Podcaster Meet-up with Brandy Maslowski, The Quilter on Fire

In this engaging conversation, Brandy Maslowski, Tori McElwain, and Andi Stanfield explore their quilting journeys, the evolution of their businesses, and the impact of podcasting in the quilting community. They share personal stories about their first quilts, discuss the significance of color trends in quilting, and delve into the role of AI in their businesses. The episode also highlights their current projects, future plans, and the importance of community and creativity in the quilting world.

Don’t miss an episode! Like, comment, and subscribe for more quilting stories, tips, and industry insights.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Quilting and Podcasting Journeys
02:56 The Evolution of Quilting and Business Strategies
05:47 Personal Quilting Stories and Inspirations
08:58 Discussion on Pantone Color of the Year
11:46 Books and Resources in the Quilting Community
14:44 Podcasting Insights and Tips
20:37 AI in Quilting and Business
33:51 Current Projects and Future Plans
46:41 Rapid Fire Questions and Closing Thoughts

Connect with Brandy

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Website - for classes and more!

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Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts

Transcript

Tori McElwain (01:04)
Welcome to another episode of Quilting on the Side. Today we have a special episode for you. This episode is a guest who you may be familiar with. is Brandy Mislawski, the quilter on fire. So we did something new that we've never done before. It was a fun experiment with Brandy, but what we did was we decided to jump on Zoom together and have a

panel like discussion that we could share to both podcast platforms. So you will hear this episode both here on Quilting on the Side and on the Quilter on Fire podcast. Now, before we jump in, Brandy is a quilter, a fiber artist, teacher, speaker, a judge, and the co-founder of the new Fiber Fix fam. And in this episode, me, Brandy, Andy, and this is Tori, we go into

everything to do with our quilting businesses. We touch on color trends, books and publications, podcasting for beginners, building community, a conversation around AI and how it affects or how it works within the quilting industry. And we finish up with our signature rapid fire questions. So I hope you enjoy this next episode of Quilting on the Side.

Brandy Maslowski (02:26)
Okay. So here we are. I'm with Tori and Andy and we're going to have a fun podcast today, but let's I'm starting off with an introduction. So I'm in the hot seat here. I'm going to go first. I am Brandy Mislowski, The Quilter on Fire. I'm a teacher speaker judge in the quilting world. And the main thing that I do for community is my podcasts called The Quilter on Fire podcast. I put it out every week and I'm having a lot of fun today because I'm chatting with a few other podcasters. These are my people.

So I think it's going to be a lot of fun. What I bring to the world in a nutshell is education, the community, the podcast, and I love to do Quilt Destination Travels. So those are some of the fun things that I do. And ⁓ yeah, that's me in a nutshell.

Andi Stanfield (03:09)
That's great.

Tori McElwain (03:11)
I am Tori, Tori McElwain. My business name is HeyTori. I am a past teacher and quilt pattern designer. And currently I have shifted my business to helping quilters and crafters with their digital marketing and their courses. So my quilting is now completely on the side, which is wonderful because our podcast is actually called Quilting on the Side. And I'm here with Brandy and Andy, my co-host for Quilting on the Side. So Andy, why don't you go ahead.

Andi Stanfield (03:38)
Sure, I'm Andi Stanfield and I am the owner, founder, inspiration behind True Blue Quilts. And I have been around the quilt world, it seems, for a long time. I got my start when my mom opened a quilt shop and we wrote ⁓ two pattern books together. And so I have shifted into the pattern design, ⁓ teaching space.

I do long arm quilting so that free motion has a big place in my heart as well. But as Tori said, we have launched the Quilting on the Side podcast so that I can get into some of the ⁓ business coaching, sharing my experience with those that want to get into this part of the industry as well. But it's great to be here with Tori and Brandy and let's

Talk about the evolution, Brandy, of how you merged the quilt world with podcasting and now all your travel adventures.

Brandy Maslowski (04:46)
Yeah, I'm having a lot of fun with both. So obviously I started off with a regular career firefighter and I've moved into quilting on the side from quilting on the side to using it as sort of my full time thing. This is my full time gig now for the last almost four years now. so merging the quilting with the travel, with the teaching and speaking and judging has kind of been just an evolution of the business. It's been

what kind of income streams can I have that actually makes this a viable business? And the podcast has actually been the one thing that's helped me grow the most because it's community, right? And so once people get in and they know you and they have a trust in you and they have faith that you're going to bring good guests to the table and good information, they know that if they put those earbuds in their ears, they're going to get some goodness out of it all.

then they'll take a course from you or buy a product or do something, right? So combining all of those and then also adding the travel in on the side. A lot of people love to travel, but they might be a lone traveler or they want to do something quilty without a family member like a husband or something. So they can have faith that I will take them on a journey on these quilt travel destinations and they'll be safe even if they're a lone traveler because we're a group and they're going to do something amazing and quilty. So

I'm kind of trying to combine it all into a nice little well-rounded business.

Andi Stanfield (06:11)
Yeah, we've talked about the importance of multiple income streams really from the start because, you know, we have experienced, I observe that it's very hard to make a full-time income doing just one thing within quilting. You know, there are some long-arm quilters who can fill their calendar, but that is a one-to-one type of business exchange.

And just with teaching also, teaching a private lesson is one thing, but it's more efficient, more scalable if you can teach one to many. And obviously being online opens that up even more with the idea of these evergreen courses and things that you can offer. So it really makes sense, like you said, to diversify and to

Reach your community with the type of things that they want to do.

Tori McElwain (07:14)
I'm really curious how we all got started with quilting in the first place. So can we step back a little bit and kind of talk about how you very you maybe making your very first quilt how you got started. So can I start let's have Andy start. How did you start quilting Andy.

Andi Stanfield (07:30)
Well, I feel like my quilting journey has two parts because as a young adult in my 20s, a friend was having a baby and I made a quilt for her. And there...

I put it together, I didn't really know what I was doing, was trying to, you know, learn different things. And I had heard, I knew about quilting the layers together. So I actually just quilted the top to the batting by hand. And I was doing, you know, I made sure I was a quarter inch away from the seam, 10 stitches per inch. And it was all beautiful, but it didn't have a back. So then I realized, ⁓ gosh, I forgot the third layer.

So then I had to end up tying that quilt, blisters all over my hands. you know, and then I moved away. I'm not in contact with that friend anymore, but that was kind of its own little escapade in quilting. Fast forward 20 years and I got my act together. And as I mentioned, my mom had a fabric shop and that's when I kind of dove in way into the deep end, bought a long arm.

whole nine yards and it's been a wonderful journey since then.

Brandy Maslowski (08:48)
⁓ I'll go next. So my start to quilting was also way back in my 20s. I worked at a gigantic craft store called Crafts Canada. It was the best job ever. I was a sample maker, which meant I got to wander the aisles of this warehouse and find any product I wanted that didn't have a sample. I could pull it off the shelf, open up the package, learn how to do it and make a sample. And so I was making all kinds of, plastic hearts with potpourri with

ribbon on the outside and all those kind of things. And so I was having so much fun. then eventually I graduated to being allowed to cut fabric, which is a big deal because once it's cut, it's cut. You have to sell it, right? ⁓ You don't cut it unless they know exactly how much they want. And so one day a friend came to me and said, you're kind of crafty. Can you make a quilt for my great grandmother? She's turning 80 and I want to have a quilt for her birthday. And so she paid for everything and

She had very specific things she wanted. She wanted it to be floral fabric. She wanted it to have lace. She wanted photos ironed on the whole thing. It was a difficult adventure. And I was like, yeah, I could never having made a quilt before. I was like, of course I could try it. Well, it was so difficult. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even know what a quarter inch seam allowance was. Things were all crooked, but I got it all together. I got the lace on it.

