My Story and The Quilt That Started It All
Finding My Way
You may think I spent years dreaming up this idea of becoming a pattern designer and eventually took a huge leap to follow my dreams, and it all went perfectly to plan... but that is really not how it happened for me. In fact, this business really began during a time I was so lost. It sort of just found me.
Before my daughter was born, I was working as a teacher to get my husband through his PhD program at UT Austin. I have a bachelors degree in education and I always thought when my husband was done with school, I would eventually get my masters and become a college professor. Then my daughter was born, and if you have kids you probably know how your perspective on life changes drastically when you become responsible for a tiny human. On top of the stress of becoming a new mom, I was very unhappy in my job which was making it difficult to be present in the evenings with my daughter. So after many tough conversations with my husband, I decided to quit my job. Sure, I was the primary income for our family while my husband was in school, but the job market was great in Austin at the time, so it seemed like I had nothing to lose.
My last day as a teacher was February 28, 2020. Little did I know the chaos our country would be in two weeks later. I had many interviews lined up and even a job offer, all of which were retracted in March as the world shutdown due to a global pandemic. So I basically quit my job at the absolute worst possible time. Or was it?
Since I was now jobless with no prospects in the near future, and we were living off my husband’s teeny tiny grad school stipend, we pulled my daughter out of child care and hunkered down. We had 2 years left of grad school, which seemed like an eternity at the time. But there was light at the end of that tunnel, though sometimes it was REALLY hard to see. We got by doing food delivery when my husband got out of work, strapping the baby in the car seat and driving all over Austin. At the time the struggle felt so real, but in hindsight that hardship brought us so much closer.
From Food Delivery to Quilty Business
So how did quilting come from all of this you ask? Well, it started during nap time. Many nap times actually. I learned to sew at the age of 4 and spent most of my childhood years in my local 4-H sewing project. In all honesty, I was going nuts staying home and was desperate to find something to keep my mind busy during the few hours my daughter slept. I knew I had the skills, so I started scrolling Pinterest for DIY baby things that I could sew.
I made lots of bibs and bows initially, and then I found a tutorial on how to make a set of fabric letters. I raided my mom’s fabric stash and made a set for both my daughter and my baby niece. I posted a picture of them on my Instagram and immediately had a list of people that wanted to buy a set. So that’s what I did! Each set took FOREVER to make and I probably only made about $10 profit on each set. This was obviously not an ideal business venture… so I got so burnt out quickly. One day about two months into the pandemic, I was venting to my mom about my burn out and she said “why don’t you make a scrap quilt just for fun?” My mom, an avid quilter, spent most of my adult life trying to convince me to quilt, to which my response was always a very exaggerated eye roll. But this time I decided to give in and I made my daughter a scrappy play mat. I was hooked.
At this point I realized that I could make an entire baby quilt in about the same amount of time it took me to make a set of letters, but I could charge so much more. So I started making baby quilts. Although there were so many amazing quilt designs out in the world, I enjoyed coming up with my own designs more. My mom kept telling me I could write patterns someday to which I would say “no way!” Not because I didn’t want to, but because it was hard for me to believe people would be interested in my designs. Then along came the Scenic Route Quilt.
Big Mistake Turned Into Big Break
I had sketched a simple pattern that used SO MANY flying geese, 72 to be exact. So I bought some fabric and proceeded to make my flying geese using the 4-at-a-time method. It wasn’t until I was completely done that I realized I switched my colors by accident, so the background and foreground colors were swapped. Big oops... I was so mad, especially because I didn’t have extra money lying around to go get new fabric. So my mom said, “use it as a design opportunity” which is exactly what you want to hear while you’re venting about your woes. So I begrudgingly went back to the drawing board and came up with the design that is now known as The Scenic Route Quilt with absolutely zero intentions of writing a pattern for it.
Leave it to this Quilty community to nudge you into taking risks and supporting you every step of the way. That is exactly what happened when I posted my first photo of The Scenic Route Quilt. Immediately I had people asking if there would be a pattern, which left me in shock. I had no idea how to write a pattern let alone bring it to market. I was so scared. But the final nudge I had to publish my first pattern was my Dad. My super practical, “get a job with a good 401k” dad who encouraged me to take a leap and follow this dream. I get my type A logical side from him, so without the backup I would have NEVER done this. When I felt like I was making all the wrong decisions, I had people in every corner pushing me to jump.
The moral of this story is that sometimes, no actually I think most times, life doesn’t work out the way you planned. Even when you think you have it all figured out, you might get thrown something completely out of your control, like I don’t know… A GLOBAL PANDEMIC! We have two choices when shit hits the fan, freeze or hunker down and make something out of nothing. Be open to opportunities that present themselves, even if it is not what you imagined. That might not always be as drastic as starting a business, but maybe it’s simply making a beautiful new design with a butt ton of flying geese you made incorrectly. Someday along the way, you will look back on all those hardships that felt like wrong turns and mistakes and realize that you were really just taking the scenic route. Look for the beauty, because I promise it’s there.