Navigating Creativity, Business, and Life with Amy Smart

In the latest season of 'Measure Twice, Cut Once,' we dive into the world of creative entrepreneurship and quilting. Join me as I welcome Amy Smart, of Diary of a Quilter, a well-established quilter and fabric designer for Riley Blake Designs. 

Amy and I discuss her journey from blogging to designing fabric, the evolution of her business, her strategies for maintaining balance, and insights on the quilting community's changes over the years. 

Learn practical tips for managing a creative business, the importance of taking breaks, and the benefits of outsourcing. 

Plus, hear about Amy's inspiring trip to Mexico City and her upcoming fabric line with Riley Blake Designs, 'Mary Catherine.' It's an episode packed with valuable lessons for both aspiring and seasoned creative entrepreneurs.

Visit Amy at the following places:

• Instagram
• YouTube
• Facebook

00:00 Introduction to Season 5

01:03 Guest Introduction: Amy Smart

02:19 Current Projects and Business Insights

04:08 The Evolution of Blogging and Social Media

09:33 Balancing Business and Personal Life

20:30 Outsourcing and Delegation

22:59 Becoming a Fabric Designer

28:17 Inspiration from Mexico City

34:46 Conclusion and Farewell

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

Are you looking to ADVANCE your machine quilting skills?

Machine quilting can be very solitary, especially on a longarm. It's just not that easy to pack up your machine and head to a friend's house for the day, right? But it's important to have that community - that sharing of ideas and tips, encouragement and motivation.

For more information and to sign up, visit our website.  

Transcript

0:48

Welcome to Season 5 of Measure Twice, Cut Once. This whole season is an exploration into behind the scenes of not just quilting, but building a creative business that truly lights you up. As someone who's navigated the exciting, sometimes bumpy world of turning a passion into a profession, I'm excited to pull back the curtain and share my own experiences. Some episodes will be just me. Diving deep into my personal journey, while others will feature guests who are also navigating the world of creative entrepreneurship, will explore the nitty gritty of building a creative business, the lessons learned and the unexpected challenges that come with transforming your craft. Into a thriving enterprise. And don't worry, I'm not leaving storytelling behind. Instead, I'll be weaving them into the conversations about what it takes to grow a business while staying true to your creative spirit. So whether you're dreaming of starting your own business, or you just love hearing about creative entrepreneurship, this season is for you.

Susan: 1:47

Amy Smart has been quilting for over 25 years. She's been writing and sharing at Diary of a Quilter since 2008. That is remarkable. And she started working recently as a quilt designer and fabric designer for Riley Blake. Clearly, Amy has lots of experience and stories to share. Let's welcome her now. Hi, Amy. I'm so glad to be able to visit with you today.

Amy: 2:11

Hi, Susan, I'm so excited to get to visit with you too. And your listeners.

Susan: 2:16

Funny story on us, on me, really. I met you in person a few months ago. We were at a kind of an entrepreneurial slash quilters conference and I saw you and started chatting with you and didn't in fact realize who you were and then later on I was like, oh, that's Amy Smart and then I had to come introduce myself properly.

Amy: 2:37

I like being incognito, so that I'm actually glad that makes sense. No. Thanks. And it was so fun to get to meet you too, in person. It's just always, it's always a special treat to get to, we have so many people we interact with virtually, which is amazing. It's such an amazing community, but it's an extra bonus when you get to meet people in real life. Those opportunities are great.

Susan: 3:03

I want to dive right into the middle. I like to start with what's current? Because we'll get into your story later. But what's on your cutting table, so to speak right now? What things are you working on?

Amy: 3:13

I'm trying to sort and reboot and clean out I'm doing a literal purge of my sewing room, but I'm also doing it with my business a little bit. What? are the things I want to focus on what's the best use of my time and my energy and what are the things that aren't. And I'm, it's felt really great. I feel really grateful. I don't have any gigantic deadlines right now. I will have a fabric collection come out in September, but I've got, usually it's been every year. And this time it's been really nice to have 18 months. So I'm just. Using this time to really purge and it feels great. I love it.

Susan: 3:51

That sounds awesome. Is this, have you found this to be a sign of kind of cyclical thing? Because you have been in business for a while. You're the CEO of your own business. You're the planner. You do the quarterly plans and the annual reviews and all those things. Is this something you kind of cycle through like spring house cleaning?