I didn't even know what a binding was. I wrapped the back fabric around the front and stitched it down and I barely got it done on time. But when I brought it to that birthday party and I came into the room, my friend was so relieved that I actually showed up on time. Her great grandmother opened that gift and she jumped out of her easy chair and was like, this needs to go on the wall right now. She had a spot for it where she wanted it up. And just that feeling of gratefulness. She was just so

with it. There's a photo of her as a little child in the middle of the quilt doing the splits and then her family photos were all around it. So it was just it was such a heartwarming ⁓ thing for me to create it and figure it out and achieve it and hand it over and see the result. That just got me hooked on quilting and I never looked back.

Tori McElwain (11:04)
powerful experience for your very first quilt. my goodness. I started quilting when I was, I made my first one when I was nine with the help from a family friend. And then I made my second one when I was 12 and that one was fully me. had, it was a rag quilt and it was turquoise, purple and lime green with faux fur. The lime green was faux fur and I had to have the faux fur in there even though it didn't do the rag, the rag thing that a rag quilt does. But I

I loved it and I still have that quilt. It's still together and I still have it in my closet. We still use it every once in a while. But that was my very first quilt that I really made myself. So I've been quilting on and off since I was nine, which is incredible. It's been almost 30 years up to this point. And I really dived in to quilting when after I got married, I'm a military spouse.

And my husband, we move all the time. So if you know anything about the military, we move constantly and everywhere we move, we have white walls. So I really dived into quilting as a way to make something we could bring with us that makes every house a home. So that's really like where I got started with quilting.

Brandy Maslowski (12:17)
Yeah. Speaking of white walls, do you guys want to chat a little bit about the new Pantone color of the year?

Tori McElwain (12:25)
Yes.

Brandy Maslowski (12:27)
What is happening right now?

Andi Stanfield (12:29)
right? ⁓ my gosh.

Tori McElwain (12:30)
Can I just say it's not a color?

It is not a color. That is a neutral. I don't know what they're thinking.

Brandy Maslowski (12:31)
It's not a...

I was chatting with my assistant today and he introduced something into my world. He suggested recently that I have merch. So we're working on merch for the first time, which is really, really fun. But we were in there today in Printful and thinking about what are we going to do? And I saw this set of three pillows and I was like, what can I put on these pillows that quilters might like? And then I thought, ⁓ they're already pretty cool.

the way they are as the Pantone color of the year. They're white. Maybe I could just sell white pillows. I don't know.

Andi Stanfield (13:04)
Oh my goodness. I saw it as a total cop out, like you were saying, Tori, that it's not a color. And I hate to, you know, I'm an optimist. I like to think the best of people, but you can't help but put it into some of these racial political things. And it's like, can't, 2026, we cannot label things.

Brandy Maslowski (13:31)
Yeah.

Andi Stanfield (13:32)
black and white. It's, let's just move away from those categories, please. It just was very disappointing to me that with all the rich vibrant colors in the world that you're gonna choose that. just, ugh, I don't have a good feeling about it.

Brandy Maslowski (13:35)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (13:48)
Well, and speaking of rich and vibrant, the other people who put out colors of the year, I am loving the colors that they chose. And they're all in the same kind of realm, right? They're like, Kona is winter, what's it called? Wander, and it's a green color, right? And then we have bears, which is a dark jade, which I think has a lot of power in it. And there's a lot of growing in these other colors of the year. And I think Pantone just completely missed the mark with that choice. ⁓

Brandy Maslowski (14:00)
Hmm.

Yeah, drop the ball for sure. It's just not, it's not inspiring for people at all. It's not, I don't imagine any quilter be like, Ooh, I'm so excited about this new thing. I mean, I just can't, what? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Another thing that I really wanted to chat with you guys about today was books. Like I know Andy, you've got this beautiful blue and white quilt behind you. So can we take a minute to each talk about our books? How about you, Andy, do you want to start?

Andi Stanfield (14:42)
Yeah, thank you so much for bringing that up. I have two pattern books out. One is called Monochromatic Quilts. And so you can see that behind me. I love scrappy quilts and I love monochromatic, but it has to have life to it. So I need to have a range of colors. So I'm not just going to pick one blue fabric to put in my quilt. I want 15 blue

fabrics. ⁓ In fact, I'm working on a very long-term project. That's one of the other things you'll know about me is that I dive into these epic, huge things that take years and years to come to fruition. But I'm working on a quilt that is planned to have 92 star blocks in it, and I want every block to have a different combination of blues. So

That's at least 184, you know, if you've got a light and a dark in your quilt. So it's taking me quite a while and I'll probably give up on the, you know, the unique block fabric aspect of it. But that's, ⁓ that was the first book was monochromatic. And then I also wrote a book, ⁓ Angle Play the Easy Way. And Angle Play is a brand name. It's a set of half rectangle triangle templates and

Brandy Maslowski (16:09)
Okay.

Andi Stanfield (16:10)
That has spurred now ⁓ an ongoing love of the HRT unit in quilt blocks. And I've got a whole range of my own patterns with different HRT elements. So Tori, your book.

Brandy Maslowski (16:26)
fun.

Tori McElwain (16:29)
My book, it came out, it's a year old, as of like a couple of months ago, so it's very new. It's called Workshops Unleashed, How to Design Engaging and Successful Workshops for Quilters and Crafters. And if you're seeing this video, I'm holding it up so you can actually see the cover. It has a beautiful star quilt on the background, which I'm really loving. It's actually gonna eventually be a quilt coat. It's actually the back of a quilt coat, maybe someday. We'll see if it happens. But this book,

Brandy Maslowski (16:51)
Thank

Tori McElwain (16:55)
was inspired by my background. So I have a background in not only teaching quilting, but also in public education and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction. So I've not only taught in public places, I've also designed curriculum for my own quilting workshops and then my own now have a digital marketing. It's essentially a course, I call it a program because it does have coaching and resources. ⁓ But I've done that. And then I was also a tech trainer for three years.

Brandy Maslowski (17:19)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (17:24)
So all of that background, I put into a book that combines course design and marketing for those that want to teach. And that has been a wonderful labor of love. And it's been awesome to actually be able to hold it in my hands and actually create this book. So, you?

Brandy Maslowski (17:31)
Yeah.

I love all the stuff that

you're putting out on social media right now, Tory, because you're having a lot of fun there and you're inviting people into your world, but then you also have that education to back it up. So I love that part of it. So I'll go into what I have for a book. So I wrote my book way back in 2014. I did a Kickstarter project, which was so amazing because my quilting community came together. They backed the project of this children's picture book to like $10,000 worth of pre-orders.

Tori McElwain (17:53)
you.

Brandy Maslowski (18:08)
And I was able to launch this book with, you know, no funding. had zero. I had nothing to start with. I didn't know what I was doing. I just dove into the deep end and the community came through. So I launched it back then and I've been re Christmas time. It sells every year. sell, I get a whole big boost of sales. Um, but one fun, well, I don't know, really heartwarming little thing happened over the pandemic with my book. It's called Christie's Quilts.

And it's about a young girl who came to our quilting retreat. It's a true story. She came to our quilting retreat one year and she lived in the lodge. Her parents owned the lodge. So she came every year to our retreat, but one year she came with her sewing machine set up and she was like, I'm done looking at all this fun. I'm going to join in. So it was so heartwarming. She made a quilt in one weekend, start to finish. She learned everything. She did it all herself from the cutting to the piecing.

the sashing to the binding. She even applicated a raw edge butterfly on top and hand stitched the binding herself. And she had it for like the grand show and tell at the end of the weekend. But the heartwarming story is that she really just, it's like a female protagonist, the best story ever, right? And so

Over the pandemic, happened with this book, sales go up and down each year. It's 2014. It's an older book that I created a long time ago, 10 years ago. over the pandemic, all of a sudden I got this influx of orders and I was like, what is going on? People are ordering two. What's happening? People started ordering two of the book and asking me if I would ship one to their grandchild and one to them.

so they could read them together on Zoom. And I was just like, ⁓ this is so great. So this book is about the journey of this girl and it's start to finish. It shows how to create the quilt, actually, the, you know, the steps. And ⁓ really, if you want to share the heritage of quilting with the youngster, this is the way to go. So I'll have this book forever. I have a lot of fun with it. I kind of relaunch it every year. And yeah, I'm having a lot of fun with it. So that's my book in a nutshell.

