From Pillowcases to Publishing with Kathryn LeBlanc

In this episode, Andi sits down with Kathryn LeBlanc of Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio (and author Kathryn Mykel) to talk about what it really looks like to keep reinventing your creative business when the thing that's working stops working. Kathryn opened a brick-and-mortar quilt shop with no money, no inventory, and no business background - then closed it right before COVID hit. 

She pivoted to Facebook Lives and made more in two years than she did in five years with the shop. When that dried up, she went to school for self-publishing and launched a cozy mystery series set in the quilting world that regularly hits bestseller lists.

They also dig into the business side of running designer collaborations - what makes a 50-week block program succeed or fall apart, how to actually make money from free patterns instead of just giving your work away, and why your free pattern is the coupon (so stop stacking discounts on top of it). Plus, Kathryn shares how she landed magazine features in a short window and why having a publishing schedule from her book career gave her an unexpected edge.

Whether you're thinking about your next pivot or just trying to figure out how to monetize what you're already doing, this one's full of real talk from someone who's done it - multiple times over.

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

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Kathryn LeBlanc and Her Journey
03:52 From Hobby to Business: The Quilt Shop Experience
06:52 Navigating Challenges: Closing the Quilt Shop and New Beginnings
09:53 Collaborations and Community Engagement During COVID
12:35 The Art of Collaboration: Pros, Cons, and Lessons Learned
15:39 Monetizing Free Patterns: Strategies for Success
18:36 Transitioning from Freebies to Paid Supporters
21:42 The Cozy Mystery Series: Writing and Publishing Journey
29:25 The Balancing Act of Writing and Quilting
33:07 Expanding Horizons: Magazine Submissions and Collaborations
39:39 Navigating the Quilt Industry: Patterns and Sales Strategies
44:27 Finding Inspiration and Defining Your Niche
47:07 The Joy of Creativity and Business in Quilting

Connect with Kathryn

Kathryn's Website 

Amazon Author 

Instagram 

Youtube 

Facebook

Want More Quilting Business Content?
🔗 Join us on Patreon for exclusive perks

🔗 Grab Tori’s book, Workshops Unleashed 

📌 Follow us on Instagram

Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech & https://www.heytori.tech/

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts & https://truebluequilts.com/ 

Transcript

Andi (00:06.803)
Welcome and thank you for joining us on another episode of Quilting on the Side. We are thrilled to welcome today Kathryn LeBlanc and you have a variety of hats in your quilt business and online endeavors and we'll dive into all of those but we do want to give you a chance to introduce yourself and your business.

Kathryn LeBlanc (00:31.874)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. So yeah, so Kathryn LeBlanc is my name and my business name is Dragonflies Culting Design Studio. It's had a few renditions, but that's where we're at right now. And I also say I'm also AKA author Kathryn Michael. So that's what I go by in the cozy mystery world. Yeah, I'm glad to be here.

Andi (00:53.396)
That's awesome. Two of my loves are quilts and reading, so check those boxes right off. Wonderful. And we also like to start out with finding out how people got started in quilting. So tell us about your first quilt.

Kathryn LeBlanc (01:00.844)
Okay. Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (01:13.128)
That's funny. So I basically got started doing pillowcases. I think a lot of quilters do that and they're not even really technically quilted, it gets you involved with fabric and sewing and kind of that's like the general start of it. Not a single one person in my entire family or extended family quilted. Like, so I'm the first, I'm the only. Still.

But yeah, I got started with pillowcases and then I think I went to the local Joann's like most and I followed the same trajectory as most brand new quilters. I looked at YouTube videos and I muddled through learning how to try to do it myself. I made a king-size quilt on my first go around that was terrible and it fell apart as soon as we washed it. And so like I have the same story as most quilters.

But you can imagine my guy's surprise when he watched the quilt and then all of a sudden it was like a big lump in the middle because he didn't really understand that you have to actually quilt it once you make it. Do I have a favorite? I think I do actually. It's a, I don't have it here with me. It's a, it's like yellow and teal and it's got a lot of white background. And I basically, when I was learning how to long arm,

Tori McElwain (02:18.886)
Do you have a favorite call that you've made?

Kathryn LeBlanc (02:35.918)
I like threw the kitchen sink at it. So it is literally just a mash of whatever my brain came up with in terms of quilting. And I just think that's why I love it so much.

Tori McElwain (02:47.366)
That's awesome. So how did you turn your hobby into a business?

Andi (02:49.633)
Very cool.

Kathryn LeBlanc (02:58.466)
Well, once I really discovered quilting, you know, once I figured it all out, I basically did it like night and day, 24-7, seven days a week, 365 for like two years straight. And I just ignored everybody else and everything else that was going on in the world. And I just, I would go to work and I would come home and I would sew. I would go to work, I would come home and on the weekends I would sew all weekend long and everybody would just be like, all right, well, she's gone, you know? And...

Andi (03:24.227)
Okay.

Kathryn LeBlanc (03:27.054)
I was working a corporate office job and I needed to get out of it. And I said, I came home one day and I said, you know what, I think we're just gonna open a quilt shop. And he went, what? I was like, well, I didn't have any money. I didn't have any fabric. I didn't have any clue. I didn't have a location and nothing. But within a matter of days, we found a location.

You know, I figured out some logistical things that I needed to know and I quit. gave my three weeks and four weeks later I opened a cold shop. Yeah, that was kind of the start.

