Amy Lollis: Breaking Free from Creative Burnout & Finding Joy Again

In this episode, I welcome Amy Lollis, a quilt pattern writer, fabric designer, podcaster, crocheter, and Oklahoma homeschool mom. 

About Amy Lollis

• Quilt pattern writer, fabric designer, podcaster, crocheter
• Oklahoma homeschool mom
• Creator behind Amy Lollis Creative
• Unofficial motto: "Make every day just a little bit more magical"

Topics Discussed

• No-Spend Challenge: Amy discusses her current 365-day no-spend challenge, designed to get off the "hamster wheel" of constantly buying the newest fabrics and tools
• Industry Pressures: Insights into the pressure of keeping up with trends and how the quilting industry changed during and after COVID
• Business Evolution: Amy shares her journey from brand "Happy Hippie Studio" to her current more authentic approach
• Fabric Industry Inside Look: Amy's experience working on a contract basis within the fabric industry and seeing how things work behind the scenes
• First-Year Business Mistakes: Lessons learned about authenticity, simplifying processes, and avoiding burnout
• Pattern Testing: Why Amy decided to stop using pattern testers and how she simplified her pattern development process
• Homeschooling Reality: An honest look at balancing homeschooling with running a creative business
• Managing Depression: Amy's candid discussion about dealing with depression and PMDD while running a creative business

Where to Find Amy 

• Instagram: @amylolliscreative
• Website: www.amylollis.com

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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: 1:49

Amy Lollis is a quilt pattern writer, fabric designer, podcaster, crocheter, and Oklahoma homeschool mom whose unofficial motto is to make every day just a little bit more magical. That sounds like a whole lot of things I can relate to. Hi Amy and welcome to the podcast.

Amy: 2:05

Hello, thank you for having me.

Susan: 2:08

This is so much fun. We are currently as we speak, but before this episode is released, you and I both have presentations happening at the Quilted Summit, and I think lots of our listeners slash viewers slash followers are there too. Is that something that you do often is contribute to shared events like that?

Amy: 2:28

So this is actually only my second summit style thing that I have done. I did the virtual quilt summit last year with BeeBurn and It was a lot of fun. I ended up booking a bunch of like guild lectures from that and yeah, that was about it. I just, I got a lot, I got a lot of lectures from it which was a lot of fun because it's like you get to connect with all these people that you normally wouldn't have, access to. My audience is relatively small on social media and. So it's just a lot of fun to get that many people together and the lineup for this has been incredible.

Susan: 3:06

I agree. I agree. I think there's 25 different teachers, each one, great in their own right and such a wide variety. And I always like to start with my guests, not chronologically, but just like diving into today. Where are you today in your work and in your life and what's exciting you right now? And is this, summit and exposure and meeting new people all kind of part of that?

Amy: 3:28

Yes. What's exciting me right now? I don't know if you like, I don't assume that you like dive way into my history on social media or anything. But right now I'm doing a 365 day no spend challenge and I started it essentially to get off the hamster wheel of constantly looking for the newest things and finding the newest fabrics and buying the newest gadgets and trying to keep up with the pressure of writing and designing for the newest things that are coming out. It seems every month. It literally is every month. But I was like, man, I've got all these beautiful fabrics that I've collected over the last few years that I'm just madly in love with. And. My creativity has changed, my skills as a writer have changed, and I want to take that growth and apply it to the things I already own and see what I can do with them. And it's this like really juicy process of like, why did I buy this? Why did I connect with the art on this? What does it want me to do with it? Like, how can I make this into something that really brings me to life without Producing content for the company that produced it, and I think for a lot of us pattern writers, like staying with the trends and what's new is coming out is really good for exposure. But creatively, it puts you in a place where you're designing for selling something. We have to sell things, right? We have bills to pay. That's why we do this for a living rather than just, being a hobby. I was like, man, I feel people are feeling the pressure of the economy being weird. And after COVID so a lot of the fabric industry increased during COVID. Everybody was stuck at home. People were sewing for the first time in some time, for some decades. Um, and so everything kind of ramped up and got like, wow, we're like crushing it with The craft industry in general, and then everybody slowly started going back to work and back to the normal lives, but in the industry, a lot of people feel the pressure to keep producing at the same level that they were when people were at home consuming more. And we're feeling the pressure of that as consumers to like, keep consuming and creating at that same pace, even though we're back to our normal. I say, quote unquote, normal because nothing's normal, but our normal lives and I'm like, how can I get back to that place of slowing down and deeply enjoying this process without it being a hamster wheel of. Selling things.

