Still Crazy After All These Years!

I have decided it is time to get back to Telling My Story! I have so much to share about my work and my life. I actually began this blog in 2011 but my most recent post was in 2015! Oh, my!

Here are a few of my earliest posts to give you an idea of where I was seven years ago. You will discover in my newer posts just how far I have come since then! I am excited to share my current transition from full-time professional quilt pattern designer (starting in 2004) to laid-back designer, quilt artist, and author. (In other words, at the age of almost 73, I have decided to retire and "do my own thing.") If I manage to continue earning some money along the way, that will be icing on the cake. I am curious to know where I will end up. I am certainly not taking this "growing older" thing lying down!

For those of you who do not know me yet, here is an interview I did for Quiltwoman.com (the publisher/distributor of my quilt book and patterns) in 2016:

Q: We love it that you have such a diverse and varied background. Tell us more about all the things you have done.

A: Yes – VERY diverse! I sometimes feel like I have lived a number of different lives, but that's what keeps things interesting. I have been designing and making things since I was little. I have tried about every craft imaginable. When I was in my early teens I became a designer of enamel, copper and silver jewelry. My dream was to become a famous professional jewelry designer and have my own shop. I began college as a music major and thought I wanted to become a professional musician (I played cello for 12 years starting at age 9). I attended music camp for five summers in my teens. I sang in glee clubs and choirs. I was introduced to pottery making and continued my work in silver in the college art department. I joined an International Dance group on campus. I ended up majoring in Sociology and Anthropology and spent the summer before graduation working at an archeological dig in northern California. I spent the summer after graduation at the School for American Craftsmen in Rochester NY, focusing on silver-smithing and pottery. Whew – that was all before I turned 22!

I married a year after college and worked as a secretary (ugh) at MIT for several years. Then my husband lost his job as a biomedical engineer in the recession of 1970. We decided to join the "Back to the Land" movement of the early 1970s and bought an antique colonial "fixer upper" in Bristol NH, doing all the renovations ourselves. We started a huge vegetable garden and planted young fruit trees. The locals thought we were hippies growing pot! (NOT) We were full-time professional potters, selling our work retail from our own shop in our barn and wholesale all over the country. We raised most of our own food, including raising pigs for several years. We did that for almost twelve years.

Eventually, the business began to take its toll on us physically (my aching back). It was a tough way to make a living, although we loved the lifestyle. After Ron was almost killed in a pile-up on black ice on the highway, we decided it was time to grow up and get "real" jobs. We sold the house and moved to our current home just east of Manchester NH. Ron got a good job as a stockbroker/financial planner and I worked various part-time jobs while going to graduate school. I received a Master's degree in Counseling in 1987.

I worked at the Community Mental Health Center in Manchester for several years and then joined the staff at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Manchester. I was there for almost seventeen years. I loved the work but became thoroughly burnt out by the time I left in 2004. I have been running my own quilt design business ever since.

Q: What got you started in quilt design?

A: I began making quilts around 1990 and joined a local quilt guild soon after (Amoskeag Quilters Guild, Manchester NH), where I am still a very active member. I became involved with making charity quilts as part of the guild's programs. Soon after leaving full-time work, I designed a block-cutting technique that made it possible to cut all the blocks for a quilt in very little time, ideal for charity quilts. It is what I now call a "stack, cut, and shuffle" design. I began teaching others in the guild how to make these blocks, and people started asking me to write up instructions so they could make them at home. A light bulb went off in my head, and that block became the basis for my very first commercial pattern, "Rule of Thirds." I enjoyed the design process so much that I just kept designing!

Q: In the past, you ran a pottery brick-and-mortar shop. When you started your quilting business, what made you decide to work from home?

A: Both businesses were/are run from home. That is where my studio and office are. But I sell my patterns online through my own website and, of course, through www.quiltwoman.com. I have been with QW since the current owner, Nancy Dill, bought the company nine years ago. My designs sell all over the world because of her.

Q: What do you wish someone had told you before you started quilting as a pastime?

A: What I wish someone had told my husband and me before we became full-time potters was how to separate our business lives from our personal lives. With the pottery studio covering most of the second floor of our house, it was too easy to allow our professional and personal lives to become all one. That turned out to be a serious mistake. Because of that experience, when I established my quilt design business I knew the importance of keeping my business and private lives separate as much as possible. You have to set some boundaries and priorities so that the business does not suck you in to the point of neglecting home and family.

Q: Who taught you to quilt?

A: I am primarily self-taught but have read many quilt books and taken many classes and workshops over the past 20+ years. I learned to sew very early from my mother and have made clothes, curtains, slip-covers, and so on before I discovered quilt-making.

Q: What are some of your favorite quilting tips?

A: I could easily repeat some of the tips other featured designers have mentioned. Instead, I would like to urge anyone who does not already belong to a quilt guild to join one. I have learned so much from my fellow quilters, not to mention making many really good friends. I have also been active in several board positions over the years, participated in many annual retreats (3-4 glorious days of no responsibilities other than to sew), and many charity programs with the guild. For the past three years, I have joined other guild members in making brightly colored, cheerful pillowcases for seriously ill children at several local and regional hospitals. Last year, as a group, we produced about 2500 pillowcases. Our goal for this year is 5,000 and we are well on our way, thanks to many individuals and quilt shops who donate fabric for the cause. Being part of an active guild is one of the best things I ever did as a quilter. If you live in an area where there are no conveniently located guilds, start one yourself or join one or more online groups, of which there are dozens.

Q: A lot of our readers tell us they have trouble finding more time to quilt. What advice would you give them?

A: This is one of those "do as I say, not as I do" responses. I am not nearly as organized or as disciplined as I would like to be. I have way too many interests, and I become easily distracted. (True confessions.) So my advice is to get and stay as organized as possible (this doesn't mean you can't have a messy studio – just don't let the mess take over). Learn to stay focused. Make spending time in your studio a priority, every day if possible. In my case, I am either sewing, designing, or writing most of the day, but I also make time for my husband and mother-in-law (who turned 100 years old in March), and, of course, my friends and family. We have two dogs that we love, and both of us enjoy going for long walks or playing with them every day. I also love gardening, reading for pleasure and for research, and so much more!

I am currently working on my first novel and hope to get that published soon. The story is about a quilt maker growing up in the last half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in a small village in NH. Not coincidentally, the protagonist, Hannah, becomes possibly the first quilt pattern designer in New England and develops a successful mail-order pattern business. I am already planning a companion book that will showcase a variety of quilts that might have been made by Hannah and members of her Quilting Bee, along with diagrams and instructions for making them.

One other tip – allow yourself time to do nothing, if that is what you feel like doing. Or do something for the sheer fun of it. I highly recommend it. As I get older, I am letting go of the need to "do it all."

You can follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaryFlanagan.SomethingSewFineQuiltDesign

Visit my website: www.somethingsewfine.com

This is enough to get you started catching up on my work and who I am.

Cary Flanagan

Something Sew Fine Quilt Design