Andi (04:02.968)
that's amazing. So where did you go for that business knowledge for opening a shop and sourcing the inventory and all that kind of stuff?

Kathryn LeBlanc (04:13.262)
At the very, very beginning, I had a lot of help from the local quilt shops that were in my area, but I also was able to utilize Fab Shop Forum. So they're a really great, great resource for when you're getting started and needing to learn all those things. So I did utilize them quite a bit. But I had absolutely no idea what I was doing for like the first year. Yeah. So it was all like, yeah.

Andi (04:34.576)
Yeah, that is it.

Ha!

Right? Yeah, I have a little bit of that behind the scenes knowledge because my mom took a wild ride during her retirement and partnered with a friend to open a yarn and fabric store. So again, she came from the nursing industry. There were no business owners in our family. So I remember, you know, going to different business conferences and

Kathryn LeBlanc (05:03.49)
Right.

Andi (05:10.148)
Like you said, the FabShop Network Forum is a great resource for business owners.

Kathryn LeBlanc (05:18.062)
The year that I opened, had a market was on the East Coast, like the one and only time. I waited for it to come back and it never did. So we ended up going down to market. I had only been open like two or three weeks and we went down to market and I did take some business classes there from Linda Hahn, who's from Frog Hollow. And so I took a little bit of business class there from her and I just...

Andi (05:24.528)
Ha ha!

Andi (05:39.056)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (05:46.166)
I muddled through it the whole way. I mean, it wasn't easy and it wasn't fun. And if I had to do it all over again, I know what I would do, but.

Andi (05:55.146)
And so how long was the shop open? Or I mean, is it it's it's not anymore? Or? Okay. Okay.

Kathryn LeBlanc (05:58.894)
Uh, it's not. No, I closed it just before COVID, um, which was interesting. Um, but I want to say I left my job in 2014. I think I opened in 2015. I think it was open for five years, I want to say. So not very long, but long enough to, you know, um, I had some health issues from

Andi (06:16.859)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Kathryn LeBlanc (06:25.326)
you know, being without health insurance and being unemployed, technically unemployed, I guess, if you want to call it that. And I had to get those addressed. So it made sense just to do that. And then when I closed the store, I was faced with, okay, now what do I do? Because I have no income. Like I went from working a salary job where I made a good salary and bonuses to opening a quilt shop where I made no money every week. And then,

Andi (06:26.158)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (06:54.924)
Then I closed the shop and I had nothing, you know. So then I went on to, did Facebook Lives all the way through COVID. And I actually made more money doing Facebook Lives for two years than I did the entire five years I was open with the quilt shop. So that was like a huge blessing. So I had like a really great boom. And then those died down once COVID ended, those went bye bye. Like, I mean, there was a few that stayed longevity wise, but for the most part, those Facebook Lives and the...

Andi (07:16.272)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (07:24.686)
You know the people's like hunger to buy fabric that all died too when COVID died so or when COVID died down I should say So then again, I was faced with okay. Well, what do I do? So this is like my entire life is just I just pivot from you know when things are starting to change I see that change, you know, and I feel it and I can go okay. What's next, know? so When I was working

Andi (07:27.93)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (07:33.155)
Right, right.

Andi (07:43.941)
You

Kathryn LeBlanc (07:52.291)
One of my goals was to be able to just be on the road, able to travel and just enjoy life. And I wanted to find a job where could do that mobile and didn't have to be stuck to a house or, you know, whatever. And it just didn't happen. But when I stopped doing the lives and I was faced with, now what do do? I was like, OK, now maybe it's your time to figure out what you were going to do five, six, seven years ago when you decided that you wanted to be this, you know.

live free person. And so I went to school to learn how to self publish. And that's how I got into publishing the books, which fits into the lifestyle, I wanted to be a permanent, you know, traveler. And so it just it's been this like progression from one thing to another as the need and as life changed and the world changed and yeah, yeah.

Andi (08:44.912)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I remember connecting with you on some of those collaborations that you were doing in during the pandemic. You know, was that when the.

Kathryn LeBlanc (08:55.896)
COVID,

Andi (09:02.318)
what and they've you've you've had so many with themed titles that I'm forgetting some of those early ones the the block of the month that.

Kathryn LeBlanc (09:08.834)
Yeah.

We started with the 50 states. And so what we did was we just pulled in designers, anybody who wanted to participate, and we offered a free block every week. And we did it based on the 50 states. And so we're 52. We had Hawaii and Puerto Rico and all that stuff. But yeah, that was our first one. And it was a huge success because people were jonesing for some kind of

Andi (09:14.703)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (09:29.209)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (09:39.171)
you know, experience where they could participate in things together because nobody could do anything. And so even though we were separate and far apart, we were able to come together and all participate in the same sort of program, not only from a designer standpoint, but also from a customer, you know, a quilter standpoint. it was really, it was really good. We also had a online quilt show that we did where we kind of showcased each other's quilts. And then the second year we did...

For the 50 weeks we did sewing themed, which was, that always goes over really well because anytime it's quilting and sewing, people gobble that up. So that went really well. And then after COVID, it kind of died down. We didn't really need to do that. We were onto other things.

Andi (10:22.915)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (10:27.798)
I was hesitant to pick it up back up again, because it's a huge endeavor to run that for 50 weeks like anybody, even the people just coming in and out. It's a lot of work for anybody. So I was always reluctant to pick that back up again, even though lots of people wanted to. They wanted to do it. And one day we were actually, I was talking to my writer friends and that's how this came up. Like it's funny.