Susan: 6:02

Yes.

Amy: 6:02

And so that's what's exciting me right now. I'm writing. I'm selling my patterns. I'm still making living from my patterns. But I'm writing things to use my customers stash and to use my stash rather than trying to have everything sponsored by fabric companies and selling their newest collections. And it's fun. Like I'm, I wake up every day, like ready to create.

Susan: 6:24

I feel like this is the long view, the short view is the new fabric line that came out this week I'm gonna publish X number of patterns this year or this hashtag is trending or this little reel is trending That's the short view That's the quick results and it is so very easy to get caught up in that but the long view is But what gives me joy and also what gives my listeners and followers joy because I did take a deep dive indeed into your social media and I saw that, when you scroll through it quickly and you read through a whole bunch of posts quickly, year or two gets condensed and I see that change in you and in your followers. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Amy: 7:04

Yeah. So I don't know how far back you went. I had a moment in spring ish of 2024. I was doing ambassadorships. I was writing patterns for new collections for like fabric companies. I was doing look books. I was doing like all these things. And I was just like, My mental health is like garbage right now. And so I just got on Instagram and had a public meltdown and was like, I'm closing my business. This industry is a capitalistic nightmare. It's sucking the life out of me. It's sucking the life out of everybody else. And I can feel that this is what's happening and I don't know how to stop it. And what ended up happening from that was I had about 3000 people, including some influencers in the industry chime in and be like, yeah we're feeling it. We are feeling it, too. Little did I know, I knew Bilea didn't register with me, that was during H& H that year, and I was not at H& H. And the entire industry's leaders were all together in one room. When I posted that, and it started some conversations that I was not part of because I wasn't there, but I was like, oh. Okay, this is creating ripples. It's creating waves. And that I ended up actually getting. A part time job after that from a fabric company owner. So I do now I am doing contract work within the fabric industry. And it's ironic because I'm sitting here basically telling the whole industry to F off this isn't okay. And then somebody's Hey, I have a job for you. So now I'm working like on a contract basis, within the fabric industry and seeing how things work behind the scenes. I'm like, Oh, that's why things are the way they are. Like the collections, the art that goes into it and the process of going from art to collection The time and money that it takes to take the collection and get it to shelves and to the end users and where the marketing goes and how we market to end user versus shop owner. And I'm like, Oh, this makes so much more sense to me now. How can I adjust my business model where it fits with that, but also brings me joy. Because if I'm not having joy I'm probably going to shut my business down again and just, disappear for a few months. So it's been very eyeopening and a lot of fun.

Susan: 9:31

I think you've just hit on some really key points. It feels like we never, for me anyways, I don't ever arrive at this place of balance, life, work, creativity, production, whatever. But it's this never ending push pull. And it's not a bad thing. People are interested, so therefore you write a new pattern for them using this new fabric that you're excited about. And then you get caught in the follow up. I just think that's part of the creative process. And it's fun that you're getting to see another facet of it. And that helps your viewpoint of it and helps you make decisions about how you want to wear it going forward. That's so good.

