EPISODE TWENTY ONE :: Lisa Anderson Shaffer of Zelma Rose - The "Chaotic Crisis Pregnancy Business Plan", and Building a Creative Practice Alongside Motherhood

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The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

A huge thanks to this week's episode sponsor - Gradient Yarn Australia. 

Gradient Yarn Australia is an independent yarn dyeing business started by Briony Mannering. Briony is an Independent yarn colourist, teacher and knitwear designer based in South East Melbourne.  Her passion for craft lead her to yarn dyeing in 2012.  A few years later started working on her knitwear design. Now, she’s known for her yarn line of smooth graduated colours, and her knitwear designs that artfully display these colour schemes. 

A typical day will find Briony dyeing and experimenting with dye techniques in the mornings, and knitting in the afternoons.  Her latest yarn evolution is utilising local yarn and combining with natural dyes.

When she was younger, Briony nearly ran away with the local circus!  The only clowning around she has time for now is with her two young boys.

You can find Gradient Yarn Australia at www.gradientyarnaustralia.com  and on instagram @gradientaus

This week I spoke to Lisa Anderson Shaffer of Zelma Rose. Lisa is a fine artist and sculptural jewellery maker living in the Bay area in California. We talk about her grandmothers (Zelma and Rose, respectively), who introduced her to needlework and crochet as a child, and how she's used these crafts to inform her art practice today. Lisa tells me about her fibre of choice in her jewellery making practice and how when she works with these fibres, it's like a dance to her, it just feels right in her body. When we get into how Zelma Rose came to be and how she approaches it present day, Lisa opens up about her experience transitioning from her career to making art and jewellery full time, and how her experience as a mother has shaped how she has shaped her business. 

We discuss how fibre arts is such an ancient practice, but how presently its popularity is growing, but at the same time how it's under the radar enough that Lisa doesn’t feel the pressure to have the traditional production calendar like some of her friends in metalsmithing or leatherwork or the fashion world. 

Lisa tells me about how she started zelma rose in 2010 and what she referred to as her  "life in chaotic crisis pregnancy business plan", which she remarks that she wouldn't necessarily recommend. She was fed up with her day job and had to leave, and so Zelma Rose was born. She found that she had tons of creative energy whilst pregnant and a desire to make product, before that she had always made fine art.  As her business grows, she has to pull the break a bit to be able to be the mother she wants to be. it’s been a steady climb for the last 6 years - a steady slow burn. 

Lisa's biggest bit of advice:

"there’s this thing called time. We don’t get it back. So, no matter how scary something is… there is no dead time, no matter how crazy or chaotic life gets… you can’t freeze time… it just keeps going. Stay present with that and reflect on that. “ 

People/ Things we mentioned in the podcast:

  • Carrie Crawford - @mineral workshop - Lisa loves her work so much, has a “wish I thought of that” moment wth her a lot. canvasses on cotton that are handdyed, interpretations of aerial landscapes.
  • Lisa also loves following skateboarders, just something about them makes her so stoked. 

Find Lisa: website | instagram | facebook

Want more? 

Like what you're hearing? 

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

Ani

 

EPISODE TWENTY :: Sophe Probst of Urban Roots Handmade - Moving Toward Zero Waste + Asking For What You Want

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The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

A huge thank you to this week's episode sponsor - Hanna Lisa Haferkamp. 

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Hanna Lisa is a creative maker and business coach who works with other small business owners to help them achieve their goals. In addition to coaching, she runs her very own video podcast where she talks about her experience making and running a creative business. You can find that on Youtube at Hannaontheroad (all one word - no second “H” in hanna).

In her spare time, Hanna makes gorgeous project bags for the modern knitter. Frustrated with the project bags on offer, she set about designing her own to meet her minimalist aesthetic and her needs as a knitter - like yarn not getting tangled up! She does a shop update once or twice a month, and you can find out about those via her instagram or her podcast. 

As a special treat For Close Knit Podcast Listeners, Hanna is offer a discount on her project bags! Enter the code CLOSEKNIT at checkout to get 10% off her project bags! 

Thanks again to Hanna Lisa for this generous offer and for sponsoring the Close Knit Podcast. 

This week I spoke to Sophe Probst of Urban Roots Handmade. Sophe is a zero-waste advocate living in Louisiana, making and selling minimally packaged linen and hemp linen products for the home and the body. She discovered hemp when she was looking for environmentally-friendly options to make herself dresses, after seeing Sonya Philip's 100 Acts of Sewing patterns and getting hooked. Before starting her shop, Sophe worked for a number of environmental organisations that fuelled her desire to run a business in a thoughtful way. She then started learning about the zero waste movement from the likes of Bea Johnson of Zero Waste Home, and she began looking for ways to incorporate minimalism into her life. 

After becoming a mother, Sophe began questioning the legacy she would leave for her children, and this led her to starting Urban Roots Handmade. We talk about the realities of running a business as a mother - this means a lot of time spent in the wee hours of the morning sewing - and how she plans to handles business growth without compromising on her ethics. We also get into some of the nitty gritty of how she learnt to price her work, and how she handles the finances of her business. 

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In her former working life, Sophe worked for a number of environmental organisations, and worked as an environmental educator. When she had her children, it made her question things, and she became emotionally tied to her children’s legacy. She started by sewing their cloth diapers, then got into zero waste reading like Bea Johnson, which led her to start refusing plastic and being more minimalist in her lifestyle. She often struggled to reconcile the idea that she was making new stuff with a minimalist/zero waste lifestyle, so she decided to do it plastic free. She asked her suppliers to ship plastic free, and she changed the way she made things to be less wasteful to fit into her ethos. 

Sophe learnt to sew as a child, her grandmother taught her to sew at age 10, and she made her first quilt in high school (she hand quilted it!). She reckons that introduction to sewing on a machine made her much less intimidated by using the machine as an adult. Her grandmother also taught her to knit, but Sophe reckons she's a bit slower at knitting (than sewing). 

Something Sophe cherishes about being a small business is the personal contact she has with her customers. She always includes a handwritten note in her packages, and we talk about how this informs her decisions with wholesaling and growing her business. 

Sophe's biggest bit of advice:

"I’m a big believer in buying quality. I bought the nice sewing machine, the one that was built to last, and I think that has made me want to sew more than if I was sewing on a plastic piece of crap.

And asking for things that you want. That’s been hard for me because I’m shy. Asking for what you want, and if you don’t get it, then move on, but if you do, it’s because you asked. “ 

People/ Things we mentioned in the podcast:

Find Sophe: website | instagram | facebook

Want more? 

Like what you're hearing? 

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

Ani