Andi (10:35.78)
Yeah.

Andi (10:43.032)
Thanks

Kathryn LeBlanc (10:52.878)
We meet every single morning and we write together as like co-workers and that kind of stemmed not only being coming off of COVID and all, but also being an author is like a very lonely, know, same with being a designer sometimes it's a very lonely singular kind of job. And so we meet every morning and we were talking about it and one of our friends down in Louisiana, she said, well, why don't you do like the 50 shades?

Andi (11:07.907)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (11:21.166)
And I was like, well, that's genius. So then here we are. So now we're into, I think, week nine or so of 50 Shades of Grey. yeah, it's been fun.

Andi (11:32.249)
So having run so many of these collaborations, which I totally understand, huge endeavor, what are some of the pros, cons, do's and don'ts for that type of collaborative effort?

Kathryn LeBlanc (11:50.383)
I think, you know, from a financial standpoint, it's always good to be at the beginning of anything, any kind of even if. So we also do this in the book industry as well. We have these collaborations. They're called multiple author projects and we could have 20 authors and we all write our own books and we collaborate them under one series. so it translates to both and it always pays to be at the very beginning. Like it's just it is what it is. But.

So if you're going to start it, obviously put yourself at the beginning. Obviously have a strong group of people at the beginning who you know you can count on. They're going to deliver on time. They've got a big support system, lots of customers, whatever that case may be. So I would say that. And then I would just say being organized. I try to set up my monthly emails so that they go automatically, so I have to really think about it.

I always fall like midway. I'm a starter and I'm a finisher, but I'm not a middle kind of person. So like always when I get to that middle, I always falter and I have missteps. But, you know, just trying to be consistent, trying to set up, you know, a schedule, trying to set up automations, like whatever you can do to make sure that, you know, you're not falling every other week or whatever. And try to have fun with it. Like the last one we just did was not fun. It was

Andi (12:52.407)
Yeah

Kathryn LeBlanc (13:18.304)
like awful. We tried to do videos and no fault of any one person or myself, you know, like it just it didn't work. It was like, you know, sometimes they just don't work. And it was a struggle. Yeah.

Andi (13:31.324)
Yeah, because it seemed like with that video one that

was the Fall in Love with Quilting Club, that you took the idea of workshop summit lessons and then extended that over a year. And where do you think the disconnect went? Were people just not, they couldn't hold their interest for workshop type events for that long or?

Kathryn LeBlanc (13:38.382)
Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (14:00.335)
You know, I think that, um...

I think that people, wanted to be able to pop in when it was their time and pop back out again, which is totally fine. You can do that when you're doing the kind of quick release content with just the patterns and stuff like that. But with the videos, know, people watching your video week after week after week, so they're interacting with you. So you have to come back and say, Hey, how are you? You know, you watch my video. That's great. You know, you have to foster that community.

Andi (14:17.952)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (14:33.71)
of customer in order to make them your customer. They're not just going to be like, you know, they're not going to go running you down to, you know,

Andi (14:42.325)
Right. So you're talking from the designer participant side. They needed to check in with the community all throughout the program, not just the initial time their video went live.

Kathryn LeBlanc (14:55.956)
Yeah, think just all around the expectations were on my side and on their side and probably on a customer's side. I don't know. was just one of those things that it was a good idea. It could have been really great, but we just didn't execute it. I don't know.

Andi (14:56.886)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (15:13.066)
Well, and some of these things you don't know until you try, so.

Kathryn LeBlanc (15:16.608)
Yeah. And I have zero problem trying something and having it fail. Like I don't have an issue with that at all. because if we didn't try it, then it was an automatic failure anyway. So, you know, so to me, it was just a lesson learned. That's all, you know, it wasn't necessarily a failure or anything like that. know, and I really felt like if you're going to, if you're going to ask somebody to watch videos every single month. And so it was monthly, you know, there was like four or five videos each month.

Andi (15:20.577)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (15:27.147)
Right.

Andi (15:43.733)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (15:46.083)
And if you're going to ask people to come back every single month, you need to make sure that that content is actually going to be there. And so the fact that some designers wanted to just pop in, give you their, you know, or whatever. And then a lot of people were like, well, I don't want to do that until October. If it's not due until November. Well, I can't tell somebody that there's going to be content in October. If I don't only have content through March, you know what I mean? So I really wanted all that content upfront, which is what you said, like that whole.

Andi (16:05.032)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (16:16.59)
what's the word for it when they call it? Yeah, like it's more like a summit, you know what mean? And I think people, and that may have been a failure on my part to not really express it the best way or whatever, but we treated it more like the weekly collaboration versus treating it more like a summit where you need everything upfront. So it just didn't, and so it made me very miserable.

Andi (16:18.067)
The Summit.

Mm-hmm.

Andi (16:32.523)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

And we don't want that. The organizer needs to be the happiest one.

Kathryn LeBlanc (16:44.762)
So I was constantly going, I'm sorry that I'm miserable and I know you can feel it and don't worry, it'll pass. It'll be over and there'll be no hard feelings, you know, but for right now we're miserable and we got to get through it, you know, so.

Andi (16:56.317)
Yeah, kind of a babysitting aspect of the coordinator role has got to be the worst thing. It's like, we're all adults. Can we just do what we say we were going to do and meet the deadline?