10:10

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Susan: 11:04

In your blog, and I saw this in your social media a little bit too, you talk about mistakes that you made in your first year of business. Does that relate to this burnout or do you want to talk about a specific few of those? Because this season of my podcast is focusing on business themes. So there are probably a lot of people listening who perhaps are just getting started or thinking about getting started in a creative business. What are some of the things they should look out for? Both things to avoid and things to do.

Amy: 11:33

So my first year in business, I, my brand was Happy Hippie Studio. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna build this brand based on the super cool aesthetic. And I'm gonna show up in my, all my hippiness online. And peace, love, and quilting grease. And, I tried to build this brand based on who I wanted to be. Which was someone who was very free spirited in my creativity. But very polished in my presentation. I'm none of those things. I'm happy most of the time. Sometimes I'm a hippie, sometimes I'm not. I'm neither polished nor professional at all. So trying to show up in this way where yeah, I've got this brand and I've got it all together and like I'm fully integrated in who I wish I was in life, that's exhausting.

Susan: 12:20

True.

Amy: 12:20

It is so exhausting and I would be up at night like scrolling the internet, trying to find outfits to show up in for social media that meets that like hippie meets professional aesthetic. And what am I doing? Why did I start this business to try to be somebody on the internet that I'm not, that I wish I was maybe one day I will be. So that was mistake number one was starting a business. And trying to show up as who I wish I was rather than who I am right now. Mistake number two was trying to do all the things. Lot of people take these courses on writing quilt patterns. And you learn, like, all of the, I'm using air quotes, right way to write quilt patterns. And then the process of using pattern testers, and the software that goes into it, and the this and the that. You don't need all that. I didn't need all that and I burned out trying to do all those things while also trying to show up on the internet as the person I wish I was, not the person I currently am. So I learned the hard way, unfortunately, by stopping and starting so many times that my website doesn't need to be perfect. My I love building websites like side note if anybody needs a website built. I'm your girl I love building websites but I would deep dive into like web design to avoid working on my quilting because I was trying so hard to Get everything perfect. And then my social media presence I was like everything has to be like perfectly edited and it doesn't I'm not Tula Pink I'm not ever gonna be Tula Pink, right? Tula Pink isn't even Tula Pink. It's a brand that has been built on with a team based on her art. I'm not that, I'm not going to be that, and I can't wake up every day and put a lot of effort into trying to be that. So I have taken a lot of steps back in the last few months that have brought joy back into my business. I have simplified my accounting I This is really controversial. I'm not working with pattern testers anymore. That was something my, I have a book that's coming out soon that I did have pattern testers for and I was This is part of a process that creates a bottleneck for me, like the communication so when you write a pattern or a book or whatever you produce and you're like super stoked about it, you ride that wave of excitement and it gives you the energy to get it out into the world and to do even the kind of yucky parts of the process that like aren't your favorite, like designing the graphics or whatever And for some of us who have a lot going on in life, it's really hard to stay consistent without that like wave of excitement to give us the energy. So I realized that the process of. Using pattern testers, slowed that down and I love pattern testers like our, we build a community and we talk and we email and they send me their pictures and like life updates and they've become my friends and my editors and I have bought sample quilts from my pattern testers before but it slows down that wave of excitement. The other thing is that I felt like they deserved more from me. Then I was able to give them so I wanted to be able to pay them. I wanted to be able to use their finished products and marketing to help them grow their social media, to help them grow their own businesses. And for some, I did, there were some that I was able to help them break into tech editing or sample making or whatever. And that feels really good for me to be able to help them start their career. But then the others, I was like, wow, I feel like I'm just like. Wasting their time. And I realized they get into it willingly. They choose to stand up and raise their hand and say, I want to be a pattern tester. But it just felt like it was slowing down my creative process and also taking their time for something that I wasn't able to compensate them for. I'm still new enough in the industry that I can't pay them what they're worth for their time. So I was like, you know what? I'm just going to not do pattern testing anymore. I'll make. Two or three of the quilt myself. I have a really great tech editor that finds like the hiccups that normally pattern testers would find. The other thing is I simplified the writing process. I used to use like a mix of different softwares, like publishing softwares to get it like perfect. I don't do that anymore. I make everything in one piece of software. I hit the export button. We save it as a PDF. We send it to the printer. We're done. There's no. There's no bottleneck there with the writing. I've created templates for my commonly used graphics. So half square triangles or flying geese or whatever. Created templates for all those things that are just drop and go. So yeah, that's the thing I would tell new designers is You don't have to do things the quote unquote right way to be successful. In fact, a lot of the best selling pattern designers out there that are like crushing it and making a crap ton of money and showing up all the places. Are the ones that have radically simplified their business model.

