Reinventing Myself After Burnout

TL;DR: I quit writing quilt patterns after a spiritual awakening.

It all started with a viral post telling the whole craft industry to fuck off.

You can still find it in the underbelly of my social media if you're super nosey.

After two years writing quilt patterns, I crashed HARD.

It's a lot of work to develop a pattern, sew it, and market it. And while I don't mind hard work, I did mind that I'd lost the ability to connect with my creative intuition. I was creating for others. I was limiting my designs to what I thought I could sell. And I was competing with the thousands of free patterns that fabric companies produce to sell their fabrics.

And the worst part? I wasn't paying myself because I fell out of love with my craft.

My first pattern was a raging success. I was madly in love with it. I still am, and it's still my bestseller. I loved it so much that I put my whole heart into marketing it, and my customers could feel the excitement. I sold over 100 copies on launch weekend. I was elated.

My second pattern was kinda successful. I wasn't super-stoked about it, but I liked it enough to put in the effort to launch it. The jazz hands energy just wasn't there, though, and I'm too much of a neuro-spicy Capricorn to fake excitement, even if it means selling something.

My third pattern was a disaster. I designed it for a fabric company to help sell a new collection. Naively, I assumed they'd help drive traffic to it since it used THEIR fabric. Nope. That pattern no longer graces the internet because I hated it so much, and hated myself for giving so much of my energy to help a company that couldn't care less about me (spoiler, I no longer believe that it's someone else's job to prop up my business, but that's another blog post).

What went wrong:

My first year in business, I told myself I'd say yes to every opportunity that came my way just so I could learn the industry and build a network. And I did. The second year, I decided to say no to anything that doesn't set my soul on fire (like that third quilt pattern). I ended up taking an ambassadorship, thought, which would be the nail in the coffin of my creative mojo. If you're already struggling to create, it's not a great idea to add an obligatory set of content to your schedule. But I'd already agreed to do it, and I don't break agreements, so I went with it even though my gut told me not to. Besides, who wouldn't want a year's worth of free fabric?

I stayed consistent, made content, grew my email list (even though I didn't send them anything because I was so burnt out), and doing networking events even though I was dying inside. Occasionally, I'd get super stoked about a new fabric collection and make lookbook quilts so I could get a free bundle of fabric, but I knew I wouldn't get any money from it. Nobody buys patterns from lookbooks except shop owners, and I had no desire to wholesale paper patterns. I still don't.

After that fateful day of publicly burning my business to the ground, I quit sewing. I didn't make another quilt for months, and when I did, I was filled with existential dread. I never sold the pattern. The quilt still isn't bound. It's staring at me in shame from the shelf of UFOs. And I still can't sew anything because I feel guilty if I don't monetize it, and I feel even worse if I do.

The Awakening

Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

I started taking business classes, studying philosophy, taking on contract work (I still work part-time for a fabric company!), and building websites to keep my business afloat. I found that I was far happier helping other business owners with their tech than I ever was helping quilters be better quilters.

Being a Capricorn (and an overthinker), I had to get to the bottom of WHY. Why am I so disgusted with this industry that I love so much? Why am I judging the consumerism even though I enjoy it?

Then it hit me: I'm not being authentic.

I started this business to share my journey of healing my mental health through creativity, and it quickly devolved into selling tutorials that, frankly, looked just like everyone else's. I wasn't sharing my story. Hell, I was hiding it in a closet like it's a big, dirty secret.

I assumed nobody wants to know about the cult I lived in. Or the fact that I had my hip and back broken as a kid and never saw a doctor. Or that I have severe PMDD that makes me certifiably insane the week before my period.

And they sure as hell don't want to know that I found peace and healing by studying ancient texts on philosophy while making things with my hands. I looked at some of the biggest creative professionals, and they all had one thing in common: they kept their personal lives out of their business. I assumed I had to do the same. Just keep cranking out content and pretend like everything's fine. Don't say anything that might make people upset.

Then I realized: you can't SELL that story. You can't charge people for "here's how to reverse depression and manifest your dream life by sewing." Nobody wants to hear it, much less pay for it. It's too niche. It's too esoteric. How do you even explain it? And if I can't sell it, then why even bother making content about it? My "why" wasn't marketable, so my whole business was a failure.

The Turning Point

A full year went by with no new patterns or content. I kept doing behind-the-scenes contract work and was thankful for the relative obscurity while I was working to heal my mind and body.

I finally decided to reopen my design business, but doing web design instead of quilting. There's money in it, I'm good at it, and I genuinely love helping creative business owners bring their ideas to life. Tech is my love language. I'd try to make website templates, but something kept stopping me.

I took course after course, giving myself raging anxiety over who and what I should be. I'm good at so many things, any of them could be my life's mission.

I wanted to share my mental + spiritual health journey, but got super icked out by the spiritual business industry (all the kid-free 20-somethings charging $$$$ for aesthetic "awakenings" but have no idea how to STAY awakened when you're up all night with a barfing toddler). I refuse to hire a coach who sells vibes, and I refuse to be a coach who sells vibes. You can get that shit for free on YouTube, thanks.

Most of the business courses and coaches I interacted with just gave me more anxiety. Or all-out existential crises. I read too much philosophy to NOT have a "what is the meaning of life" moment while learning about creating authentic content. Turns out, I don't have a content problem, I have a "how do I monetize authentic content" problem. I still do. But I've decided not to care. I'm not selling quilt patterns, so it's not like I can fuck off my income by making quilters mad. And people who hire me for web design come to me specifically FOR my open-book, authentic personality.

Final Thoughts

I'm reinventing myself, and I'm doing it publicly. Slowly.

I've thrown away my list of goals for the year (exactly halfway through, the irony isn't lost), and made the decision to share what I think will have an impact on the world, whether it's a crafty tutorial, a web design tip, or a meaning-of-life epitome. I have no clue how I'm going to make money, but I'm trusting that as I work, the right idea will come to me.