Kathryn LeBlanc (17:08.108)
Yeah. Yeah. So I like these, you know, block patterns. It's hosted on someone else's thing. And I go into it knowing that I'm probably going to do more than one or two block patterns, because if somebody falls through, I can just throw in a block pattern. It's not, it's not the same as having to make a whole video content type thing, you know, whipping up a singular block and a one page pattern is way easier on somebody if, you know, if we have a missing week or whatever. So

It's just a lot easier and so I prefer those more but and I would say that I had a little extra time but I never do really have extra time but I felt like I had a little extra time to do it this this time around so

Andi (17:51.283)
Yeah, yeah, that's great.

What, how do you bridge the, how do you move your customers from being a freebie collector to being a paid supporter?

because it seems like in the quilt world there are so many free patterns. You know, we could quilt for 50 years and never buy a pattern because there's so much free stuff available. And yet we want to be paid for our design time and our skills.

Kathryn LeBlanc (18:22.936)
sure.

Kathryn LeBlanc (18:27.214)
Sure. So, you know, when I start the collaboration, I always express to people that the goal is always to make money. My goal 99.99 % of the time is to make money. Like, even when I send a newsletter, my goal is to make money. I'm not there to fluff anybody. I'm not there to tell anybody how my dog is doing. I do that because you're supposed to. But my ulterior motive is to make money. Like, end of story. Like, it's a job.

I do it for work, I have to eat and I have to be paid, you know? So when we do these collaborations, even though we're giving away a free pattern, people are always like, well, I'll give a coupon, you know, 30 % off anything in my store, you know, I'll, you know, da, da, da. And I say, you've already given them a coupon, you know what mean? You've already given them the free pattern. That's their coupon to get into your store, you know what I mean?

Andi (19:01.259)
.

Kathryn LeBlanc (19:19.802)
Let them buy something at full price after that in terms of that. But I always say, find a way in whatever your business is to make money even if it's off of a free thing. So what I do personally on these collaborations is I make little kits. And I've talked to several designers about this and it doesn't work for everybody and that's cool and everybody has their own thing.

Andi (19:30.634)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (19:42.895)
I try to do an under $10 price point because a lot of times people can, they don't have a problem parting with $10. You can do free shipping if you can put it in an envelope and it only costs just 70 cents or whatever the cost of the stamp is today. So, you you have what you have a lot of perceived value and you can get free shipping and putting something in it that they either.

makes their life easier or that they just don't have, you don't think they're gonna have, or that, you know, is unique to you in some way or whatever. And so I mean, I sell little kids all the time. So yeah, I organize it and yeah, I have to do all the work, but I'm also making money every single week off of it. You know what mean? And I tell people that all the time, try to find a way that works in your business to make money, even though you're giving something away for free, you know? Yeah, so.

Andi (20:32.797)
That's really good consideration.

Kathryn LeBlanc (20:36.47)
Yeah, like because I agree that, you know, we have this weird freebie mentality. I agree with that. And it's a thing and so many people struggle against it and so many people dislike it and are very vocal against it. And that's totally okay. In the book world, it's insane how much free stuff we give away. So when I go back over to the quilt industry, I'm like, that's nothing. You know, I'm like,

You know, I give away free pattern all day long, you know, because like in the book world So one of these little collaborations in the quilting industry, you know, I might give away over the course of the 50 weeks We might give away. I don't know a Thousand let's just I'm just randomly making up. We may give away a thousand patterns At that same amount of time in the book world. I'm giving away a hundred thousand books

Andi (21:20.782)
Mm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (21:30.222)
So, you know what I mean? Like, so when I give away one pattern, I'm just like, yeah, whatever. don't care. you know what mean? It doesn't even translate to my mind, but it's just a, it's a different mentality. I think that you have to really think about it's a loss leader and then you have to figure out how you're going to make that turn into money. And I'd imagine it's different for everybody. know, everybody has their own set of products and things like that. But for me, I used, I do it with little kits and I have them laser cut.

Andi (21:35.075)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andi (21:46.365)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Andi (21:58.601)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (22:00.399)
I always have an applique because people hate to trace and cut out appliques. They want to have them already ready to go, laser cut for them. They just peel off the backing, slap it down with the iron and they're good to go. And so that works really well for me. I'm an applique or I love applique. So in my little kits, there's always a pre-fused laser cut applique. There's a little bit of fabric, which hardly costs anything at all. And so what I sell for seven, eight, nine, $10 cost me like three bucks.

Andi (22:29.587)
Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (22:30.382)
I'm making seven bucks off of it or whatever, you know, like, um, and yeah, that's, have to sell a lot of $7 things in order to make money. But I've also sold a few, you know, fabric bundles, a couple hundred dollars here and there. I've sold books now at this point. I've sold a bunch of patterns and stuff like that. um, you know, everybody just has to really try to figure out how to make money in whatever way for their business.

Andi (22:32.284)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andi (22:42.504)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (22:53.276)
Right. Right. Yeah. And there's like you said, there's so many options and combinations that people can put together that keep keep trying. I'm encouraging the people that are listening, keep trying. You'll you'll hit your stride and it'll work out.