Amy: 4:09

Yes. And I feel like for a lot of my business, I've just like next thing committed, maybe over committed myself in some years for sure. And every once in a while I've started, I've taken time to just, okay not make any big commitments and just get my own. House and sewing room and calendar in order. And then I'm hoping to be strategic and purposeful about what comes next. What are my next steps? So I have, I definitely have a long list of things I want to do. And it's okay, which of those things would be the most, which excites me, Be the most best for my business growth. And also just for the stage of life I'm at.

Susan: 4:52

Because you've been blogging for such a long time 2008 is when you started, was I correct in saying that?

Amy: 4:58

Yes, you're right. Yep.

Susan: 5:00

So I'm curious what has changed in the feeling of blogging in that time? I've only been in business for, I don't know, four or five years in the quilting industry. And it never seemed to me that blogging was the way to put myself in front of the people. But was that what it was in 2008? And how has that flexed and changed, and how does it serve you today?

Amy: 5:21

That's such a great question. Yeah, definitely in 2008 It was pre social media like Facebook wasn't around yet Or if it was, college kids and at Harvard, you know it wasn't a mass thing that gets pre Instagram. It was blogging was the way people I would say shared what they were creating and connected with each other. And then clearly, social media made it much simpler. You didn't have to have a website. You could just share on Instagram and build that community online in that, in a much more simplified format. I continued to blog and a lot of people thought A lot of people that I originally met and connected with in this quilting community that were originally started on blogs they moved away from that. And I know I'm one of the few that, that stuck with it. And that's partly because of, it's partly how I monetize my business. I consider myself a content creator and it's easier to monetize your content on something like a website or YouTube. Rather than on a social media platform. So I've stuck with it and it's worked out. It's paid off. It's still, I've instead of, when I first started blogging, it was more like, here's what I did today and here's. The store I went to, it was more like a day to day journal type thing. Maybe a little bit like Instagram was when it was originally started. But now I look at my blog as more of a website, like more of a a resource. I want it to be a resource. I've got years of tutorials and content there and I want to make it more accessible so it's not just you're not just having to sort through it, I want, it's changed to more of a searchable website where it can be a resource and and I've changed my like, here's what I'm working on, here's what I'm doing, that side of it to my newsletter, like I share, the, I want the website to be more evergreen and my newsletter is where I'm like, here's. Here's what I'm thinking about today. Or here's the new project I started or things like that.

Susan: 7:22

Got it. It feels like all these different places where we share, they're not all social media, but they're places that we share and create community. They each have their own purpose and they each have their own pros and cons, right? And one of the things about actual social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, is that they're so short lived. So does it put you in front of people? Yes. But will they remember you tomorrow? And if they remember something you wrote, will they be able to find it

Amy: 7:49

Find it again,

Susan: 7:51

And so that's the beauty of a blog. And for me, I've come around to, I do have one, and it's for that reason. It's findable. And that's what, that's necessary also.

Amy: 8:01

Yes, because I have people that I thoroughly enjoy like I have learned about my health or Recipes or things like that I love on Instagram, but it's really hard to go back and find that content or you know You're trying to share the funny cat video with a friend and you have to scroll and look it's really hard to search So having a website is much more searchable and by that same token YouTube is much more searchable than Instagram reels or tik tok. So

Susan: 8:30

Yes.

Amy: 8:31

I'm starting to work on more as YouTube shorts and things like that just because They're more findable later.

Susan: 8:39

I was going to ask if you have a YouTube channel, and you do. Is that kind of tutorial based too, or is it just, similar content but delivered in a different format, or different stuff?

Amy: 8:49

To be honest, YouTube is a frontier that I have not put as much effort into. And partly that's just you know what? Anyone listening knows what it's like to When you're a self, a solopreneur, you come, you only have so many plates you can spin at once. And so that. I've just had to make the conscious decision I just don't. I need to set up a studio. I need to research cameras and lights and things like that. So I have just put that on the shelf. I have some, I have one video where I taught a technique for one of my patterns and that is by far the most viewed video on my YouTube. And it, the lighting's terrible. I made it when you could still adjust things in YouTube and then they changed it before I published it. So it is not looking very polished or professional, but it gets a lot of yeah, it's just one of those things like trying to find how to spin one more plate for me is why I've, but I am creating content videos for Instagram. Not intensively, but I have this content and I'm realizing I should leverage that. I should be sharing it in other places.