Andi Stanfield (20:18)
That's awesome, Brandy. Any ideas for any ideas for another book?

Tori McElwain (20:19)
So beautiful.

Brandy Maslowski (20:23)
Yeah, I have actually written a second one. It's called Ico's blanket. It's a little bit different than quilting. It's a blanket, can't really reveal all the details. you know, honestly, I wrote it like eight years ago, so I'm not sure how soon it's going to come to fruition. I need to find another maybe my my illustrator was so amazing. Her name's Marcia and she she created all the illustrations for this book. Original watercolor hand, you know.

and we photographed them professionally, got them in the book, but she's kind of retired now, so I might have to find someone new. And when she was doing the book, she secretly put me in there, like my visual, and she secretly put a mouse on every page for kids to find. It's so cute, but it's a lot of fun.

Andi Stanfield (21:06)
that sounds fabulous.

Tori McElwain (21:06)
Those are my kids favorite books.

Like when they have a little thing in the background that you can find. There's one called Sneezy the Snowman that has two little cardinals that are fighting, like play fighting, like snowball fights and pushing each other to get to the little campfire to warm up, like things like that. That is just, that's adorable.

Brandy Maslowski (21:08)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Aww.

Yeah, that's fun. It's always fun.

Andi Stanfield (21:23)
Yeah, and

Tori, you should mention your support for anyone that has a book idea.

Tori McElwain (21:28)
Oh yes, I have, this year we launched the self-publishing incubator. So if you are interested in self-publishing a book, it doesn't have to be as a professional. You can also just want to publish a memoir or a quilting book that holds all of your patterns that you've designed for yourself, but it's called the self-publishing incubator. And we'll be opening that probably two or three times in 2026. So whenever you're listening to this, go ahead and look it up.

Andi Stanfield (21:52)
Yeah, I've got a book in the works that I'm not ready to share much about, but I am always inspired with these ideas. It's one of those things as a creator you get. The more things you design and make, the more ideas you have, it kind of, you know, is that hamster wheel and there's never enough hours in the day to bring all these ideas to life.

Brandy Maslowski (21:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tori McElwain (22:21)
I would love to ask a little bit about your podcasting journey, because you've been podcasting for longer than Andy and I. We just wrapped up our fifth season while we're recording this, but that was over, what was it, two years, Andy? Two and a half years? I should have done the math before I asked the question.

Andi Stanfield (22:37)
Yeah, two and a half maybe. Yeah,

it blends together. We should write down the birthday.

Tori McElwain (22:44)
So I would love to ask Brandy specifically, and then Andy, I would love to hear your take too about what advice would you give for someone who is interested in hosting a podcast? And I would love to hear too, if there was like someone who wants to do as a hobby and someone who'd want to do it as a business.

Brandy Maslowski (23:00)
Yeah. good questions. Okay. So my podcast is approaching 250 episodes. I'm really excited. We just had a huge milestone episode just came out a couple of weeks ago for my fifth anniversary. So on December 1st was my fifth anniversary and boy, did we have a nice celebration. what first let me tell you what I did for the celebration. I sent emails to all of my past guests and listeners saying, send me a 32nd video.

of what you think of the podcast or anything, anything you think, right? Of course, flooded with congratulations and all this wonderful stuff, but they started coming in to the Google Drive and I was looking at them one by one and then I was just crying and crying. I couldn't look at them. So I ended up getting my assistant to compile them all in a way that I could just watch them all start to finish once and have one big emotional rush and then that's it. So that was a very heartwarming, but.

Andi Stanfield (23:43)
You

Brandy Maslowski (23:56)
When it comes to the podcast, let me tell you the story of it first of all. So I started podcasting in 2013, a long, long, long time ago. My first podcast was ⁓ Canadian Quilt Talk. I did over 150 episodes of that podcast first. And then I started to realize, okay, if I really want to have a worldwide brand, I'm going to have to remove the Canadian from it and, you know, sort of make it more accessible to everyone. I had almost zero American listenership.

And so I rebranded my entire business to Quilter on Fire and firefighter Quilter, all kind of jives. And I am on fire. I have this fiery passion. I'm living my fire. Everything just came together. So once I rebranded with Quilter on Fire, that's when I blossomed to the world. Now 75 % of my listenership is US and I have listenership all over the world. And so it's really blossomed from there.

So that's kind of my journey as a podcaster. And I think really the key to my success in podcasting is that I'm sharing the stories. So I don't have a 20 minute quick little blip of someone. I have a 60 to 90 minute deep into their story. So someone can listen to 10 minutes of it and get some good bits, or they can listen to two hours or whatever. They can do it on two hikes or while they're in the driving or quilting.

Of course. So I get a lot of great feedback about the length of the podcast, which always surprised me at the beginning. I thought, this is way too long, but people can listen to 30 minutes at a time if they want to and save the rest for later. So yeah, I really allow my guests to share their story in a really deep way. And I have some good consistencies throughout. So if I was going to give tips to someone starting off, Tori, you asked about sort of a hobbyist and a professional type podcast.

So for the hobbyist, what I would say is, ⁓ you know, I would say keep it shorter and sweeter and something that's achievable that you can consistently do every single week or every second week if you're doing twice or once every two weeks. But be consistent. Either way, whether you're choosing professional and not consistency is the key. Decide whether you're going to do a series of shows or you're just going to do it every week. And then ⁓ have kind of a...

an outline of what you're going to do consistently. Like I think something people love about mine is I start with the history of the person. We do the geography of where they are. We talk about their key things, their joy, what they bring to the table. Like we do a really well rounded story and I can kind of use that sort of template with all of my guests, right? So hobby compared to, you know, professional. If you're a hobbyist,

Bring the joy as long as you're having joy. think that'll be successful for professional. We've got to monetize. I mean, that's just the what you have to do. You have to monetize it in some way and that could mean starting a Patreon. So your listeners are paying. It could mean having commercials so that your listeners are not paying. And so I've always done it where my listeners never pay a thing. I've always had the option for them to buy me a cup of coffee or be a podcast angel. So I have subscribers who pay me $3 a month.

you know, podcast, angels. have people, I had one gal the other day, she bought me five cups of coffee. That's $25. I'm like, I don't even drink coffee. So it's kind of funny, but it's just a little virtual cup of coffee. And she just got joy of an episode and, and did that. Right. So also I have advertisers. So you can have advertisers in multiple ways. Once you get to about, I'd say a thousand downloads a week, then you can start showing value to your advertisers and say, listen, we get a thousand.

ears in your industry who are your customer listening to our podcast. So you can buy a podcast for a hundred, a ad for a hundred dollars, say. So something like that. So as you grow with your listenership, you can charge more. And then now I'm at the point where I will charge for an ad. I can also do ads. can also have them in my newsletter, which is another big bonus. I can also add social media presence on top of that. And then also I do some paid partnerships as well. Like I'll, I'll

joined together with a fabric company and they'll say, well, we'd like you to interview a couple of our designers. So my rules about that, it has to be someone I would want to interview anyway, because they're paying me for that. And I don't just want to have a bunch of people that aren't really related to our niche, right? So I've always been able to choose, like when Free Spirit Fabrics came to me, I was like, yes, please. And I want Tula Pink and I want Cave Fasset and blah, blah.

So I was able to choose the people. And sometimes when you're doing a paid partnership like that, those are people who might not say yes, because they're so big and they're so busy. you know, so sometimes you can get in the door and get a great interview with someone who might not have otherwise known who you even are. Right. So anyway, that's kind of the difference. One is let's have the joy. Let's keep bringing it and have fun as long as we do it. And the other one is how are we going to make this a business? So I don't know. Do you have any other questions about it or do you think that was kind of a good explanation?