Kathryn LeBlanc (23:02.616)
Yeah, like it

Kathryn LeBlanc (23:10.17)
Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know these things five, six years ago when I started doing all that. Like I had no idea. Like I had zero clue. Like when I'm telling you, I had like less than zero clue. I didn't know that I had clue. But like if you're an, if you're an inventor and you design rulers or something like that, use your, your unique specific ruler that they can only get from you. Use that in your free pattern. And they're like, Oh wow, check this out. You know, and they're going to go buy your 10, 12, 15, $20 rule.

Andi (23:34.491)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (23:40.172)
or you hope that they will, you know what I mean? Or you put a little QR code in that shows your ruler in action and it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and everybody wants the greatest thing, you know?

Andi (23:41.81)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Andi (23:50.972)
Yeah, yeah, I know that that definitely has been my strategy because I've been participating in summits and so I will teach a block pattern and just like you said, it has a unit that goes with my special ruler that's, you know, obviously my ruler will make your life so easy to make this specific block. And then I also have a pattern so then I can do a bundle. You can get the free download.

Kathryn LeBlanc (24:12.119)
Exactly.

Andi (24:17.669)
You can buy the standalone ruler or you can get the ruler and the pattern and make the whole pretty quilt. So yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (24:25.068)
And we'll give you a free sticker too, you know, just as a little icing on the cake or something. yeah, like, you whatever, you know, if you're into, you know, like whatever you're into, like you can make it happen for yourself in some way. You just have to figure.

Andi (24:31.568)
Right? Everybody loves those little things. Sticker and freebie things.

Andi (24:45.957)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, you've mentioned books a couple times, but I want to give people the opportunity, give you the chance to tell us about the series that you have started with, your Cozy Mysteries.

Kathryn LeBlanc (24:59.346)
Yeah, so when I was facing, you know, the end of the Facebook lives and I didn't have any income coming in, you know, it was a tough decision to go to school and spend a significant chunk of money on that education. But I did. I went to school to learn how to do self-publishing. basically, the school that I went through is not the same anymore. So I don't necessarily generally recommend it. Otherwise, I would. But they've gone away from self-publishing, so they're not.

Andi (25:27.707)
Mm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (25:28.686)
Anyway, they are like, okay, we'll get you to write your first book in six weeks. That's their thing. That was their thing. And they gave it, they pair you up with a coach. And let me tell you, I had whatever I paid for the school, hands down, I may not have made the financial aspect, you know, so quickly, but hands down, just getting the access to this, this teacher coach that I had was phenomenal. But,

And so he made me write my first book in six weeks and I did it, you know, like if you give me a challenge, that's the thing. Like I'm really great with a challenge and I'm really great under pressure and deadlines. So if you give me a challenge, I'm going to rise to the occasion. So it was, so I did it in six weeks, but then it took me six months to learn how to publish it because once you have the manuscript, you got to hire a cover designer. You've got to hire editors. You've got to figure out how to navigate KDP.

Andi (26:03.335)
Thank

Kathryn LeBlanc (26:26.022)
and all of these other things that you have to learn. So I did write my first manuscript in six weeks, but then it took me more than six months to figure it out. And since then, I do have a very popular series. We're on book seven right now of 10. If I was smart and I listened to my coach, we'd be done with that series already. I'm on 10 books done, but I also like to dig my heels in and do whatever I want sometimes.

Andi (26:36.578)
it.

Andi (26:52.868)
Well, you've got some other things going on the side, so that's understandable that the timeline gets extended.

Kathryn LeBlanc (26:55.992)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a serious overachiever. So when my mind is set towards a goal or something that I want to do, I run through it and then I overachieve and then I keep going until I burn out. So that's my thing. Yeah, so I published 55 stories in four years, self-published them.

And yeah, so if you talk to my coach, would say, she should have published her first 10 first before doing the other 40. But it was the other like, you know, 30 books that kind of they were fun. They fed my soul. They gave me a challenge. They gave me something different to do. wasn't just pumping out content, you know, for a series. So there was a lot of reasons why I didn't go go forward with it. But yeah, so I a very successful series on generally.

Andi (27:40.422)
.

Andi (27:47.13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (27:55.523)
Not right now, but you can generally find it as a bestseller, you know, in the quilting category, because it's all quilt fiction. And, you know, I used my background to my writing. And that was thanks to my coach. Like, literally, I went to my coach and I said, this is what I want to do. And he said, no, no, no, no, that is not what you're going to do. He's like, you're going to lean into this quilting and you're going to write cozy mysteries and you're going to go from there. And so I did. I did exactly what he well.

Andi (28:13.605)
you

Kathryn LeBlanc (28:25.166)
I didn't do exactly what he told me to do. I did what he told me to, right? And I took some liberties, which actually worked out really good in my favor. But yeah, so I did that. And so it's all thanks to him because, you know, who knows what would have happened if I hadn't listened to him.

Andi (28:38.597)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (28:42.637)
Yeah, and we'll put the link down in the show notes because your author, nom de plume, is Katherine Michael, M-Y-K-E-L, so we want people to be able to find those. And yeah, they're just delightful, and I love all the different patterns that you've showcased, not only on the cover, but it's woven into the stories, correct?

Kathryn LeBlanc (28:50.67)
Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (29:12.568)
Sure, yeah, a lot of times there is one. You know, it's challenging to juggle having to write a story, having to write a mystery. Mysteries are not easy. And then to keep a series and to keep all that running and going and all those balls in the air. And then to make sure you're sticking true to the quilting on top of all that, you know what mean? So sometimes I slip on the little quilting a little bit and there isn't as much as people would like, but.