Susan: 9:55

It is this kind of balancing act. It always is. Between, on the one hand trying to rein yourself in from, as you said, spinning all the plates, trying to do all the things. And on the other hand, thinking to yourself I've already created the value, the content. The pictures, the tutorials, and I want to put it in all these places. So I don't know if there's a magic answer to that. Have you ever found one? Or is it just something you are constantly adjusting, balancing your feet, strengthening your core?

Amy: 10:23

right. And that's it. And everybody's going to be so different. So one year I, at the beginning of the year, I decided to just track where my revenue came from that, and it took, I did it for the whole year. And at the end of that year, just on a spreadsheet, just where it was coming from pattern sales or. Fabric designer or ad revenue or just wherever it was coming from. That was so eyeopening to help me really decide, okay, here's the places I should focus my energy and here are the things that aren't focusing on. They're not generating revenue. They're not. Adding to contributing. And so that I recommend that for anybody in a business, look and see where your if revenue is your goal, if it's just connecting with people, like that's another metric you could measure. That for me this is a business and I, if I'm going to invest my time, I want it to. be worth it. If I'm, sacrificing other things, then I want this to be pay off. And so I, I recommend that. And I just hadn't, I just haven't yet figured out how to monetize YouTube. So that, that's just like the oversimplified version of why I can't, I haven't tackled other aspects of growing a business, but also I just, it's not where my, I see people who have, we all have. different strengths and interests and for me, it's photography and writing. And so that's why I've just mostly stuck to the written content rather than video.

Susan: 11:55

I think honestly, that's a huge tip buried in that, which is. For sustainable, for the long term, for your, sanity, you have to do the things that you're passionate about and enjoy doing, and don't pressure yourself to do other things just because other people are doing them. That's not a good reason for

Amy: 12:13

Yes. That is, you summed that up so perfectly. Like we, it's so easy to look around and see they're finding so much success in this area. Maybe I should stretch myself there, but for it to be sustainable. You're exactly right. It needs to be the things that are, we enjoy and that we feel confident in and that are productive for growth.

Susan: 12:36

I totally agree. I loved hearing about your experiment for tracking, your revenue metrics for a year. I'm currently in a coaching program, and I tracked for a week only, I tracked my time expenditures.

Amy: 12:49

That's smart.

Susan: 12:50

what am I doing all day, with that exact reasoning in mind which are the things that move the needle, which are the things that accomplish my goals, which are the things that are just busy work, or that I could eliminate, or automate, or whatever the thing is. I feel like this whole, it's just an ongoing cycle, right? You keep going around these and reviewing yeah, the decisions never stop, do they?

Amy: 13:13

Yeah. But it does help. It's an invest, like you said, it's an investment. Investments up front to, to track those things, but it gives you so much data and confidence moving forward that you don't have to continually. Actually, it's still to continue to track it, but it's not like a focus. I just do it like to hone the home spending my time. Yeah.

Susan: 13:33

Honing is a good word and it's not like a continual burden to try and track them either because the point of it is to make smart decisions then about what things you do move off your plate, what plates get out of the air and try to make life easier. So in that vein what are some of the things you found over the years that our listeners, wherever they are in their business, new, intermediate, been doing it forever? What are some of the things you've done to maintain your personal space, time, interests, sanity, all those things? Yeah,

Amy: 14:15

in mind is. So obvious saying it, but most people don't care. If you don't show up every day, what in this world of social media, you it's okay to take a break and step back and you don't have to announce it. Like I'm taking a break. Just it's okay. Just take a break and then come back. And those people will. Be excited to hear from you. And that, and I knew could even say when you come back Oh, I took some time off and it felt so good and I feel inspired again. It's okay. I, when I. So when I first started blogging, I felt like I needed to post three times a week and maybe, with Instagram or things like that, people still feel that need to pressure to post constantly. I, one thing I love about my website is now I cut back to twice a week and felt look at me, I'm cutting back, I've now cut back to once a week and it's plenty. And we live in this world of so much content conception that people aren't going to get bored. And it's better if you're not, in their face all the time. It's better to take time to create something of quality than to just be that. This is my personal feeling. And how I to answer your question, how I keep it from being overwhelming. And it's, I think people, I have people that they share something once or twice a month and I look forward to whatever they share and I don't feel like, why aren't you doing more?