Tori McElwain (28:59)
that was excellent. It even got me thinking about our future in the podcast and the fact that you were saying that even though you're partnering with these companies, you still want to interview someone that you would want to interview anyway. there's still joy there. There's still like excitement for you. I love that you've got both joy in both places and consistency in both places. Yeah, that was great. Thank you, Brandy. And Andy, do you want to add anything or add your experience?

Brandy Maslowski (29:09)
yeah. Yeah.

Andi Stanfield (29:24)
Yeah, ⁓ I always think it's funny because I came into the podcast thing with just the idea of the title and the subject matter, because I love puns and play on words. So that's where the quilting on the side came in. And I was like, we were doing some other chat because Tori and I have known each other and collaborated in other ways before we started the podcast.

Brandy Maslowski (29:44)
Yeah.

Andi Stanfield (29:53)
And so I messaged her and I said, Tori, don't you think it would be fun to have quilting on the side be a podcast about quilting as a side hustle? And so that kind of gave us the structure of our subject matter, you know, that we really wanted to look at the business building aspects. We knew there was, you know, there are courses out there for people to learn pattern writing and to build businesses and things.

but there really didn't seem to be that ongoing support that you can get from a podcast. And she was willing to come on this crazy ride with me. But I do agree, as you said, Brandi, having that structure for the episodes. And we have a similar inspiration because...

I was a big fan of John Lee Dumas, who was the entrepreneur on fire, and he had his rapid fire questions at the end of every episode. And that is exactly where I got the idea for Tori and I to use a set of standard questions in every episode.

Brandy Maslowski (30:55)
Yeah?

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. I'm going to tell you a story about John Lee Dumas because I do my, you know, I do those kind of rapid fire questions as well. I'll come the lightning round robin for quilting. But anyway, I actually got to meet him, not in person, but virtually at an event. And so I named my podcast, Culture on Fire, because he had entrepreneurs on fire.

And I listened to every single podcast he ever did. then his wife, did, I just love everything in their community. And so we were, we were on this virtual platform and he was talking to the audience and we could, we could ask questions, right? And nobody was asking questions. And I'm thinking, what on earth? is like one of the icons in the industry. How is no one asking questions? And so I had a small question for him, but I got a chance to actually speak to him voice to voice online.

And I said, okay, first, I just have to thank you for the inspiration because my podcast is called Quilter on Fire. And he was like, what? And he was really happy about it. And in the back of my mind, I always wondered like, is that okay that I'm using that? is it too, you know, it's not similar to Entrepreneurs on Fire because it's a completely different industry, but he was like, you go girl. I love that. So it was kind of neat to get that validation that

He was happy he inspired me and there's room for everyone and all that. So anyway, it was kind of a nice story that I got that little niggling thing out of the back of my head that am I using this name just to whatever? And he's like, no, that is a great idea. And I love that you're going there. So that was kind of fun to be able to talk to him in, well, not in person, but virtually to just say those words like I'm doing this. Is this okay? And he's like, you're on fire. Do it. So that was kind of cool. Yeah.

Tori McElwain (32:47)
That's wonderful.

when Andy came to me about our podcast idea, I had been I had run a short series on YouTube that I was inspired by a quilters life and Paula Chamberlain who just share stories and she does as a hobby. And I just I loved it. I would binge it while I was sewing. So I

Brandy Maslowski (32:58)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Tori McElwain (33:07)
asked her permission, she helped me kind of figure out the format of it, but I did a few videos on YouTube about quilter stories and I specifically invited business owners because when I was growing my business, there was no place for brand new businesses to really share what they're doing and share what they're growing and what they're building. ⁓ So that was very short. It was a lot of editing and my computer was really old, so it didn't last very long. But when Andy came to me about this idea for a podcast,

Brandy Maslowski (33:30)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (33:34)
She didn't know it, but I had it in the back of my head that maybe this could be a podcast or maybe I could start a podcast. I don't know what. So when she came to me, I was like, my gosh, this would be awesome to combine both business and stories and we can learn from each other. And so that's what gave me all gung-ho because I was like, my gosh, we could share their stories. We can learn from them. We can bring in bigger names to help learn how they got to where they are and how they went from building a business on the side.

to a full-time business, because that was still our ultimate goal is to be a full-time business. So that's how I got started. And ⁓ professionally, we have monetized very slowly. For those that are wondering, we do have a Patreon, which has been really wonderful, because another piece of the podcast was reaching our community. And we tried building community on other social platforms, and it just wasn't really working. We both really didn't want to run a Facebook group, because there's Facebook groups for everybody.

This year, I went full time in my business and it's still, I'm still quilting on the side. My business isn't quite full time to the point where I'd love it to be, but we're getting there. And I, we closed down the website. We closed down. I forget what else, but we like cut costs. And then all we have now is Buzzsprout and our community. And it is been amazing just having that connection there and keeping it very simple.

And then, and I'm excited to see how we grow from there.

Brandy Maslowski (35:04)
Yeah, yeah, love it. I think this kind of leads into the conversation. Like we're talking about community, right? We're talking about real authentic conversations, bringing people in, sharing stories. This leads me into a big thing that's happening right now, which Andy was actually wanting to talk about, which is AI. And so I would love to hear from you guys. What do you think of AI? How are you?

Are you incorporated into your business? Are you avoiding it? How do you feel AI is affecting us all? I don't know. Who wants to start?

Tori McElwain (35:40)
I could talk about all day. So like Andy, do you want to start? And then I can like go.

Andi Stanfield (35:40)
Tori's the AI queen.

Brandy Maslowski (35:41)
Yeah, yeah.

Andi Stanfield (35:46)
I'll be very brief

because I feel kind of like the old lady that doesn't, you know, that is really resisting these new things because I know how it can be useful, but I am that stereotypical, you know, the Gen X only does chat GPT because that's all they know. They can't handle anything else. But I know there are resources out there to show me how to utilize it better. And I know it would

Brandy Maslowski (36:07)
Yeah.

Andi Stanfield (36:16)
⁓ really probably propel me to the next level just because it's very hard as a solopreneur to manage all the things. So I'll turn it over to Tori because she's had some great ideas about utilizing AI.

Tori McElwain (36:32)
So an AI first became available for everyone, right? And this was last year, right? In 2020, no, it was probably 2023 when ChatDBT first came, but not a lot of people used it. It took a minute to warm, for people to warm up to it. I was afraid of it. Like a lot of our listeners, I was like, oh my gosh, is this going to be like the 1980s robots take over the world thing? Which my husband was fully convinced of because he's a little bit older than me. He's an eighties baby. And he was just like, oh my gosh, it's like the Terminator all over again. So.

I was a little afraid of it at first. what I did was I researched. So I have a background in curriculum instruction. It's a master's degree, but I joke that it's a master's degree is really a degree in research. So I'm pretty good at research. So I dive into it, I try to figure out what is this thing? What does it actually do? And try to really understand it before I even touched it. And then what pushed me over the edge to actually try and specifically to chat with you was I was a tech, I was a tech trainer.

And my manager speaks like a manual, right? Like you would get your computer and have the manual and he knows all the code language. And I know some of the code language, but I was mainly there to translate. So that's what I started using it for. I went to chat TVT on my home computer. So I had to, had my work in the laptop and my home laptop. And there was one project where I was kind of lost. like, I don't know what I'm supposed to be teaching these people. So let me put, what is this? Explain it to me. Like I'm five.

And so it did. So I heard somebody mentioned that's a great way to use chat. CPT is to kind of translate these complex ideas into a more simplified way. And so that's how I was introduced to it. And that's how I got started. And then when I realized what it could do, I dived in and I learned more about it.

more about how, because I run a digital marketing magic coaching program and I wanted to be able to help my members use this to simplify their businesses and to shorten how much time they're spending on their marketing. So that's why I died into it. I created custom GPTs. So I have four bots currently in my coaching program that are integrated into the system that they can use to shorten all the time they spent writing emails, writing social captions, but that can still capture

Brandy Maslowski (38:31)
Yeah.

it up.