My new series is full of quilting. There's a Scooby Gang of quilters. There's a quilt shop and a craft shop, so there's no shortage of quilting, crafting, sewing going on. So I really made sure that, and every single event that happens in the town revolves around quilting. So I really think about the quilting. Whereas my first series,

Andi (30:00.961)
Hahaha

Kathryn LeBlanc (30:06.19)
You know, it revolved around quilting, but there was so many other things going on that it just wasn't like every second, know, whereas my new series is very like hands-on. They're making a different project, like every couple chapters kind of thing. so I'm really trying to hone in on that. yeah, the covers all have a different quilt that I designed on them. And it's an in-

Andi (30:18.287)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (30:30.732)
Mm-hmm.

She's showing threading trouble, has a log cabin variation.

Kathryn LeBlanc (30:41.102)
I think they call it a Greek key.

Andi (30:43.414)
Okay, the Greek key in beautiful blues and grays. for folks that aren't on YouTube, you'll want to jump over there and or go to Kathryn's website and and look at all her beautiful covers there. And so are those patterns available?

Kathryn LeBlanc (30:45.1)
I think it's.

Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (31:01.698)
They should be.

Andi (31:02.948)
I hate to make you feel guilty, but I know at least a couple of them are.

Kathryn LeBlanc (31:06.51)
No.

They're, well...

I couldn't do both. just didn't have it in me. I didn't have it in me to do both. And now at this present time, I'm doing both, but I'm not doing the quilts for the covers. So they should have quilts, but they don't yet. I'm still working on, like I do have a few of the actual physical quilts in progress and I have some of the patterns, but you know, they're usually pretty generic, like the grandmother's flower garden or the Greek key or log cabin.

Andi (31:28.996)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (31:40.759)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (31:43.757)
You know, so it's not like I have to go and reinvent that, you know, like I'm 10 million log cabin quilts on the planet. So they're not so unique that it's like, I have to have that, you know, pattern, but they just make for really great visual background, you know, and some of it is the nature, like the sky or whatever. And some of it is wallpaper, you know, the quilt to make it look like wallpaper and stuff. And that's a lot of fun to do.

Andi (31:47.694)
Right.

Andi (32:00.217)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (32:04.484)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (32:11.074)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (32:12.224)
I send those designs over to the cover artist and then they translate them and make them into covers for me, which is really great.

Andi (32:19.894)
Yeah, yeah, fun. That whole process is so fascinating to me. But moving, pivoting a little bit to what has been keeping you so busy lately is I keep hearing that you've got projects in magazines. So tell us all about your big push to get out there.

Kathryn LeBlanc (32:36.578)
I'm going to this.

Kathryn LeBlanc (32:40.61)
So one of my coworker friends, my writer friends that I write with in the morning, her name is Ashley Montgomery, and she writes under the name Virginia Delsmith. And she also writes quilt fiction. And we went to the same school, but we had already kind of seen each other through the collaborations in the Facebook group. And then we ended up in the same school together, unbeknownst to each other. And then the...

The coach tried to connect us together. it was just, and we've been together as like BFFs ever since. And last year she's like, you know, we're watching all of our quilting friends excel. They're getting fabric deals. making, you they're in magazines and all this stuff. And she's like, I feel like we got left behind. I said, well, that's because we've been excelling in the book industry versus the quilting industry. You know, we.

weren't doing both. were just doing one or the other. And she said it several times and it was probably the third or fourth time. I said, you know what, we're not doing this anymore. We're not being left behind if that's how, So it had been on my list of things to do was to submit to a magazine and that day when I decided her and I were no longer going to be left behind, I submitted to a magazine and I just happened to get it, you know.

And then I submitted to another magazine and I said, Hey, I was just in this magazine and I happened to get that too. And then I, you know, and I just, kept going with it. And I said, see, we're not left behind. We can make it happen if we want to. And like 22 magazines later, like I was like, holy mackerel. she's like, now, now you've left me behind.

Andi (34:24.982)
Yeah, yeah, I commit, I'm more on Ashley's end. I look at some of you guys that are just pumping this stuff out and it's like, okay, they're working hard, they deserve all the glory. I'm back here in my lane doing my thing. So we'll just, there's room for all of us and all different levels.

Kathryn LeBlanc (34:42.926)
It's, and it's, you know, there is room for all of us and that's the great thing. And so I was burnt out from writing the books, you know, because I went to the wall with them nonstop 24 seven for almost five years straight. And I was burnt. mean, I had several burnouts, but I was like, okay, enough is enough. I've had enough of this grind. And I said, we got to do something different.

It's just because I have zero self-control.

Zero self-control, that's why.

Andi (35:20.406)
Yeah, yeah. I hear you on that. Now, question on some of these magazines, because the few that I've done, I did not have to write the pattern. I could just make the quilt, give them some basic information about block sizes and that kind of stuff. And their editing team took care of the rest of the pattern writing. Has that been your experience or did you have to do the sample plus the written pattern?

Kathryn LeBlanc (35:21.848)
So yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (35:51.065)
I feel like there's a few magazines that you don't really have to write the pattern for them, but for most part, they're going to give you the rights back. And I have a philosophy about that too, if you want to hear it in a minute, but they're going to give you the rights back anyway. So I just go ahead and write the pattern at the beginning. And then I just give them what I've written for the pattern and they can do what they want with it. They're not going to take my pattern and use it. You know what mean? They're going to rewrite it anyway, but it'll have everything they need. And they can't say, you know, I don't, you know.