Susan: 15:46

Really great

Amy: 15:47

we can all pace ourselves at our capacity and it doesn't need to be, you As constant, I will say, one thing that people say about Instagram, I have a lot of beef with Instagram. And so I, I don't invest a lot of my mental energy in it because it is so demanding. They do want you to post every day. And I don't think that's sustainable or healthy for my mental health. So I'm fine. Yeah.

Susan: 16:16

to as all the algorithms do. But it does feel like right now with instagram, not only do you have to post so often, but I actually find Someone suggested this to me, so I tried it out, and I found it to be true. If you don't pay to boost, you don't get seen. And it can be ten bucks, which doesn't feel like much. And yet, I just personally object to that pressure to pay into the system in order to use it. I'm like you. That's just on a slow burner right now, keeping it alive, but not really nurturing it.

Amy: 16:48

Not, I don't want to be a slave to it.

Susan: 16:51

Exactly. Good phrase. Okay. So that's one thing. Don't be a slave to whatever you feel like the demands are. Know that you can set your cadence and your timing. What other things have you done to keep, space for life and family and even other interests.

Amy: 17:05

Just, yeah, setting aside time. I'm trying to be more, I should preface this comment by saying my youngest just graduated and moved out. So I've hit this new stage of life just in the past six months of being an empty nester and I'm. I'm finding, at first I thought oh, and I don't have kids that need me all day or I, I, not that they needed me all day, but that we're, I have more flexibility in my life and at the same time, I now I'm doing it for me, not just for them. I used to be, I will set aside time for my family because they need me, but when I have more time to myself, I'll just keep going. But I get burned out. I found I want to do things for, set aside time for my own health and wellbeing. So it's trapped, making time to travel taking I definitely take Sundays off and it's so nice to just know I'm not even gonna open my laptop that day It's just nice to have a day of Mental health break and I'm trying to just be work certain hours and then shut it down, but I'm not always great at that. It's one of the blessings and curses of building a business around things that you love is sometimes I feel like I doing this stuff, so I'm just going to keep doing it. But. I also know other people need my attention. I need to set things aside. So I don't, that was such a long rambling, unclear answer that I don't know that really even helped. Maybe it's because I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

Susan: 18:37

we see inside your thoughts, because I feel like this blessing and curse, two sides of the coin also falls into play when you're working from home, which you do too,

Amy: 18:45

Exactly.

Susan: 18:46

so do I. So the obvious pro is I have a 17 stairstep commute. Yay. The obvious con is it's all too easy to never, fully stop, fully close the door on it and leave it and sit down and enjoy a movie with the family. Right?

Amy: 19:02

Yes. You summed that up so well. And yeah, that's, I'm still, now that it's just my husband and I'm still trying to, we're in a new dance. Like he's self employed too and we could just spend all our time, but the making time to just, okay, set aside, let's just sit and watch a show together. Let's go for a walk. Let's go watch, go to a movie or something. It's important to do those things. Yes,

Susan: 19:25

as creatives, how important do you think that is that we Have time doing other things like to literally have our minds in a different gear in a different vein To be able to come back and then create unique and wonderful things I that's my experience if I push through all of a sudden the tap is just not running the same way and It's counterintuitive, but it works stop do something else. Do you find that too?

Amy: 19:52

Yes, oh yeah, that's, it's so important to to step away, to do something, read a book, to, I know it's, burnout is real, and especially when you're so lucky to have a creative based business, but the hustle and the what's the word I'm looking for, just the business aspects are taxing, and they're not inspiring most of the time, and yeah. Yeah, even making time to say, today I'm just gonna pull out my scraps and I'm just gonna play. That's rejuvenating. Even just cleaning out my fabric, I find, oh, I forgot I had this and I love this and that's motivating too. But also stepping away and doing something entirely different. My husband and I like to hike. That's a really, been a really good thing for me to just go outside. The outside is a great rejuvenation.