Tori McElwain (38:49)
the value of what they want to share and that they can tweak the wording, the voice, everything to make it unique for them. Because I didn't want them to drop something in and it spits out an old timey sales ad. Like that's not what we want to do. That's not valuable. That's not what we're here to do. And as quilters, we always lead with value and community and art and creativity first. So I wanted to make sure these bots were not chat CPT, that they were

Brandy Maslowski (39:02)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (39:15)
for quilters and crafters. So I spent a lot of time on the backend learning that. And I've just moved it over to a different platform that is much more secure than my original platform. And so I'm really excited to have them use it. But one thing I'm also learning more about, especially after we interviewed Teresa with the AI Quilter, which I think you did too, if I remember. She was an amazing resource for understanding what AI is. And her book, The Digital Muse is also an amazing resource. If you wanna know more about how AI has developed, she was

Brandy Maslowski (39:32)
Yeah. Yeah, I did too. Yeah.

Tori McElwain (39:45)
at I would say the forefront. She's with a company that was developing it and then she was, she fully understands it. And it's a great book to outline everything. Where's it going with that?

Brandy Maslowski (39:54)
It's all good. It's a great topic.

Andi Stanfield (39:54)
Hahaha

Tori McElwain (39:58)
I forgot what I going. Oh, the environmental impact. That's where I was going. So I'm learning more about the environmental impact. So one thing that I do talk about whenever I do discuss AI and the tools that I have in my program, I do say that I've tried to shorten it as much so you're not prompting it as much. So with OpenAI, if you want to use the free version, you have 10 prompts and you're done for the day or for a certain amount of time. With this, can use it in my program. You can use it constantly.

Brandy Maslowski (40:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tori McElwain (40:24)
but I do have them have a guide at first and I asked them to fill out all of the answers to these questions. So not only do you understand what a landing page should sound like, it sounds like you and it is for your audience because if you have a knitter and a quilter coming into this chat and you're just throwing whatever into it, it's not gonna sound like you and it's not gonna sound nice to your audience. It's not gonna sound like a person.

And that's what we really want ⁓ out of a GPT is for it to sound human and to cut your time down without wasting a bunch of energy. And on that flip side, because there is, I do get pushed backwards. Like you shouldn't be using it at all because of the environmental impact, but we're solopreneurs. And the only way that we can keep up in this crazy capitalist world that we live in, especially here in the U S is to cut that time down and to be able to

quickly get our offers out, our beautiful patterns out that we spent a year making. If you're not getting it out there as big and wide as you can, you're going to miss the opportunity to raise money for yourself so that you can make more beautiful patterns. And that is where I think that the strong argument for AI is still there because we're going to be using it anyway. The world is going to be using it anyway. And I don't want our solo printers to fall behind and feel like they can't compete and they can't keep up. OK, so there's my tirade.

Brandy Maslowski (41:45)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (41:48)
I'll off my soapbox

Brandy Maslowski (41:51)
My turn, my turn, yeah. AI,

I think AI can be used very well in a really great way. And I also, like you said, had Teresa Benson on the podcast. We had such an amazing conversation. I really tried to dive into the questions that quilters might have and the fears that they might have. We talked all about the environmental impact and really when it comes to the environment, yes, it uses water. It does have an impact.

but it's in the forefront right now and it's being blasted all over the news right now that, my gosh, my gosh, AI is this big thing, but all those other things, Google, everything that we use has an impact. So I talked to Teresa and I said, so if you literally don't wanna make an impact on the environment with AI or anything, you have to lay on the floor in the middle of your apartment and don't move because if you make coffee, if you watch TV, it's all an impact. So it was a really great conversation.

Like when I brought her in, I had those same fears at the beginning. I have all these tendrils of my business, right? And one of those tendrils is I've been a ghostwriter for magazines for 20 years and editing magazines. do all kinds of different things here and there on different contracts. And I receive articles sometimes. And if you're writing an article for a magazine, don't give me an AI article.

It's not that I can tell 100 % of the time, but this is what I really want as an editor of a magazine or as a podcast producer or writer. I want your authentic voice. And if it sounds to me like I'm getting three Wikipedia articles about other people who might've inspired your quill, I'm not getting your story. I'm getting a bunch of snippets from AI or you know, like, or if you've written a few articles for me and all of a your article is drastically different with all this flowery strange language, I'm going to be like, hmm.

You know, did you write this? You know, so my take on AI is that this is a really great tool to help you save time, to help you learn more. You know, like I write my own podcasts and I write my own intros and outros and all the fun and I do research. But when I'm researching a guest, I research everything I want to research, but I could also use chat GPT to say, Hey, you know, like,

Find everything you possibly can about this guest and give me some things I didn't discuss. Whatever. I might find one little tidbit somewhere that I didn't realize. my gosh, they were so humble. They weren't even telling me about this and I found it online and they're delighted to talk about it whatever, right? So you could also, let's say you're writing a course, Tori. You're very involved in this world. Let's say a quilter is writing a course for their new audience. want to launch something. Write your course.

But you can also put, this is my outline. I'm going to put this into AI, review this course outline. Am I missing anything? Is there any way I could improve this? Should I change the order? You could help it augment what you already know. And the value of your course isn't going to be lost in AI because it's still you bringing your authentic self to your audience, creating that value. And where that's going to win out over the other people who are just throwing one word into AI and coming up with the full course that's $3,000.

you're going to win out because you're in your course live authentically with your people and it's your 30 years of history that you know and it's going to shine. Those kind of courses are going to start to really shine above the ⁓ AI garbage that's coming along the way, right? So that's my take on AI. mean, use it, understand it, but use it well.

Tori McElwain (45:16)
I totally agree. So use it, understand it and use it well and make sure you're using it securely. Cause that is IP that you're dropping in there when you drop your course steps. It's not necessarily the course itself. Every like AI probably has access to all the free stuff it does. Yeah. All the free stuff out there, but your specific steps, you want to make sure you've got a secure place that you're sharing this, which you can go into like open AI specifically. Cause we do, we have talked about chat, TBT, they do have settings you can turn off so that opening. can't get to your.

Brandy Maslowski (45:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tori McElwain (45:44)
your chat itself. So you can turn those off. So Google that because that can be an easy way to find those answers. But one thing I want to point out, so I listened to because I have this background in instruction, I tend to listen to a lot of instructional design podcasts. And there's a huge discussion in that sector on AI and how it can have so many people the number one use of like chat bots like chat GPT right now is a tutor, right? It's where that people are going to learn new things.

Brandy Maslowski (45:48)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (46:11)
But one thing to keep in mind as you are doing this, like Brandi said, it can be great for research, but it is not concerned with the truth. It is concerned with getting you the best answer so that you are happy with it. It's a product to solve your problem. It's not concerned with the truth. So make sure you're reading through what it's giving you, what resources it gives you, click through every single one and make sure those are credible resources. It does take some work, but it is important to keep

Brandy Maslowski (46:26)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (46:41)
that alive, especially as you said, as we're going, a lot more people will just drop a few things in chat and we'll post it online as truth and then chat dbt will pull from those. it's kind of like a cyclical thing. So you want to make sure they're pulling from credible places. I will say that with that drop of like what you just said with courses can be created really quickly. I feel the entrepreneurs who want to teach like their blood boil, not boil, maybe like they get scared.

Brandy Maslowski (46:52)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (47:09)
They're like, no, then where is my place? So I want to reach back and touch on what you just said about stories, because I think what we bring as especially hands-on crafters to this AI world is our hands-on knowledge and our stories. Like we just shared how we got started quilting and I can't replicate that. It wouldn't know how we got started. It'll grab all three of our stories and come up with jumble that doesn't really make sense. But we show up.

Brandy Maslowski (47:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tori McElwain (47:35)
not only hands-on, but also with our experience and that can never be replaced. So if you were thinking about teaching, even if this is prerecorded or live, you are the value you are bringing to the world, not necessarily what you know. Because yes, it can be Googleable, but I can't go into chat tbt and pull up Andy and ask her business questions and about her experience selling her books and her experience at QuillCon. And I can't do it that way and try to ask her about her inspiration behind the Quilt.