Andi (36:03.329)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (36:09.109)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (36:13.217)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (36:21.23)
so I err on the side of give them more than they need. and I think, you know, I think it's appreciated, but there, there's definitely a few out there who I wouldn't need to do that, but I do it anyway. Cause then when I get the rights back, it's already done and I don't ever have to think about it again. Cause I don't want to have to go recreate that quilt six months or two years from now. I've long forgotten it. You know what I mean? Like, so, so I just, I'm in the habit of doing it.

Andi (36:25.856)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (36:41.673)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And-

Yeah, and obviously for those that I did, I had a 90 % complete pattern just because that's my process. you come up with most of how you're gonna do it before you make the sample anyway. At least that's how I work when I design quilts.

Kathryn LeBlanc (37:00.781)
Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (37:08.43)
Yeah, I figure if you're go through all that effort, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna write the notes down or anyways, you might as well just translate the notes into like, you know, the start of your pattern or whatever. And yeah, so.

I have a lot of patterns written now because they're from all the magazines and it's fun because I'm just starting to get some of those rights back because some of them are only a couple months. They're only, they only want exclusivity through the length of the magazine, until the next magazine comes out, which is great because I've had a couple cover quilts that are already a couple months old that now I can go and release those, which is...

Andi (37:26.217)
Yeah, yeah, that's exciting. So fun.

Andi (37:34.688)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (37:41.568)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (37:51.489)
awesome because it's the start of show season right now, Quilt Show, because I do do in-person quilt shows throughout the spring and the fall. And when I show those, they're like, well, where's the pattern? And I'm like, well, you can get the magazine. I can sell them the magazine. Or now at this point, I can just sell them the pattern, which is really great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Andi (37:54.454)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (38:07.553)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's terrific that you've got that whole library that can you can continue to market for years to come.

Kathryn LeBlanc (38:18.508)
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, like I said, it's just, it's, I go from one extreme to the next. So this is my dream right now. And so, you know, I'm coming out with patterns in the Island Petit catalog. Ooh, that was grueling. That was really challenging. And then I've got, I think, five or six coming out with the different shop hop magazines in the different states of that, which

Andi (38:24.093)
Hahaha

Andi (38:33.301)
Mm.

Andi (38:41.376)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (38:43.542)
And every single one of them is completely different than the next. So it's challenging to keep track of what they need you to give them, know, what layout it needs to be in, what the timeline is and all that stuff. But I have a good base, think, all of that, because when you're self-publishing so many books, I had a publishing schedule. I was able to schedule out myself for two years.

Andi (38:56.563)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (39:12.718)
I had all of my editing and all my book covers, all that stuff is scheduled, very scheduled for many years. And so I can already just translate that to the magazine and the patterns. can say, in this section of time, I can do this many, this many, whatever, and they need to, that kind of stuff. So it's really all about being disciplined when you're trying to do that much stuff. I wouldn't.

Andi (39:17.748)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (39:36.223)
Uh-huh.

Andi (39:41.066)
For sure. Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (39:41.998)
to anybody else, would just say do one. You know, you don't need to do ten, just do one, that's fine, you know, but yeah, like I said, overachiever with no self-control, that's my name.

Andi (39:54.783)
You're in good company. There's plenty of us out there that are resonating with those confessions. So yeah, that's great. Well, this has been wonderful, Kathryn. Tori did have to drop off to take care of some family issues, but we always like to end our conversations with what we call our rapid fire questions. But before we do that, tell people where they can find you.

Kathryn LeBlanc (39:58.615)
Yeah.

For sure.

Kathryn LeBlanc (40:22.358)
So it's super simple. It's www.authorcatharinemichael.com So I've got everything under that umbrella now and there's tabs for the quilting if you just want the quilting. There's tabs for the books if you just want the books. You can find me wholesale there now too as well. Yeah, I'm on social media, Instagram as Dragafly's Quilting Design Studio.

Andi (40:43.676)
Awesome!

Kathryn LeBlanc (40:48.782)
I'm on TikTok as my author profile. Um, Facebook, have like seven different Facebook groups. They're just, you know, hunt me down. You'll find me.

Andi (40:53.695)
If.

Andi (40:57.267)
Yeah, yeah, we didn't even get into that. That's another conversation is Facebook and social media management and all that kind of stuff. Wonderful. That's great. So we always ask people, what is your least favorite color? What do you struggle to work with?

Kathryn LeBlanc (41:01.198)
I know.

Kathryn LeBlanc (41:16.494)
Uh-huh.

Kathryn LeBlanc (41:22.21)
Maybe fall colors? don't, yeah, I don't know. I'm pretty bright. I like bright colors. But I...

Andi (41:30.396)
And you say Fall and you just did an Autumn Splendor pattern that I saw when I was looking at your upcoming releases.

Kathryn LeBlanc (41:39.948)
You know, I don't think I have any, I would say probably red and green are probably the least color I use, but I don't have a problem. Like I'll design for any color palette there is. Yeah.

Andi (41:48.754)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (41:54.492)
Yeah. Yeah, I feel the same way that, you know, even even the brown and the orange that don't get so much love, you can make some gorgeous.