Susan: 20:42

Nice, nice. Have you done other, have you done other practical things in your life? We've heard over the years about Working women and this whole balance, between home and work and etc. And in some respects, we're facing that too. We work from home and it's easy to just run, do a load of laundry, be twixt in between. But have you done other practical things that have shifted some of those tasks off your shoulders to free you up to do more of your business related things? Did you need to make that shift or do you just

Amy: 21:12

Yeah. That's such a good question. Learning to outsource the things that someone else could do that I could trust somebody else to do for my business. For example, I don't machine quilt my quilts. I'm so thankful to people like you that have that gift and talent and that I can trust with my quilts to get them finished. That was an easy one. And no brainer because that's always been Just how I've, my quilting process has worked. I've started it's only in recent years though, I've started hiring, I've just, again, looking for what are the things I can take off my plate, someone else could do. I've started hiring people to piece for me now too, especially if I'm preparing for a, Like quilt market or something where it's a time, even though that's something I, the part that I like and enjoy, I just can't do it all. And so finding other people to help with that. I hired a clean, a couple of women who come and clean my house every other week. And that Been a huge, I know it's you just the thing, looking creatively at the things of what is something I can pay someone else to do, because my time is more valuable doing the things only I can do. And

Susan: 22:23

That's the key right

Amy: 22:25

I can.

Susan: 22:26

That's the key. Doing the things only I can do, but there are other things that someone else could, and in many cases, can do better,

Amy: 22:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Susan: 22:35

Housecleaning being one, in

Amy: 22:36

Yes. Exactly. I'm just so great. That's been a That was a goal for years and finally I just found someone that was And it's, oh, it's been so helpful. Yeah. Just other things. I would love to find someone, I would love to find a virtual assistant at some point that I still don't trust someone to answer my emails. It should let that go.

Susan: 22:57

It's a tough one. It's a tough one. Especially, I think, when you've been a solopreneur for a long time, it's almost harder. It's almost harder.

Amy: 23:05

This is there's literally speaking for me and I did hire someone at one time to write my newsletter to, I would, and I discovered I was spending just as much time like assembling, All the things to go in it and then it just wasn't my voice. So that is something I just took back and that, and it's actually something I really love doing is writing my newsletter every week. Yeah, there are just some things when you are a solopreneur, when you're not just products, but you're selling you, there's some things that you have to maintain that control over, but how clean my toilets are, no one else cares. And so I can have someone else do that.

Susan: 25:06

Lovely. All right, switching lanes a little bit. What was the trajectory for you from, blogging slash newslettering to becoming a fabric designer? That's not something I've ever explored. I would like to know what, what made that happen. What piqued your interest in it and how did you go about that?

Amy: 25:23

know, I had a really unique experience because, but most people's experiences are there. There's such a variety of experiences as it comes to designing fabric. I don't consider myself a traditional artist, like with a paintbrush or even digitally being able to draw using Adobe illustrator or things like that. And so I've never really considered it because I just felt like that's not where my strengths are. The learning curve would be really high, but I was creating for a lot of. Fabric companies. I was creating content for them. I was creating, I was sewing with their fabric and creating tutorials or projects or patterns or things like that. And I'm really, in my case, I'm very lucky. I live very close to the Riley Blake headquarters and I was frequently there and frequently sewing and creating for them and teaching for them. And they reached, they approached me and said, we, have you considered this? And at first I was like, I just don't think Do it. And they said pitch your ideas. What would you do? And so I did have a concept that I was a pallet ideas and I ended up hiring somebody to digitize it all because I did not have that skillset and they really liked it and it actually did really well. So they were happy to keep accommodating me. I continued to hire somebody to help me digitize. They've started helping me with some of that too. I now partner with my sister who is an actual artist and she creates a lot of the designs too. So I feel like I have a unique journey to becoming a fabric designer, but I think they also recognize I brought an audience. I brought at the time they had a lot of digital artists who weren't necessarily quilters. And so they. Didn't write their own quilt patterns. They just provided artwork and I came from a different I have a quilting audience and I know how to write quilt patterns and I know how to market and sell fabric So I brought that strength Is so we all can bring different strengths. There's different don't sell yourself short But I do know having an audience already is a real asset if you want to become a fabric designer. There's so much competition in the surface design world that bringing an audience of quilters with you is a huge asset.