Susan: 17:26

And I suspect even those who are teaching the courses on how to do that, didn't always do it, maybe don't always still, but didn't always do that, came to that through a series of learning, developing, growing team, whatever the case may be, but you don't have to start as you say, with all the things you just don't

Amy: 19:11

And you don't have to end with all the things either.

Susan: 19:14

true.

Amy: 19:15

I don't want to grow my business to the point that I need 15 different pieces of software and a team of 12 people to get a pattern out. That, that just sounds like a lot of work. I just want to create pretty things and teach my customers how to create pretty things. And that's something that can be done with far fewer steps than the quote unquote professionals will tell you that you need to take.

Susan: 19:36

So how does homeschooling fit into all of this? Is it part of your year? Part of every day?

Amy: 19:43

Whoa.

Susan: 19:44

It's a loaded question, but I was a homeschooling mom too. So I'm super interested in this.

Amy: 19:49

People have this notion of what homeschooling looks like, especially if they follow any homeschooling content on social media. The reality is that my kids are currently in the other room. One's on an iPad playing a math game. One is probably watching TV. She's not feeling well. And another is doing multiplication in A book that we bought from Barnes and Noble. Just like with the craft industry, the people that are in the homeschooling industry build this social media presence to sell a product, to sell a lifestyle. And so if you're on the outside looking in, you're like, Oh, all homeschool moms have this, beautifully curated curriculum that we sit at our reclaimed wood table in our puffy sleeved dresses and we do our homeschooling. No. It's not that. My house is not clean. My children are not dressed. We had toaster waffles for breakfast. Homeschooling fits into this just like simplifying the pattern writing process. You simplify homeschooling to the point that you can do it joyfully. Because if you're not doing it joyfully, you can't repeat it day after day. It drains you, it drains your kids, it ruins your relationship with your kids. So no we have the simplest homeschooling ever. And it just gives everybody room to create, and to play, and to learn on our own terms.

Susan: 21:14

So good. I'm I've been grateful many times over that I homeschooled really a generation ago and it was certainly before social media. And so I did not have that pressure. I still went to conferences and training and things like that. So there was this ideal held up in front of you of what the great homeschooling families do. But I did not have that social media type of pressure and I've been so grateful for that. And one of the things that I held dear to me all the way through that kind of kept my sanity was The statistics about how much actual one on one teacher student time the average kid gets in school and it's minutes in a day. And so I always said to myself I know I can achieve that much. So there you go.

Amy: 22:00

Yeah, when we first started, and then we live in Oklahoma, and I don't know if you've heard, like, all the news about Oklahoma schools. It's an absolute dumpster fire. People asked when we first started do you think you can do as good as the public schools and I'm like, I can't imagine doing worse. It'd be really hard. You'd have to try to do worse than what they're getting in public schools. And the people who supported us the most were friends and family who were teachers and principals and they're like, yeah, no, honestly. Please keep your kids at home if you can because what we're doing here is not working for us it's not working for the kids and They're not like prodigies. Like none of my kids is going to an Ivy League school at 16 years old or something. They are all geniuses in their own right but none of them is like academically adept or speaking Latin or playing Beethoven like they're perfectly average students that are above average happy

Susan: 22:59

Yes.