Kathryn LeBlanc (42:04.818)
I love orange. I love orange. I love yellow. If you give me an excuse to use a yellow thread to do quilting, I'm in heaven. So and I like like

Andi (42:11.75)
Hahaha

Kathryn LeBlanc (42:19.694)
lime greens, like all those weird colors that people, I don't know, yeah, I love color, I really do. Yeah.

Andi (42:20.894)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (42:24.958)
Yeah, I just, I do too. I love to explore the whole gamut of beautiful, beautiful colors. So that's what makes quilting so fun. Second question, do you have a favorite notion or tool either for your quilting or your writing or both?

Kathryn LeBlanc (42:36.045)
Yeah.

Kathryn LeBlanc (42:46.638)
I'll give you my favorite notion is seam rippers with a flat bottom, handmade by Woodcrafts by Cynthia, and I probably screwed up her name there, but Woodwork by Cynthia. And she makes wood turned seam rippers and they have a flat bottom and they don't roll. And I actually put them in my books. Like why we have rolling seam rippers is

Andi (43:01.799)
Haha

Kathryn LeBlanc (43:15.758)
It boggles my life and that's my favorite.

Andi (43:19.684)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yardage or pre-cuts?

Kathryn LeBlanc (43:26.91)
I would say probably yardage, although I have my fair share of pre-cuts that I'm hoarding. I'm a pre-cut hoarder. I'm a yardage user. So I don't know, take what you want.

Andi (43:32.082)
Ha ha!

Andi (43:37.234)
There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm the same way. I like to cut my own pre-cut sizes, I guess. So I'm a pre-cut lover just for the dimensions, but then I like scrappy random mixes, so I don't like getting the whole collection and using it all together. So, but yeah, that's okay.

Kathryn LeBlanc (43:48.034)
Kathryn LeBlanc (43:59.372)
No.

Kathryn LeBlanc (44:03.254)
I think I like one yard cuts. I'm a one yard cut kind of gal.

Andi (44:07.152)
Okay, nice. Who is inspiring you right now? And it can be through any aspect of the world.

Kathryn LeBlanc (44:19.42)
Kathryn LeBlanc (44:26.262)
I'm stumped, I don't know. Who is inspiring me? I don't know. I really don't know how to answer that. I think what I'm doing right now is right now I'm working, not working I guess, but I'm a Benertex social star. And that's something that had been on my plan for a long time. Like I love Benertex. I always use them in the store. I always had.

Andi (44:45.511)
Mm-hmm.

Kathryn LeBlanc (44:53.966)
like a Benetex fat quarter box is like my crack. And I just love it. And so right now I'm doing that. And I think that is inspiring me to find my place in the quilting industry and like find my people. so I guess maybe.

Andi (45:12.561)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I that totally fits because it just, guess it's not necessarily who is in a person, but what program or what in the world, where are you finding your inspiration and having that type of program is so much fun. I definitely liked when I was a fabric ambassador, having those kind of monthly prompts and it's like, okay, what do we get to do? And where are we stretching our creativity?

Kathryn LeBlanc (45:24.91)
Yeah.

Andi (45:45.138)
on that. are those projects going to be highlighted on Benartex website? Where can people find your socialite?

Kathryn LeBlanc (45:55.907)
I would say check my Instagram and check probably Benetex's Instagram, but I think they're doing newsletters as well. yeah, we just, we just did a charity one and so they just published that on their Instagram and I published it on my Instagram. I think right now I'm trying to figure out how to navigate this world without doing videos. That's, that's my goal is like, how do you navigate this industry without being like a video centric kind of business, you know, because.

Andi (46:02.736)
Okay.

Andi (46:18.275)
Kathryn LeBlanc (46:25.932)
I think everything we do right now is turned to video, video, video. I just, after doing the Facebook lives for two years, I don't want to be on video anymore. Like it just, like two years straight of video, was like enough for me. I just, I'm, so I think what's inspiring me right now is just learning about all the different fabric manufacturers, learning about the different magazines, learning about the different things that I can do within the industry.

Andi (46:29.734)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Andi (46:38.585)
Uh-huh.

Kathryn LeBlanc (46:51.662)
And then figuring out where my people are and like, you know, where my niche is and where my lane is and, you know.

Andi (46:55.024)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (46:58.586)
That's great. Last question, what's the favorite part of running your quilt business?

Kathryn LeBlanc (47:07.246)
making money. sales. like to say I'm a salesperson. I like to sell. Yeah, so I think the creativity obviously is my favorite part. But there's nothing like trying to sell to somebody and taking money out of pockets.

Andi (47:08.73)
Hahaha!

Andi (47:14.523)
Night!

Andi (47:28.494)
Yep, yep.

Kathryn LeBlanc (47:29.28)
I'm just kidding. It's only because I have to eat, you know what If I didn't have to eat and I didn't have to survive, then it would be a different story. no, I love the creative part. So you'll find me procrastinating. We'll be designing or putting pretty pictures in my patterns or whatever the case may be. And then on the other hand of it is just trying to figure out how to sell things to people so that I can make money and survive. yeah.

Andi (47:32.028)
Well, yeah.

Andi (47:43.91)
Mm-hmm.

Andi (47:52.377)
Right, right. Yeah, sounds good. Thank you so much for spending time and telling us all these fascinating things about quilting and writing and all of it. So we wish you much success and thank you again for being here.

Kathryn LeBlanc (48:11.288)
Thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for hosting.