Brandy Maslowski (47:59)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (48:04)
hanging behind her. Like what you bring is very unique and it cannot be replicated by AI. So I wanted to touch on those. I wanted to highlight that for our audience in case they feel the same kind of nerves, scared, maybe even anger that I felt watching AI develop and kind of try to take over the quilting arts that we love so much.

Brandy Maslowski (48:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, such a great conversation. I don't know how long we can go today. I could ask you guys a million questions, but one thing that I really want to know, and I'm sorry if I'm like I'm the interviewer, the consummate interviewer here, but I want to know what's new in your world right now. Like what are you offering to the world that's just your new exciting? What are you bringing to the table right now?

Andi Stanfield (48:46)
That's great ⁓ because I do have to ⁓ drop off here in a few minutes ⁓ that silly day job. But as I said, I love half rectangle triangles and we are recording this in December. So I am in the middle of my holidays sampler where I designed my ⁓ little bit different size quilt blocks that are only six.

Brandy Maslowski (48:53)
Night now.

Andi Stanfield (49:12)
inches by nine inches, so not your standard squares. And I've got a whole series with holiday themed quilt blocks, so that's been fun to release. And you know, I just can't quit it, so we'll have new block designs and quilt layouts with half rectangle triangles in the new year.

Brandy Maslowski (49:27)
you

Tori McElwain (49:33)
I'm so excited for those. So I am taking my business off of the digital space and I'm going to be in person teaching actual digital marketing classes at H &H trade show in Chicago in May. But I'm really excited about that. I think that that is the next step for my business and reaching a whole audience. And I have a booth for the first time as hey, Tori, was, I did have a booth once at Quilcon.

Brandy Maslowski (49:42)
.

Tori McElwain (50:00)
where I was a pattern designer and teaching still and slowly shifting to courses. But this has been, ⁓ just the last couple of weeks, that's where my brain is. I'm planning the booth and trying to figure out what's going to go where. And I want to make a quilt of my logo now because I think that would be really fun. that's what's on my horizon. What about you, Brandy? What's coming up for you?

Brandy Maslowski (50:19)
Well, first of all, H &H sounds like so much fun. I'll see you there. I'm really excited about that event because they're doing the consumer show and the market kind of show as well this year. So I'll see you there. But my gosh, I have so many things happening for 2026. I don't even know where to start. Like I'll try to keep it all in a nutshell. So this year has been a year of let's do less better for me. Like I've really been reviewing my business now that I have a virtual assistant for the first time game changer. But I need to actually bring it all back to home and say, what do I really want to do?

So first I'll just say the two quick trips I'm doing. I'm doing Japan right away. That one sold out in April, but I'm also doing Scotland in the summer. So Scotland instead of England and Wales to the festival of quilts, I'm doing Scotland this year. So you can find that on my website. Please come with me if you're interested in doing that trip. The other big thing in 2026 is I am completely revamping my entire YouTube channel. So I'm going from sporadic once a week whenever I can get it out.

to three videos a week all year long. It's all planned out. It's gonna be crazy. So my YouTube channel, and I'm just gonna give you a sneak peek. This is the first time people are hearing it. I might've actually been like, should I do this on social media? But I'm gonna be doing quilt flips, which is thrift finds that I'm quiltifying. So that's one of my series. I'm gonna have so much fun on YouTube, so you have to join me over there. And the huge thing that I'm launching right away with my really good quilting friend, Mel Beach from California.

is we are doing the FiberFix Fam. So this is a family. It's so simple. It's 85 bucks in the US, 120 bucks in Canada. It's a monthly prompt. So we call it the Midnight Prompt every month. And we're just making one postcard a month, but it's a community. We've got a padlet. You're coming in. We're talking about fiber art techniques, trying something new, and it's achievable because it's just a postcard.

We're just going to have a lot of fun if you've never tried fiber art, if you just want to get your creative groove sparked. And then at the end of the year, we're going to do an exchange. we're inside the community. We'll be doing a little exchange of a postcard. So it's super fun. You can find that on my website, course, quilteronfire.com. So many good things come into the table. I've got some big events this year. I'm teaching at Sisters in July. I've never been to that show and I've always dreamed about it. So that's probably my biggest teaching gig of the year.

But yeah, you got to get on all of our social media to follow us along and see what we're up to because this is something I say on like, I don't know, every second or third episode of the podcast. I'm saying this over and over again. When you find someone you love in the quilting world, follow them everywhere on social media and like and share their stuff because those are the people that you love. If you follow them, you'll see more of it and get rid of the other stuff and see more of the people you love. I don't know. I'm like on my soapbox about that. Follow the creators you love.

Tori McElwain (53:11)
And the creators love it.

Brandy Maslowski (53:12)
Yeah,

it's true. True, true.

Andi Stanfield (53:15)
Very

Tori McElwain (53:15)
I wish we

had more time because I'd love to know how do you do it all?

Brandy Maslowski (53:18)
I know. Well, that

Andi Stanfield (53:18)
Hahaha

Brandy Maslowski (53:20)
sort of bring it back to home and see what do we really need in the business. You can let go of things. It's okay. Just find out what's working and go more in that direction. Really, that's my answer in a nutshell.

So we're so sorry that Andy had to go, but we are going to continue just a little bit longer because Tori and Andy did this really fun rapid fire thing that I'm excited about. So let's just get started Tori. Let's do it between the two of us.

Tori McElwain (53:44)
Alright, so these are rapid fire questions that we end every Quilting on the Side episode with when we have a guest. So Brandy, we have about six questions and they don't have to be super short, but we like, it's just rapid fire. So it's kind of like however long you want it to be. Yes, I answer them too. I haven't answered, I don't know if I've answered these before, so this will be exciting. Okay, so the first one is what color do you struggle with including in your quilts?

Brandy Maslowski (53:53)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah, and you have to answer them too. Okay. ⁓ okay. ⁓

that's interesting. You know, it's that's a good question because my absolute favorite color is butter yellow and I almost never ever ever have it in a quilt because it's not really it's it's a soft luxurious color and I actually had a business podcast I was on one time who asked me this very question. She said, what is your favorite color? She said if you had a candle on your desk, what color would it be? And if there was a ribbon on it that said something inspirational, what would that ribbon say?

And I said, well, it would be butter yellow because that's my favorite color. And I probably wouldn't have some fluffy motivational thing on the ribbon. It would say, what are you waiting for? And she laughed and it was really great moment in that podcast. But then a couple of weeks later, she sent it to me as a gift. was like, I was like, I do not send a gift to everyone of my guests, but I'm not at that level that she's at that I could send gifts yet. But, I was so impressed by it. But so yeah, butter yellow is my favorite color.

hard to include in a quilt for me. It really is a hard one to use. I did actually use it once and I found my values were too similar, but I was invited to make a quilt for a magazine, Quilt Maker Magazine, and ⁓ they said it's a color issue. And I said, I'll do it as long as I can do yellow. So I did make a full modern quilt in yellow and I love it. So that was my one time using yellow, but I rarely use it in quilting.

Tori McElwain (55:36)
That's hilarious because that's my least favorite color.

Brandy Maslowski (55:40)
You can see yellow. I've got yellow on.

Tori McElwain (55:42)
Every time he said buttery yellow, my stomach went, eugh.

Brandy Maslowski (55:45)
⁓

I know it's like brown for me. I'm not a big fan of brown. It's so funny because I'm wearing yellow and you're wearing brown.

Tori McElwain (55:51)
That is funny.

But yeah, I know a lot of people who love yellow. We've had a couple people say, oh wait, I'm supposed to say what I'm gonna say. So in my quilts, I tend to, that is actually the same color I would say to incorporate is yellow.

Yeah. Okay. So my favorite color is turquoise. So I absolutely love turquoise and I love it with orange. I love it with red. I love it with that contrasting color. I love high contrast. But yellow, yellow is the one that I've always struggled with putting in a quilt. And I did a rainbow one before and it was so hard to choose the yellow. I was like, I don't like any of them. And what's ironic is that that section of the quilt was the largest section of the rainbow ended up the yellow was the biggest one. So was really funny that that happened, but yellow, that's so funny. Okay.