Susan: 27:38

Mhm. And by surface design, you mean not only fabric designing, but for example, for cricket cutters and for,

Amy: 27:45

Yeah,

Susan: 27:45

gift wear and things like that. So that can be widely encompassing. This is such a good illustration. When you talked about, you hired someone else to do the digitizing portion, such a good illustration of knowing your strength, which is perhaps concept idea and then, related patterns and marketing, but getting someone else to do the bit that felt like the big roadblock. I think that's pretty key. Again, we keep coming back to some of the roadblocks that solopreneurs face. And one of them is this idea that I have to do everything. And I think getting over that idea can really free us up to keep having fresh, new, bright ideas, but we don't have to carry out every single step of delivering those ideas.

Amy: 28:28

Yes. So perfectly said and I agree. No one can do it all. It's just a recipe for burnout, but to find your strengths and not to say Don't learn new things. I've learned a lot about search engine optimization. I've learned a lot about photography. I've learned a lot about marketing that I didn't know before, but those things were fun. And I've just, year after year, continue to add to that knowledge. I didn't learn it all at once. A lot of it, a lot of our learning is just by doing, and that's part of it too. But, yeah. To your point, and it's the point we've been talking about, it's okay to not do it all. It's okay to hire it out. It's okay to leverage your strengths and let someone else use theirs. It's a huge time saver. I hire someone to tech, to do all the technical writing of my patterns. I write the patterns and then she does the graphics and the layout and it's It saves me so much time. I pay her. It's getting more expensive. I should learn these things because it's getting more expensive, but I've also learned.

Susan: 29:31

if you would, define technical writing for me. Does that mean creating the graphics, the pictures, the drawings, with the seam allowances, etc. in it?

Amy: 29:39

she does the graphic layout. I write the pattern and then she does the illustrate. She illustrates it with the images and then does the whole layout in. Adobe InDesign. So I can go back and edit it and add things, but she makes it look pretty and that is not one of my strengths. And I'm yeah, it's another area where I'm happy to pay for help because in the long run that pattern gets done so much faster than if I were doing that part two.

Susan: 30:06

yes. Your leverage word I think was absolutely key. Because of course there is value in learning new skills and in, broadening your skill set, but it is impossible to do all the things and certainly to do all the things at once. So leveraging. Yeah. Such a good

Amy: 30:20

Yeah. Yeah.

Susan: 30:22

Okay. Taking another turn again. You recently took a trip to Mexico City. Can you tell us what inspired you?

Amy: 30:30

Oh, my goodness. It was so fantastic. I feel like just what inspired us to go or what inspired us, what inspired me after being there?

Susan: 30:40

Oh both. Let's take what inspired you to go first.

Amy: 30:43

Okay. I, it, Mexico City was just something I'd never considered. I just never thought about it. And we had some friends that went and then I've had a son that has been studying Spanish, has worked with a lot of Hispanic communities, mostly Mexican. And he just really wanted to. Go to Mexico and we had been to like a resort on the beach part of Mexico, but we'd never been to like authentic Mexico. And so we went to, we planned this trip to Mexico City and it just exceeded all my expectations. It was a beautiful city and beautiful communities, just world class museums. It, I've been to a lot of European capitals and it very much reminded me. Of that, like a similar experience to those but with its own culture and the food was so amazing. We just I'm a taco lover, so going there we just ate tacos all, every day. It was so good, but just wonderful people, wonderful. I, we got to visit, I don't know how to describe it, a woman who demonstrated traditional methods for how they would source fiber from an agave plant and how they would use the whole plant to for parchment, for fiber, how they would dye it for even the points, the tip of the agave plant for as needles. It was so interesting. And just watching her just in a five minute demonstration show how she dyed the fibers using rose petals and then adding calcium turned it a different color and it was really cool. So it was really

Susan: 32:20

fascinating. Not a thing we have super frequent opportunities to see firsthand.

Amy: 32:25

Yeah, I would totally recommend going there. It was from this, from North America, from the States and Canada. It's. You don't have to deal with jet lag because you stay at the same time zone and and the cost is really it's really affordable and we just had a great experience.

Susan: 32:42

you do it through some type of tour or was it something you planned on your own? Or did you

Amy: 32:46

We just planned it, we just planned it on our own. We stayed in an Airbnb apartment. We did hire local tour guides who were great. I probably, I was grateful our son was with us. who spoke fluent Spanish. I don't know how well I would have done with my Duolingo Spanish.

Susan: 33:08

Yeah

Amy: 33:09

not as many people speaking. If you go to Europe, you'll, you're gonna find more English speakers probably than in Mexico City. The tour guides that we hired all spoke great English. You can do it. They were, yeah, it was really great.

