Hobby and Business

08:49 Social Media: A Double-Edged Sword

11:45 Looking Ahead: Prioritizing Joy

13:14 Final Thoughts: Finding Your Balance

Want to try free motion quilting but don't know where to start? Here's 3 simple steps to get going.

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to a brand new season ofMeasure Twice, Cut Once.
If you've been listening to thepodcast for a while, you might
notice something a littledifferent this season.
Over the episodes, I've sharedso many incredible stories from
crafters who've poured theirhearts and souls into their
quilting journeys.
And those conversations havebeen magical.
Hearing about the challenges,the breakthroughs, and the pure

(00:26):
joy of creating somethingbeautiful with our own hands.
But this season, I'm taking aslightly different path.
I want to dive a little deeperinto the behind the scenes of
not just quilting, but buildinga creative business that truly
lights you up.
As someone who's navigated theexciting and sometimes bumpy
world of turning a passion intoa profession, I'm excited to

(00:48):
pull back the curtain and sharemy own experiences.
Some episodes will be just mediving deep into my personal
journey, while others willfeature guests who are also
navigating the world of creativeentrepreneurship.
We'll explore the nitty grittyof building a creative business
with its lessons learned and theunexpected challenges that come
with transforming your crafteach day.

(01:08):
Into a thriving enterprise, anddon't worry, I'm not leaving
storytelling behind.
Instead, I'll be weaving theminto the conversations about
what it takes to grow a businesswhile staying true to your
creative spirit.
So whether you're dreaming ofstarting your own business, or
you just love hearing aboutcreative entrepreneurship, this
season is for you.

Susan (01:29):
As 2025 opens up before us, I've been reflecting quite
deeply on my creative journey.
What it is, what it isn't, whatI want to change, and what I
want to do more of.
And you know, I'm seeing thesesame thoughts and evaluations
and introspection circulating onsocial media.
This evaluation of prioritiesand of time and of how we

(01:52):
express our creativity.
And I've been so touched bythose who've shared openly from
their hearts.
And today I'd like to do alittle of the same.
Each of our stories is so verydifferent.
And so we each approach thisdifferently, but let me share
just a little of my story withyou.
I've been making quilts all ofmy life.
Um, I learned traditionalmethods alongside my mom.

(02:15):
Again, with other traditionalcrafts like knitting,
crocheting, embroidery, thingslike that.
And it wasn't until about 10years ago that I discovered
machine quilting and then thequilting industry itself.
Because growing up I knewabsolutely nothing about fabric
lines or brand deals or patternpublishing.
It was purely about the joy andthe creativity and the frugality

(02:39):
of making quilts from scraps orfrom whatever fabric we had on
hand.
So that's my background.
But as I was into machinequilting along came 2020 and the
pandemic and everything changedfor me that year, my husband
lost his job.
Quite suddenly it dried to atrickle and.
At that time I was essentiallysemi retired.

(03:00):
I was spending much of my timemachine quilting, and I did have
a small business quilting forothers at my long arm, but it
was purely for joy.
I had no expectations of it, andfrankly no need for it.
But suddenly, jobless and incomeless, I faced a choice.
We faced a choice.
I chose to explore and see whatI could do with my quilting.

(03:23):
Could this thing I lovedactually create a living?
And for those of you who havefollowed my journey, you know
where this led.
For those of you who might benew here, perhaps you don't.
It led to digital courses and anonline presence.
A monthly membership and aYouTube channel because we were
limited for that 2020 and theyear or two thereafter as to how

(03:47):
much we could get together andthe opportunity for traveling
and teaching wasn't there.
I had to look elsewhere, so Ichose the digital platforms and
that has turned out to be awonderful, wonderful blessing.
Being able to stay home, createthe content.
Um, connect with the people andstill help other quilters all

(04:09):
while earning a living from it.
It's a win win, but there are afew things that I've learned
over the past five years and I'mpretty sure there are other
creators that are going torelate to this.
There is this constant high wireact between getting caught up
and driven by the business sideof things and on the converse,

(04:32):
letting your love of the craftbe what drives you.
Some days, sometimes even hourto hour, I swing between"I'm so
lucky to get to do this" and"Ihave to produce.
People are expecting things."However, I have discovered too,
and it's a beautiful thing, thatyou don't have to choose between

(04:53):
a hobby or a business.
You can have both.
And I thought I would explorejust a little bit today of Uh,
what I think of as the definingcharacteristics of both of those
things and how for me, I'vegradually grown into some level
of balance.
I hate to use that word,honestly, because it's not that
you're trying to find a balance.