Amy: 23:01

And that's, that was the goal.

Susan: 23:03

That's a key. And you just, I almost just want to pause and have a moment of thinking about that. Because that is so key. It is not all about the grades or the number of books or the awards for sure or the ribbons. It's about Raising productive and happy citizens. Yeah, good for you. Good for you. I think turning a corner a little bit but still interwoven through all of this. You do talk a fair bit. in your blog about dealing with depression and with discouragement and how that plays into your life. Like how does your creative spark stay burning when you're dealing with that? Or is it the thing that keeps you going? Do you know what I mean?

Amy: 23:42

It's neither, actually. So I started quilting when I had postpartum depression. And it was like, like the early days. And I had three under four. So like With the first two kids, I had two under two and it's just this endless pile of diapers and dishes and crying and snotty noses and your house is disgusting and you can't clean it because there's crying and snotty noses. And I was like, man, I just need to do something that's going to stay done. You feed the kids and you have to feed them again an hour later. You clean up, you have to clean up again an hour later. I just need something to stay done. I started sewing when my oldest was teeny tiny. I think she was like three months old. And I just had horrible depression and there was no way out. And I was like, if I could just have something stay done, I can make it to tomorrow. And I didn't realize at the time like I would reach out for help and people would be like, Oh ha, welcome to motherhood. We all went through it. Now it's your turn. And I didn't realize at the time that being that depressed and that anxious was not normal. Where everybody's oh yeah, baby blues, ha, we all get it. And I didn't realize that like, it's not normal to be. That depressed that like you don't know if you want to wake up tomorrow and then to have like your friends and family around you just not take it seriously because they're like, yeah, it's normal. So I started sewing, and I would make the most basic simple quilts that I could finish in like a day or two during that time, like they were just so basic. I thought we were ready to do this. And then I realized super early on that.

Susan: 25:18

so I

Amy: 25:19

Quilt math is easy. I love geometry anyway, so I'm like, wow, I can make almost anything if I can draw it on a piece of graph paper.

Susan: 25:27

it didn't

Amy: 25:28

And so I started designing, I think my first two quilts that I made, I used tutorials from Missouri Star. And then after that, I just started sketching things and making them

Susan: 25:37

are using it

Amy: 25:38

on graph paper. And that was, it was almost ten years later before I started Designing and selling my patterns and whatnot, but the depression didn't let up and I ended up with my youngest kid was three and I was like, okay, this is not postpartum anymore. He's three, like something, something's got to give. So I kept creating and I kept starting my business over and I would get really depressed and I would just close my whole business and be like, I don't, I can't do this anymore. And then I would feel better and then I would start it back up. At some point in my life, I have tried all the medications the ones that were made for depression ended up making me like crazy, like they helped the depression, but it was like being on like cocaine or ecstasy or something, which is a whole different level of dangerous because you don't make good decisions when you're in that state of mind either. And it, it did take until very recently to find out that it wasn't depression, it was PMDD, which is related to your menstrual cycle. So my estrogen levels just bottom out and everything goes haywire. That's, I was also having like autoimmune symptoms and my food allergies would get worse and all these crazy things were happening and I'm like, okay, this is cyclical. Okay, so So now what do we do? Because you can't take antidepressants if you're only depressed when your progesterone's too high, the rest of the time they're gonna make you crazy.

Susan: 27:05

great. I consider it a debate. I

Amy: 27:08

once I figured that out, and this is not who I am, this is not how I am, this is just a brief season, and I'm gonna be okay in three days. So I don't need to, I don't need to burn my whole life down when I get depressed, like I've done over and over. I don't need to like, start, packing my bags to move to Maine. I don't need to close my whole business. I can just be like, oh, this is just a season. It'll be over in a few days, and I'll be back to feeling like myself. I have treated it successfully now for a couple months with vitamins and herbs, and some food choices, movement, meditation, that sort of thing. But, long story short, to answer your question am depressed, I just don't create. I don't work. I don't open my computer. I don't sit at my sewing machine because I know it's gonna, it's gonna be more than I can handle.