Brandy Maslowski (56:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tori McElwain (56:34)
So the next rapid fire question I have for you is yardage or pre cuts.

Brandy Maslowski (56:39)
⁓ you know, it's interesting because I have to say neither. So as a quilter, I'm a textile artist. I'm an art quilter. So I have scraps everywhere. Scraps is what I have. And I mean, I will buy fat quarters. I almost never even buy anything anymore. I'm so lucky that people will send me stuff, but yeah, I have 16 drawers of scraps and they they're like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, like

scraps is the way to go. And so when I do have yardage, which I do have a lot of storage of yardage, I will snip it up, cut it up, and then it moves to a different place because it's cut now and then it moves to scraps. so scraps is the thing for me. that's my scraps really work for me because I can actually go online and do a live and make a block of some kind and just grab all of the red at once. I'm doing a monochromatic red block today and blah, but here we go. So that makes it easy for me.

Tori McElwain (57:36)
that. So I wouldn't say either I would neither I would say both. My favorite to use is probably yardage. I love getting a fresh cut piece of fabric and then changing it into something different. Like I think it's so fun how we get to do that.

Brandy Maslowski (57:39)
Mmm, yeah.

Yeah, I just, you know, it's interesting that you say that because I just made this hat. I don't know if you can see it. can grab it for see if I can reach it. I just made this hat. This is my very first YouTube video with the quilt flips I was talking about. Right. So I took this hat. I took the logo off and I put this gorgeous fabric from the UK that I bought. It's Liberty of London fabric, which you wouldn't really expect it, but it's a real painterly effect. And it was so hard for me to cut into that yardage. Like I bought it ⁓ four years ago.

and was so in love with it, I just had it sacred there on the shelf. So finally I was like, okay, I could cut a little snip. I have enough of this fabric to probably make a dress out of it, but you know, I finally broke into it. But okay, what's the next question?

Tori McElwain (58:36)
It's funny, I have a whole shelf of like sacred right there. That's kind of my talk. Yeah. All right there with you. The next rapid fire question is your favorite notion or tool since we're talking about podcasting a lot today.

Brandy Maslowski (58:38)
I know. Yeah.

Yeah, I always have two. I'm a sucker for that purple thing. You know what that is. It's the little and I use it for pulling things through and I use it as sort of a stylist because I don't like the metal against my machine. So I've stitched through that purple thing by accident. So and it's safe. It doesn't hurt your machine. Like the needle went through and I just pulled it out. But really, I have to say my favorite favorite is my Karen K. Buckley scissors. ⁓ They're these nice hand grippy scissors.

Tori McElwain (58:53)
See you next

Brandy Maslowski (59:17)
She just designed them from scratch. She's an original designer. And the thing I love about them, because I do such meticulous small work with my art quilting, is they have these grippy edges, a serrated edge. You can cut these meticulous little things and they're just so easy and comfortable. So those are my favorite. Yeah, they come in a bunch of sizes. I have them all. I love them.

Tori McElwain (59:33)
I had to look those up.

Okay, my favorite notion. I quilt on the side now, so I don't get to quilt too often. So I'm thinking, I want to say my sewing machine. I love my sewing machine. Every time I get to use it, I feel like... ⁓

Brandy Maslowski (59:44)
Yeah.

Everybody says that on my podcast.

They're like my sewing machine. And I'm like, try again. It's not a notion, but you have to talk about a tool. I don't know. It's not a requirement, but I do ask in my podcast, what is your favorite tool or notion? And the most common answer is sewing machine for sure.

Tori McElwain (59:55)
Listen up.

No, I'm thinking like, what else?

Brandy Maslowski (1:00:08)
And

can you think of something else that's smaller that you use it?

Tori McElwain (1:00:12)
I do, have

actually they're right in front of me. That's so funny. McGingor scissors. Like I love how heavy they are because I use them for like weight. I use them to cut. use them for all kinds of things. My daughter was actually looking at these earlier. That's why they're right in front of me. I'm like, no, you can't have that. I guess I have to go with scissors.

Brandy Maslowski (1:00:17)
those are nice.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Tori McElwain (1:00:31)
Let's see, okay, this one, I really, this one's one of my favorite questions that we get to ask our guests and it is who is inspiring you right now? And they don't have to be in the quilting world.

Brandy Maslowski (1:00:41)
⁓ interesting. You know, I think I'm going to talk about my most recent guest because I can't choose my favorites when it comes to podcast guests. So my favorite one is always the most recent one. And ⁓ I just interviewed the biggest dream guest on my list that's been on my list for five years. And I can't even believe that I had an interview with her. So her name is Dr. Karen Nyberg. She's an astronaut and she made a quilt block in space. So that episode comes out.

Christmas episode, so it comes out December 23rd. I'm really excited about it, but the reason I'm using her as my answer for this question, inspiration, is because the part of her story that I admire the most is that she is an engineer, astronaut, world ⁓ environmentalist advocate, and she's a textile artist. But the part of her story that resonated with me the most was

how she's affecting the world with her art. So she's trying to do good things in the world with her art. I'm trying to do good things in the world with my podcast, but is my art really telling a story? Am I really using my voice through my work? So that was something that's really inspired me lately. you know, like I'm working on, sure, I'm making a quilt because I'm going to be teaching on a cruise and it's a lot of fun, but is my voice in there? Am I giving a message to the world? So that's been a big inspiration to me.

Tori McElwain (1:02:08)
That's funny that you say that because I'm hearing a lot of voice things in my world as well. Like is your voice in what you're doing? And I feel like the universe keeps sending me signals and that was one of them.

Brandy Maslowski (1:02:16)
Yeah.

⁓ I can't even

believe you said that because I was thrifting a couple months ago and the universe is sending me signals about this because around the same time that I landed that interview with Karen, I also found a t-shirt at the thrift store that said, it's like a, you know, digital across the t-shirt says, your voice is your superpower. I was like, my gosh, this is happening right now. You know, like it's so true.

My voice is my superpower because I have reach and I can share stories and I can make a difference and I can lift someone up. You know, I get messages on YouTube, oh my gosh, I'm glad you're showing up on YouTube so can see your face. I've listened to every episode. I'm like, what? 250 some odd episodes? You've listened to every episode? Like we need to be besties right now. know, like, I just appreciate that. I can't believe that people are even listening in. Do you find that...

Tori McElwain (1:03:13)
I do. I was into

your podcast.

Brandy Maslowski (1:03:14)
Do you

find like you can't believe people are actually listening to you? Like, yeah.

Tori McElwain (1:03:18)
Yes. Yes. Like they

come out to me and Andy loves to wear, I should say we both love to wear the shirt, but Andy wore a shirt that said, ask me about your favorite podcast to one of the quilting shows. And she had somebody stop her and be like, so who is your favorite podcast? Like, what is your favorite podcast? Oh, podcast. She's like, Oh my gosh, who you are. That was so crazy. Oh, that is, that's, it gives me goosebumps to think about that. Like getting messages like all over about your voice. That's wonderful.

Brandy Maslowski (1:03:27)
Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah,

yeah. So what's inspiring you right now?

Tori McElwain (1:03:48)
Me, my turn.

So it's funny that you led with a guest because I think I'm going to leave with a guest too.

One of my favorite quilters ever in the entire world is Karlee Porter. And I don't think she realizes how big of a fan I am of her. Because when I met her very briefly at QuiltCon in her booth and I told her about who I was and I was doing a rapid fire thing for our podcast. I was asking them like three questions and just being like, yourself, where they can, where they find you and stuff like that. And she agreed to be on that. And she agreed to do the rapid fire. And then she started asking me questions about who, like what I do and who I am. And I shared my book with her.

