Sponsor: Chicken Boots came to be from a love of all things functional and fiber. Creator and founder Saremy Duffy started her career in the fashion industry and as a designer and pattern drafter in apparel and outerwear. With a longing to bring her own designs to market, combined with her love of knitting and sewing comes Chicken Boots was born, fun and carefully crafted cases to store your most prized knitting and sewing notions. The effort and passion Saremy puts into her products is evident and I encourage you to find the Chicken Boots booth at Stitches West later this month, check out all the handy bags and cases and show her some love. You can find Chicken Boots at chickenbootsusa.com and on Instagram @chickenbootusa
Fiber folk: Behind every name, achievement or brand is a person. A person with a very real story…a story of where they are today in life and the journey that got them there. Anna Maria has a smile and voice that shines as bright as the fabrics she designs, but more than that, she has a personal story – from traversing early motherhood and 7 children through a career in design, to marriage, entrepreneurship and making. I hope you feel the passion and inspiration. You can find Anna Maria at annamariahorner.com and craft-south.com and on Instagram @annamariahorner and @craftsouth.
Sponsor: Craft South is a destination for makers and a supply shop for locals, located in Nashville Tennessee and founded by Anna Maria Horner. I always love finding shops that combine both the love of making from fabric and fiber, and Craft South is a gem in our community and I’m excited for you to hear a bit more about it’s story and founder in today’s episode. A well curated shop featuring fabrics, yarns, embroidery and Janome sewing machines. And most importantly you’ll find all the tools to support your making, including a calendar full of workshops and weekly classes in sewing, patchwork, knitting, embroidery, and kids camp and taught by some of our favorites including Rebekka Seale, Jen Beeman, Karen Templer, Carolyn Friedlander, Anna Maria Horner and more. Make sure to visit Craft South in person when in Nashville and online at craft-south.com and follow along on Instagram @craftsouth.
Man on the Street: For this week’s “Man on the Street” I asked the question, “If you’re a sewer, how does sewing play into your textile or fiber journey?” We had some great answers from Amy @urban_farm_wife, Beatrice @threadandladle, Hope @hopehawley, Abby @abbygoodknits, Sam @samanthamaylamb.
Woolful Knitalong: It’s been fun to see so many folks joining in on the latest WoolfulKAL where we’re knitting the Portland Pullover designed by Carrie Bostick Hoge in Brooklyn Tweed’s Shelter yarn and featured in the latest Taproot magazine issue “Shelter“. The knit along goes to the end of March so there’s still plenty of time to grab the issue and knit along with us. If you’re on Instagram make sure to checkout the hashtag woolfulKAL to follow along with all the beautiful knits. To find the Portland Pullover pattern, head to taprootmag.com and look for the latest issue “Shelter”.
52 Weeks of Wool: If you follow me on Instagram or my blog than you may have seen a fun project I’ve taken on this year called 52 Weeks of Wool. Each week I hand spin a new wool breed from a fiber flock from here in the US or abroad, and share my experience on the blog and Instagram. My goal for this project is to handle as many different types of wool as possible, and share a bit about each farm and flock that the wool comes from, helping bring light to many sheep breeds and producers. If you have a flock, fiber farm or know someone who does, I hope you’ll consider joining me on this project by sending me a small tuft of fleece to spin. If you’re interested, shoot me an email at hello@woolful.com.
Giveaway: The winner of last week’s giveaway is, Kristin, you’ve won a skein of Suri Alpaca yarn from Old Homestead Alpacas. Congratulations!
This week we’re giving away a $25 gift card to Craft South! To enter, leave a comment on this blog post.
Music by Jónsi.
80 Comments
utterly fabulous, as always!!! LOVED this episode! xo
Once again, you are so inspirational in such a simple, down to earth kinda way. Thanks!
I love Anna Maria Horner. Last year I made a Beatrix top (from made-by-rae.com) out of a cotton lawn of AMH’s design that I bought LONG ago before I even realized who the fabric designer was!! I have a bit leftover and I’m thinking of how to use it on something else, a facing for another shirt maybe, or in something for a new niece we’re expecting in March.
Thanks for another lovely episode 😉
Anna’s story was so interesting and so relatable. Thank you for sharing another great interview.
Thank you for another great episode!
I’ve been following Anna’s work for many years now and it is amazing to learn a bit more about her journey.
Thank you for another great story. I’ve been finding it hard to get the oldest episodes for download on iTunes so I’m going for a third round at the blog 🙂
Love AMH!
