The While She Naps Podcast

This is just a really quick post (a rare thing indeed...let's see if that ends up being true by the time I've finished typing) to let you that I've been chatting to Abby Glassenberg over on the While She Naps podcast, if you'd like to listen. But before I tell you more about that, it's worth mentioning at the top of this post - as time to enter is short - that Abby is giving away a copy of my book over on her Instagram, entries open until 10am EST today (I think that about 3pm in the UK) - I think you just have to leave a comment to enter with no weird hoops to jump through :)

It was such an honour to be invited on to Abby's show as as I've listened for years. Across previous episodes, she's hosted a range of interesting guests from fabric designers and fibre artists, to publishers and fabric manufacturers and there's also been a lot of talk about Etsy and other larger businesses that have an impact on the craft industry too. Together, her podcasts create an insightful picture of the craft community and industry as a whole seen from a range of different viewpoints. But the interviews themselves are often also funny, thought-provoking and entertaining in equal parts - I always enjoy having more of a sense of who her interviewees are.

If you'd like to look through the back catalogue, you can find all of Abby's guests, here. You might also enjoy the archives of Abby's blog too, where she's written about the sewing community and her own creative path for well over a decade - her posts are always so well researched and often enlightening - few write as honestly as Abby does and her clear voice often prompts positive change within the industry. Most recently, over on Craft Industry Alliance, which she runs with Kristin Link, she wrote this post and the resulting pressure quickly ensured that designers were paid for their work - an amazing result).

I rarely have a conversation in everyday life where I don't say something incredibly silly or fail to order my thoughts before speaking or convey what I mean in a coherent way and this was no exception - with a podcast it's a really odd feeling to know that all those things are there on tape forever though. My sister and husband, who've both been on radio and/or podcasts before, said that I should absolutely not listen back to it, so for now I'm following their advice as I have a feeling just the sound of my own voice may make me cringe, let alone hearing the things that voice is saying! It's a very different experience to writing on my blog...although in fairness even with that, I sometimes wonder at the things I've written here if I happen to read something back months or years later, so nowhere is truly safe. Those things aside, the main memory I want to take away is the way that Abby described my book, as I was so touched by it. I'm probably going to misquote her here, but I think she said something along the lines of my book reading like a love letter to English paper piecing - I hadn't thought about it in those terms before, but the moment she said it, I realised that's exactly what it is.

This post does indeed seem to be uncharacteristically short, so I'm going to leave us all feeling slightly shocked and discombobulated and finish it right here! Although this has made me think that when I have more time to post, I'd like to put a list of my favourite podcasts together as I have so many good ones up my sleeve (an ironic expression to write while wearing a sleeveless dress) that I'd love to share.

I hope you're enjoying the sunshine,
Florence x

Updated: I couldn't actually leave it quite so short...I came back and added a few things in once I was back at home this afternoon.