Brandy Maslowski (1:04:01)
Haha

Tori McElwain (1:04:23)
And it was just a full fangirl moment and her just, just fanning me up, telling me like, this is amazing. You need to tell more people about this. And then she gave me the idea of the self publishing incubator. And then she came on our podcast as a guest and she was the last interview we did for season five. So she was our last interview. And so much of what she said just kind of stuck with me. And one thing in particular was her comparison between.

her mindset of her business, was Bruce Wayne and Batman. So Bruce Wayne, being Bruce Wayne in your business is what you need to do to create money so that Batman can play and have fun. And I realized, I don't really have a bat man. I approach my business more as almost strictly Bruce Wayne. So like that conversation has stuck with me and that specific concept and even the offer that is now...

that has now allowed me, I'm gonna cry. It's allowed me to quit my job. Like her idea allowed me to quit my job and I was able to be there for my kid who has special needs and it's, she is probably, she doesn't realize it, like, but she was wonderful. And like, even on the pocket, like if you watch the YouTube version of our interview, I'm just sitting there like, like the whole time. It was just wonderful to meet with her. So yeah, long story short, Karlee Porter.

Brandy Maslowski (1:05:21)
So inspiring.

Well now.

Heheheheh... Yeah.

Yeah, such a great inspiration. Yeah, I love her, had her on the podcast as well and she was absolutely inspiring. I agree with you.

Tori McElwain (1:05:51)
Our next rapid fire question is what is the most rewarding part of your business?

Brandy Maslowski (1:05:58)
That has shifted over time for sure. ⁓ You know, I do truly love those moments when I'm in the zone just creating, if I give myself that time to create. But I want to say the most recent really rewarding thing, I've had a podcast producer, like an editor guy for the last three years, but

changing from being mired down with the editing and making sure everything's good and perfect and adding all the stuff to changing to just having a quick listen through of the full episode after it's been edited by someone else was such a massive shift for me. It went from like almost six to eight hours of work on a podcast to like three or four hours of work. Like it drastically reduced my time spent. And I realized

I get so much joy out of listening to the finished product because during the podcast interview, I'm on. I'm working hard, thinking hard, really listening deeply and trying to be really valuable and give good questions. And so I'm really in the zone there. But when I'm listening to it back later wrapped in a blanket with tea or driving or quilting, I am laughing and crying and having all of that joy with

And I'm thinking, thank goodness I asked that. thank goodness I followed up, whatever. And I'm just really getting the joy out of the episode that I hope that my listeners get. So that one part, listening back, is the biggest joy right now in my business by far. I love it.

Tori McElwain (1:07:29)
I absolutely love that.

I love that. I hope our audience heard the fact that you had offloaded that. Like, this will be on our podcast, but you offloaded.

Brandy Maslowski (1:07:34)
huh. I gave it away. It was hard. It was hard, hard to give that

away, but he does it so much better than I do it. So it was a good choice. Good choice.

Tori McElwain (1:07:43)
And

that's a key thing for business owners to hear is like doing this. Yeah. You can find people that do it better than you. okay. My turn. Most rewarding part of my business. I do a lot of, because I coach one-on-one for the most part, and then I have group coaching. Those one-on-ones are just my favorite part of my entire business. I love to create a good marketing funnel. think it is, I love the process. I love the fact that I have a finished product.

Brandy Maslowski (1:07:50)
Your turn.

Yeah.

Tori McElwain (1:08:09)
But when I get in a room with an entrepreneur and are with a business owner, quilt pattern designer, teacher, long armor, and we get to talk about what they want to do for their customers. And they come in, typically they come into a session and I call them strategy sessions. So we're kind of like, we're making a plan. That is the end goal is for you to figure out what, what is going on now and what are the next steps. And sometimes they come in energized and like, I'm ready for the next step. Most times they come in overwhelmed and bogged down. And then you can.

physically see it. But my favorite part is by the end of our sessions, we lay out the action plan, which is usually two to three steps. This is what you're doing next. And the next month we're going to review what happened. They are uplifted. They are smiling. They are excited. And they leave most of my sessions just ready. And that I walk, like I turn off the computer and I walk away because I have so much energy as it is so rewarding.

Brandy Maslowski (1:08:57)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (1:09:04)
watch them like go from, no, to I got this. it's, that's, that's, that is the most rewarding part of my business is I think that exchange of energy and giving them, I hate to say life again, but in some sessions, it does feel like that where they come in where, like I said, bogged down and then leaving with a smile. And that is my, that's why I do what I do.

Brandy Maslowski (1:09:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's

so great to explore and issue a challenge, something they're working on, and then come up with the solution that they can actually, steps they can use. Love it, love it.

Tori McElwain (1:09:34)
And I get to see all their quilts. I get like that's what's fun too. I get to see like the preview of stuff they're working on for like magazines or like their their their newsletters and stuff. OK, the last one I have for you. This one's more fun. It's how many quilts are in the room with you right now?

Brandy Maslowski (1:09:35)
Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Well, at least 24, because that's my trunk show. They're in a suitcase over there. One on the wall. Yeah, I mean, I'm a textile artist, but boy, do I got a lot of quilts. can't even like, are you talking about UFOs as well or finished quilts?

Tori McElwain (1:10:07)
It's whatever it means to you.

Brandy Maslowski (1:10:09)
Yeah, I'd say at least 30 finished quilts in here at the moment and then upstairs in my house. Oh my gosh, a bunch more. Like I have a railing that's just covered with them. Yeah. So I try to keep my quilts laid out as much as possible. So they're either all piled up on my bed upstairs in the spare room or they're on a railing, beautiful railing I have, or right now, unfortunately, they're stuck in a suitcase. I have to take them out. But yeah, probably close to 50, I'd say in total. Yeah, that's a good question. I've never been asked that before.

Tori McElwain (1:10:38)
Not kind of fun. It kind of makes you want to like, I love when they count there like one, two, three. I think I have. I have three over there. One on the bed. I'm in a basement. It's one big room. One there. Oh, and two over there. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six. I have six in the basement with me. There's a lot more upstairs. That's where I store all of my. Well, Brandy, that was the last rapid fire question you did amazing. And thank you for allowing me to share.

Brandy Maslowski (1:10:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

that was fun.

Tori McElwain (1:11:07)
Bye.

Brandy Maslowski (1:11:07)
I felt like I was in the hot seat. That's good.

That was a lot of fun. I want to say, take a moment to thank Andy because she was awesome at the beginning. It was so nice to see her and it was really fun to get together with the two of you to do an episode together. I love doing podcast swaps. I love promoting other podcasts. I think that we're all here together to lift each other up and there's room for everyone. So if someone's listening to my podcast a week, I want to give them 10 other podcasts to listen to on all those other days. So.

Thank you for joining together with me to do something so fun.

Tori McElwain (1:11:39)
is me and Andy believe the same thing. That's why we open up our guest spots like every other episode. Even next season, we're talking about having mostly guests because it's so much fun to lift others up. So I do want to share where you can find a little bit about me and Andy. And I'd love Brandy for you to share as well. Me and Andy have our podcast Quilting on the Side. You can Google us Quilting on the Side and you'll be able to find our podcast. We also show up on Instagram and YouTube. So those are our two places for the podcast. And we mentioned our businesses earlier. Andy is True Blue Quilts.

So you can find her at TrueBlueQuilts.com. True Blue Quilts on YouTube is her main platform. So if you really want to see what Andy is doing, YouTube, she's fabulous at YouTube. And Instagram a little bit, she's on Instagram, but you can find True Blue Quilts on all those platforms. And then I'm HeyTori, on Instagram it's heytori.tech. And then my website is still the quilt patch by Tori. I'm slowly transitioning that business name to HeyTori. But the quiltpatchbytori.com is where you can find me. And Brandy, I'd love for you to share.

Brandy Maslowski (1:12:38)
Yeah, and hey, Tori is so cute. I love that. So I am the Quilter on Fire. Quilter on Fire is my website, quilteronfire.com. You can find me on all the platforms, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Of course, I'm doing massive thing this year on YouTube. I don't know what I've gotten myself into, but it's going to be a whole lot of fun. And yeah, everywhere online as Quilter on Fire, that's me.