(05:13):
It's that you want to have both.
You need to have a living.
You need to have a means ofsupporting yourself and or your
family, but you also need thecreative expression of a hobby.
The trick is, of course, whenthe two things are so closely
interrelated and how to find,um, health and creativity and
joy in both of them.

(05:34):
So here's what I kind of see asthe defining characteristics of
both.
As a hobby, when quilting wasonly my hobby, it gave me
complete freedom to explore.
It gave me permission to try anyproject, any craft, anything
that caught my eye or interest.
Pinterest is a deadly thing inthat frame of mind.

(05:55):
And it also gave me the abilityto stop.
Whenever I wasn't feelinginspired, I just didn't need to
keep going with a project orwith a commitment or with a
thing that I was making.
I had the ability to just dropit.
Forming it into a businessbrought Some contrast, and some
of them turned out to beunexpected gifts.

(06:17):
One of them for me, honestly,was focus and organization.
It actually helped mycreativity.
The fact that I started drillingdown into what's all the stuff
in my studio and do I want tokeep it all?
The fact that I let a wholebunch of things I'd had for
years and years and wasn'tinterested in anymore go gave me

(06:38):
the freedom to find space towork and clarity to create in.
And it also gave me the freedom,the permission, if you will, I
gave myself that to invest insome new things that I was
interested in and loved.
And because this is making me aliving, I felt the freedom to,
um, not have to finisheverything I've ever started.

(07:01):
I let them go.
And I started some new and somefresh things.
And that was very good for mycreativity and the focus too, of
not being surrounded by amillion different projects and
even a million different craftshelped me to zero in a bit on my
quilting and get very muchbetter at my skillset and the
craft and the art of quiltingalso forming this into a

(07:24):
business.
Um, kind of corralled mythoughts because I wanted to
teach.
I love teaching and explaining.
I needed to create somestructure in my thoughts.
I needed to analyze a littlebit.
How do I do what I do?
And therefore, how can I teachwhat I do to others?
And that I found, um, veryhelpful, honestly, to think of

(07:46):
it more as a business.
It just helped to, get mythoughts a little more organized
and get me a little moresystematic about what I was
doing.
And it also forced me on apersonal level into learning a
lot of new skills that I didn'tpreviously know.
And most of those had to do withthe technical aspects of,

(08:06):
getting into the digital andonline space for teaching.
That was not my comfort zone.
It still isn't, quite honestly,but I've gathered competencies.
I've learned to be reasonablyefficient at things like, uh,
file storage and data and mediastorage or, um, editing of
videos or creation of podcastslike this one.

(08:28):
Five years, six years, sevenyears ago, I did not know how to
do those things.
They were all brand new to me.
It has been, um, certainly astretch and a challenge to learn
new things like that, but it isalso incredibly rewarding.
There were challenges too, intaking what I loved and making
it into a business.

(08:49):
Social media became less aboutsharing my life and my personal
things and my personalenthusiasms and more about
considered content.
And mind you, that's not allbad.
For example, I teach best byusing examples.
So here's one.
On my quilting page, at one timeI was just posting whatever

(09:12):
caught my eye at the moment,whatever I was thinking of or
doing at the moment.
And it might have been the walkwith the dog, and it might have
been the cool recipe that I madefor dinner.
But as I was intentionallytrying to grow my business and
clientele and visibility, Istarted thinking a little more
about what I post.
And again, I'll underline thisis on my business page, my

(09:32):
business content.
And I started thinking throughthings like, Okay, what I love
is free motion edge to edgequilting.
So that's actually what I wantto show and highlight and talk
about and encourage in my socialmedia rather than the occasional
very elaborate, very intricatecustom quilting that I sometimes

(09:54):
do.
I still do that kind of quiltingsometimes, but usually just for
myself.
The clientele that I want toattract is free motion, edge to
edge work.
So I learn to think through,okay, how do I want to represent
myself?
And what kind of people do Iwant to be pulling into my
circle?
And what kind of people do Iwant to work with?