Susan: 33:23

that's awesome. So one more reason to step out and try new things,

Amy: 33:26

Explore the world. It really, yes, it really piqued my interest into going to more Latin American cities and countries.

Susan: 33:36

Did you put any emphasis during that trip like on seeing any textile related things or was this just strictly a, work is not in mind type of trip?

Amy: 33:44

Mostly it was I am a big, I love culture and history, so I, we did a lot of seeing the history and things, but I always like to go, because if I'm going to come back and share it, I want it to relate to my audience too, but I love I love folk art, and we, there was an excellent folk art museum that had beautiful examples of textiles, whether it's the clothing embroidery, the, just the weaving. The woman that gave us the information and demonstration about how they use the agave plant, there was a loom there and they had native textiles. We went to a couple of artisan markets and it just was really fun. I love seeing folk art. I would almost rather see them fine art because it's just such a window into a culture Of everyday laborers, which is also what I love about quilting. It just evolved. They've become fine art quilting, obviously, but quilting evolved from women using everyday objects, leftovers of their aprons or dresses or remnants of, and creating rugs, creating quilts. So I love that aspect of people expressing, not needing a fine arts degree to express their artistic creativity and talents. And so I love that.

Susan: 35:03

And people who is speaking of my family anyway, generations of quilters, but definitely did not think of themselves as artists. But when we look at it now, we see absolutely the artistry

Amy: 35:15

Yeah. I'm, I love poker. It's

Susan: 35:17

is that does that kind of express your style of quilt patterns and designs and even your fabric today like you like love that pulling in of scrappiness and of memories in history, or are you much more an organized line of fabrics type quiltmaker?

Amy: 35:33

It's so funny. I will say one thing that held me back from wanting to design fabric is I just love the scrappier the better. My favorite quilts are vintage quilts that are just wild and full of so many colors. It's not, it's this curated look, and I know that's how the industry works, so I'm, I've adapted my creating to miter how the industry works how fabric companies and retailers market fabric. It needs to work that way, but if you were to ask me my favorite quilts to look at, my favorite quilts to create are ones that are just fully scrappy, wild

Susan: 36:14

Love it. And it turns out my favorite designers tend to be the ones whose lines marry well together over time. So I can keep on making

Amy: 36:24

So you can

Susan: 36:25

and pick and choose, and it all still plays happily together.

Amy: 36:29

Yes. I, one of my favorite designers is Jen Kingwell and you look at her quilts and they are just wild like that You're like, how did she put those fabrics together and make that magic happen? It's so inspiring. So I'm with you I love when I can add as many I've tried to do that with my own fabric collections, make them so they all can work together, play together over time,

Susan: 36:52

Nice. This has been lovely visiting. Remind our listeners when your next line of fabric is coming out and some of the places where they can find you and catch

Amy: 37:01

Okay, yeah, so my next line of fabric will come out in September for Riley Blake. Designs

Susan: 37:09

Does it have a name?

Amy: 37:11

Yes, it's called Mary Catherine. It's named after my mother and my mother in law. It's based on their, it's a vintage inspired collection. It's based on their 50s. childhood. We even used my mother in law's bedroom curtains as some of the color palette inspiration and design inspiration. So I'm really excited. It's a gentle, just a soft vintage inspired collection. So I'm excited for that to come out.

Susan: 37:39

And do people look for you as Diary of a Quilter or as Amy Smart or some of

Amy: 37:44

that's, either one, if it's so funny, there is an actress named Amy Smart, so if you Google Amy Smart, she will probably come up first, but if you Google Amy Smart Quilter, then I will show up, and you can find me on my website is www. diaryofaquilter, all one word, and same with Instagram, Facebook, that's also my handle, Diary of a Quilter.

Susan: 38:07

Perfect. Thanks again for joining me.

Amy: 38:09

Oh, it's been a pleasure, it's just been fun to talk with you, Susan.

Susan: 38:13

Indeed. And we have been visiting with Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter. I do encourage you to check out her website and particularly her blog because she's been doing it for so long. She has got a wealth of tutorials and ideas and tips and patterns. You're sure to find something there that will help you in your own quilting journey. Well friends, until next time, may your sorrows be patched and your joys be quilted.