I’ve been collecting Anna Maria’s fabrics for a while now and loved this episode. Thank you!
OH. I love craft south. I have been calling and ordering online. Lovely people.
I love your podcast, thank you so much!
Craft South is such a lovely, welcoming place!
I love this podcast! It always inspires me to try something new! Now i want to learn quilting! she makes such beautiful quilts!
Another great episode! I love hearing about fiber artists, but I love *learning* about what brought them to the craft. This story was particularly inspiring and relatable. Thank you so much!
I was in Nashville about a month ago and went shopping at craft south. The staff was wonderful, and very helpful. The store was absolutely beautiful and though the stock was not huge it was very thoughtful collaboration a beautiful materials to use.
craft south sound like such an awesome place. would love to visit. thanks for the give away!
Listened to this while finishing the quilting on a quilt I’ve been making for five years! Two kids and all sorts of other more pressing projects got in the way. Ended up being pretty good timing. Now I just need to bind 🙂
Hooray! I’ll be visiting Craft South in person next week! What a fortuitous giveaway! 🙂
I just jumped into quilting last week, and this is so exciting! <3 Yay Craft South! Yay Woolful!
I’ve always loved Anna Maria Horner’s fabrics and really enjoyed listening to the podcast and learning more about her. Thanks for another great podcast.
Oh my gosh, I’ve been going nuts over Anna Maria Horner’s fabric this winter and it’s so cool to actually hear an interview with her! I just cut out a pair of ruffled, long bloomer pants from the landscape in her latest collection (Enchanted from Fibs and Fables) and I love them more than reason – I hope to sew them soon.
Wow, what a story. So true about opportunity and risk going hand in hand. Thanks!
Another awesome podcast !! Anna is a delight and so inspiring. Loved hearing her story!
I love Craft South and I enjoyed hearing this AMH podcast. Thank you for sharing it with us! I am inspired by her designs
The featuring of a fabric designer and quiltmaker was perhaps just the motivation I needed to return to handquilting a project I haven’t picked up in about a year. The conversation about risk was also very poignant as I consider new opportunities along my own career path.
Really enjoyed the episode!
Thans for this interview! Ive been a big fan of Anna’s aesthetic and designs for years it was great to hear form her! Sewing was my first love before knitting and spinning so this was a real delight <3
Such a great conversation. A wonderful way to spend this early Saturday morning with tea and knitting.
I have always loved Ana Maria Horner’s fabrics – this was great to listen to 🙂
Enjoyed Anna Maria interview -especially her perspective on intellectual property. Btw, my house will fit in her attic 2 1/2 times!!
another excellent podcast! I just love the colorful folks you introduce us to!
As always, thanks for putting this together! I love what you do.
Another great interview! So informative and fun!
Great interview. Looking forward to visiting Craft South.
Really enjoyed this interview. Such an interesting story.
Listening to your podcast really smoothes my day. Every time. Thank you.
Another inspiring episode thanks
Such beautiful work! I’m not a seamstress although hopefully, one day I can venture out of knitting and sew my own clothes. Thank you!
Having just discovered Woolful I am thoroughly enjoying it!
I really love how you’ve been incorporating with sewers and designers of non-knitted things into your podcast 🙂
My grandmother was a master quilter and my mother sewed a lot of clothes for my sister and I when we were very little. I learned to knit long before I learned to sew, but the first time I was ever really passionate about making things was when I made my own clothes as an angsty goth teenager, for hours at time, listening to my parents records in the basement. My parents divorced, and eventually I moved to the other side of the country, so my sewing machine is far far away collecting dust in a room in my Dad’s house, but I really loved this podcast… it brought back some bittersweet memories and reminded me that while sometimes my obsessive knitting feels like a way to avoid the world, it stemmed from a burning, uncontrollable passion to create and make things I could wear so the world around me could reflect the one in my head just a little bit better. Thanks so much Ashley. I really love your podcast. It connects me back to myself again.
oops. incorporating *interviews with* sewers and designers… didn’t proof-read
She is such and inspiration!!!
Another lovely podcast, what a bold and inspirational risk taker!
Always looking forward to the next podcast. Thank you!
Another great episode! thank you for your podcasts!
Craft South is on my list of places to go, should I ever wander that way. Thanks for some of the backstory!
Listening to Woolful has become a basalm in my otherwise chaotic evenings of feeding, bathing, reading and eventually, bedding my two littles ones. I really enjoyed this episode listening to Anna Maria talk about the many ways she has curated a life full of children, work and creativity. An inspiring interview. Thank you.