(10:15):
And that's the kind of thingthat I want to post that is of
interest to them.
So using social media as a wayto, um, express who I am and
what I teach and my style ofquilting became very considered.
And that was a good thing thatreally, again, narrowed my focus
and produced focus, always agood thing.

(10:36):
But on the flip side of thatcoin, Social media can also be a
great gaping black hole and italways wants more and there's
always an algorithm that you'retrying to satisfy if indeed you
are trying to grow your numbers,grow your visibility, etc.
And this is one of the thingsthat I have really thought about

(10:56):
coming out of 24 and into 2025.
What are the things that I lovedoing and that bring me joy And
what are the things that are atime suck that feel like a have
to, and I have to be reallyhonest, for the most part,
producing content for socialmedia feels like a have to, to

(11:17):
me.
Do I love getting on YouTubelive, sharing my quilting
project that I'm working on inmy Friday episodes?
Yes, I do.
Do I love?
Every time I sit down to sewthinking, Oh, I should have a
camera on this.
I should be filming this.
What kind of tip could I beteaching with this?
And then after that, I've got togo and add captions to it and

(11:39):
choose my colors and choose myfont and add my music.
No, I don't love that.
So, I've decided going forward,I'm going to do more of the
things that I love, make more ofthe connections that I love,
grow that feeling that I love ofconnection, of sewing with my
friends, of sharing what I love,and less of the have to.

(12:01):
So these are some of the thingsthat I'm going to do differently
in this upcoming year.
and they may pivot again as timegoes on and I think through them
some more.
But what I'll be doing isscaling back on what I post on
social media or at the veryleast scaling back on the amount
of time and thought and energythat I put into thinking about

(12:23):
what I'm going to post on socialmedia.
So you might see a little lessof me there, but I'm absolutely
keeping the things that I lovehigh on my list are my
unscripted YouTube shows whereFrankly, we're all learning
together.
Those of you who watch, give asmany tips as you get.
We have some great times onYouTube where I'm puzzled or

(12:45):
stumped and a viewer chimes in,and I love those times.
Those are great moments, and itis so rewarding to quilt
together.
So there's going to be more ofthat.
I love writing my newslettersand blog posts.
that are stories mixed withtips, mixed with encouragement.
I love doing that.
So I want to do more of that.

(13:06):
There's real joy into it.
So here's what I want you totake away from my rambling
today.
You can, and I can, findfulfillment in both the hobby
and business aspects of ourcraft.
Some of you have chosen only tokeep it as a hobby, and that's
absolutely lovely.

(13:26):
Some of you have chosen or aregoing to choose to build a
business, and it can be helpfuland rewarding, and it can
absolutely not suck the joy outof what you love to do.
I do consider myself incrediblyfortunate that my hobby and my
business overlap, that I get toshare and teach the thing that I
love the most.

(13:47):
It has taken time to find thislevel of balance, and I'm pretty
sure going forward, there willstill be work involved and there
will still be pivots and changesand periodic reevaluations.
And I'm okay with that.
Whether you're creating for joyor for profit or for both, the
most important thing to protectis what makes your creative

(14:07):
heart sing.
So for me, that means protectingthe things that I love to do in
my craft.
And it also means protecting mylife outside of my business and
my craft.
That is so, so important to me.
It means keeping some of myquilting projects just for me.
It means exploring some of theother crafts that I've let go in

(14:30):
recent years.
In fact, As I talk into themicrophone, I've got some brand
new balls of yarn and a knittingpattern sitting beside me.
I'm going to break that openlater today.
And I'm so excited about it.
And that's, that's the wonderfulthing about being a crafter.
So I hope that sharing a littleof my journey has helped you to

(14:50):
find a little bit of your ownperfect balance between hobby
and business.
I hope that it's encouraged youto.
whatever time you devote to it,that you find the joy and keep
the joy in what you're doing.
I don't think it has to be aboutchoosing one or the other, but
about knowing what it is thatbrings you joy and keeping on

(15:11):
with that thing, more of thatthing, expanding and magnifying
that thing.
So until next time, keepcreating and keep exploring.
And as always, may your sorrowsbe patched and your joys be
quilted.