Susan: 27:58

So I, this was a question I had thought of before, before we even got here, like how have you found ways and cause you're referring to this, have you found ways to shortcut is not quite the right word, but ways to compensate maybe. So things like, do you batch produce things or do you avoid things that have a production deadline? I'm just thinking of our listeners who are. facing some of these same things. What are some of the ways that they can work through this as a season, but here's how I get through this season or how I arrange my season so that I give myself grace for these X number of days that I need to. Is that making sense?

Amy: 28:40

Yeah, so knowing that it's, knowing that it's coming helps. Also taking, a lot of it for a lot of people is a vitamin deficiency that leads to these the hormonal

Susan: 28:50

It seems so simple, but until you don't know, right?

Amy: 28:54

You don't know. And then when it hits, if you don't realize what's causing it, when it hits, there's always that underlying fear of, this is the time it won't go away. And I lived for so long with I would be in this like horrible mental state, and then when I would be out of it, I would be afraid to start anything new because I'm like, I don't know when it's coming back. And what if the next time it comes back, it doesn't go away. And I'm just stuck like this, like fighting for my life day after day for the rest of my life. That would be terrible. Knowing that it's coming, and knowing that it's going to pass I give myself the grace to just not do anything, honestly it, and my family's really supportive okay, mom's not doing great right now my husband's okay, we're going to get some easy food, so the kids can just pop something in the microwave, if I need to skip it. But yeah. Going somewhere or being the primary parent. So I can get some extra sleep. We build a structure around Oh, this is it's going to happen. And again, now that I'm treating it and I'm treating it all the time, not just when it's, when it happens those waves are far less dramatic. Like it's still, it still happens a little bit, but it's not like the world is coming to an end. So yeah, take your vitamins every day. Not just when you feel yucky.

Susan: 30:06

True don't wait for the wave to be crashing before you try to take measures. I just, I so appreciate your honesty in sharing that. I've dealt with my own health struggles too, and it really, when you talked about that, that trough, that low spot and being afraid that it won't end. Like I've been there too. And there is that almost panic about why even start? Because it's just going to get sabotaged. And that, that really touched me. So thank you for your honesty and sharing all of that, Amy. This has been a real pleasure chatting with you. I wonder if you would tell our viewers quick, where you can be found and especially go look at Amy's website, you guys. It is awesome. She is a great website builder. But yeah, where you can be found and what we can look forward to hearing from you soon.

Amy: 30:49

So I am on Instagram at amyLolliscreative and on my website at amyLollis. com. And as you mentioned, I don't put a lot of the extra not quilty related stuff on social media. Turns out the algorithm doesn't like that very much. But that's okay. It is on my blog. It's also on Pinterest and I am always happy to hear from people in email. My favorite thing in the whole wide world is when people reach out to me and share their stories. I know you've got like a public platform here because that's how quilting started, was women would come together and share their stories and share their solutions to each other's problems and complain about their husbands and kids and health. And and now we don't have that anymore. It's pretty much a solitary hobby these days. Anybody can reach out to me at any time and email or DM in Instagram with their own stories and I'm here to listen.

Susan: 31:41

That's wonderful. It takes a village for many things and the villages aren't what they used to be. But on the other hand, we have the freedom to make our social spaces, our villages. So we aim to do that. Thanks again, Amy. It's been a pleasure.

Amy: 31:55

Thank you.

Susan: 31:57

We've been chatting with Amy Lollis of Amy Lollis Creative and I so appreciate that she has shared so honestly from her heart the insights that she has learned in difficult seasons. I hope that you have appreciated her openness and even found it to be challenging as well. She's been keeping it real. So until next time, may your sorrows be patched, my friend, and may your joys be quilted.