Getting caught up on the podcast. Been listening for awhile now and thought I would finally tell you how much I enjoy hearing about the interesting people and stories that grow out of a love and appreciation for the fiber crafts and arts. Thank you for opening these windows into fiber artists’ worlds!
Soooo great and inspiring
Absolutely love AMH and her fabric collection. I am new to sewing and love her collections x
I just discovered your website today and listened to the latest podcast. I loved it!
Loved listening! By far my fave craft store in my hometown!
This was one of my favourite interviews on Woolful! I just loved hearing about Anna Maria’s college and home life.
I enjoyed listening to your interview with Anna Maria. She has such an honest view of life and work and the balance.
Excellent interview! I would love to eventually have the sewing skills to have a hand made wardrobe – it hasn’t come as easily as knitting did.
Lovely podcast. Checking out AMH and Craft South now…
Fun podcast about sewing. Love the variety of subjects you cover. Hope you got my email that I’d really like to hear from braided wool rug folk!
another brilliant podcast, thank you ! It was great listing to the interview with Anna Maria; like Tisha said before, she has such an honest view of life and work balance and you can hear her happiness in every sentence.
I’m fairly new to Woolful, but I’ve spent hours listening to current and back episodes. Sometimes it feels like I create in vacuum, that others think the things I love are crazy, and that I’m alone on this handmade journey. What a difference this podcast has made to me. Every moment that I listen I’m inspired, reminded and encouraged to follow this path with confidence. It has created in me a wonderful feeling of community and inspiration to move forward! Thank you, thank you thank you.
Wonderful episode! I have a one-year old daughter and I can’t imagine accomplishing as much as Anna Maria has while raising children. I always love the discussion of balancing motherhood and creative pursuits!
Great episode! Love that you incorporated sewing into this one!
There are some interesting issues brought up around intellectual property rights in the podcast. I think people do need to learn — and then care — that things they find on the interent don’t automatically belong to them now that they’ve found it. While I’m happy for Anna Maria Horner that she has learned to pick her battles for her sanity, I think more people should cease and desist if they realize that the product they are selling was somehow stolen from the artist. I applaud those (like the woman mentioned) who go above and beyond and try to pay the artist once they found out, even though they thought they had acquired the image legally.
As for Horner herself, the more I read/hear about her, the more amazed I am. Not only does she continue to create such beautiful art and materials, but also she serves as a model for many people interested in the textile and sewing community. Throw in small business and self-branded business not to mention self-employed parent and, Wow, is there anything this woman can’t do?!
I’m pregnant and due in May with my first child, and I am an attorney who also co-owns a little shop of handmade goods (@maidensouth) and I’ve been stressing a bit about how I’m going to do it all with a little one in tow. This podcast couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Anna Maria is SO inspiring, and her words were just what I needed to hear at this time in my life. THANK YOU for always having the most wonderful people on your podcasts! I just can’t get enough of woolful.
Natalie
@oystersandpearls
@maidensouth
As a mother and fibre artist myself, I find her to be such a true inspiration. Xo!!
Lovely episode! xo
Another inspiring episode, as always. Thank you!
Thanks for the inspiration!
I so enjoyed the interview with Anna Maria Horner that I listened to it twice! Such an inspirational story.
I always enjoy new Woolful episodes, but this one was perhaps one of my very favorites to date. What an inspirational woman! And the stuff she makes is just incredible. Her Instagram account is pure happiness. I’m not a quilter, but now I feel very tempted to have a go at it.
Thank you for another inspiring episode and another generous giveaway! I’m always excited when a new Woolful episode pops up on my queue!
Great episode, really interesting and inspiring. So excited about one day visiting Craft South.
I have LOVED having CraftSouth in my neighborhood! They have the best classes and community events, and such a beautiful selection of yarn and fabric. Can’t wait to listen to this episode!! Thanks for all you do for this community, Ashley!
Such a beautiful podcast, I always look forward to learning about all these new people!
What an inspiring person. Craft South sounds awesome.
Next trip to Nashville I will make sure Craft South is on the itinerary!
Thanks for such a great podcast. I love when you interview the mamas! Especially AMH!
I love when the knitting and quilting worlds meet. I loved hearing about her Greek heritage and their fibre story as a family as well!
Very sweet podcast. Thank you!
Wonderful podcast! I am working on a quilt using some of AMH loominous fabrics, so pretty!
Thanks!
Wait, did I hear on the next podcast that I’d won this giveaway?
I’ve been following your 52 weeks of fiber spinning adventure – super inspiring! Such a great idea.