The Value of Honest Feedback and an Introvert on Social Media, with Carla Canonico

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t start your creative business because you don’t have formal training ? 

In episode 63 of the Creatives on Camera Podcast, we talk with Carla Canonico about building an entire needlework media company with zero publishing background and how she still shows up twenty years later.

Carla is the co-founder, publisher, and editor in chief of A Needle Pulling Thread magazine, and she runs the online blogs Quilt Social and Knit Much with her husband. She grew up around sewing and knitting but came to publishing with no formal training at all, just a knack for photography, layout, and writing. 

What makes her perspective distinctive for creative teachers is that she built a sustainable online business model through sponsorships rather than direct sales, and she still has to coach her own designers through camera fear the exact same way many of you are working through it right now.

You will walk away from this conversation with a new way to think about starting before you feel ready, receiving feedback with grace instead of defensiveness, and giving yourself permission to be imperfect on camera the same way Carla gives her designers permission to be imperfect on video.

In this episode, you'll learn
How Carla built a needlework magazine with no formal publishing training
Why she says a stranger covering her first issue in post-it notes changed everything
How sponsorship-based revenue works for an online craft blog
What she tells reluctant designers who don't want to be on camera
Why she believes you cannot properly edit your own writing

Find Carla Canonico at
https://www.aneedlepullingthread.com
https://www.facebook.com/KNITmuch
https://quiltsocial.com
https://knitmuch.com

If Carla's story lit something up for you, grab our free 3-Step Promo Video Workshop and start your first video the same way her designers did, imperfectly, and improving from there. https://www.academyforvirtualteaching.com/courses/3step-promo-vid
AVT Resources
Academy for Virtual Teaching: https://www.academyforvirtualteaching.com
Join Campus Commons (free community): https://www.academyforvirtualteaching.com/f/campus-commons
Free 3-Step Promotional Video Training: https://www.academyforvirtualteaching.com/courses/3step-promo-vid
Video Making Crash Course: https://www.academyforvirtualteaching.com/courses/vmcc

Tutorials, Systems, Templates, Understanding of which of your images go where!

You can find Canva Made Simple at https://www.academyforvirtualteaching.com/courses/canva-made-simple

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Transcript

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Carla Canonico: so like at the start, we gave like I think ten thousand copies out to everybody that walked in, right? As the big launch. so through three days after, this lady comes over and she's got my first i issue, right? And she's got all the post-it notes all around the edges. So she says, look, I really want this to succeed. So I hope you'll you don't mind me sharing this, you know, that and she pointed out all the important details that make it from a magazine to a professional. magazine. When I applied that, then things started to change and evolve.

Lyric Kinard: Imagine launching your magazine by giving out thousands of copies at a trade show, and a couple days later somebody comes to you with post-it notes covering the whole thing, and instead of criticizing, she said, I really want this to succeed. That changed everything. If you're an artist, a maker, a crafter, and you are building an online business, today we're talking with Carla Canonico She is the publisher of a needle pulling thread and the blogs Quilt Social and Knit Much. I can't wait for you to meet her. Hello, Carla. It is so good to have you here with us today. I appreciate your being here. Why don't you tell us who you are, what you do, and then let's get into listening to your creative journey.

Carla Canonico: Okay. first of all, it's a pleasure to be here on your podcast. I'm very excited. my journey, well, I'm the co-founder, publisher, editor in chief of a needle pulling thread magazine. It's print and digital, and quilt social and knit much online blogs and magazines. So let's just start with my mom. my mom was a an avid sewer. She always sewed at the kitchen table on weekends and she sewed all my clothes, all her clothes, some of my father's shirts, just to tell you the extent of it, right? And she instilled in me like a very strong sense for good fabric. And at the time that was pretty cheap, you know. when you'd find them in stores and yeah they were very not cheap but affordable right linens and cottons and they were really beautiful my grandmother was a knitter I mean she knit all the

Lyric Kinard: I remember.

Carla Canonico: time all the time to the point where two weeks before she passed away she was still knitting. I still have some of her sweaters. So then after that, you know, I was busy with school and then got married and kids and all that. So yeah, I was bit busy with that. So I didn't really do much of a hands-on, you know, craft of that sort. Anyways, so once I was home with the kids, I was able to stay home with them and I got into cross stitching. And that's when, you know, this passion grew bigger and bigger and the projects grew bigger and bigger and bigger. And so what happened is I had to at least two hours a day I would cross stitch To the point where one day it occur i it occurred to me there are no Canadian needlework magazines. And that kind of sparked an interest. And then I started to think and said, Well, hold on a second, you know, and this is like without any kind of publishing formal training, nothing like that. Okay. Just like just the sheer thing of saying, okay, I've always taken I have a knack for taking good pictures. I like to frame things really well. And this again is from a young age. I mean, I would take a picture of my parents and it'll look really great. And for my age, you could say, wow, it's really good. Yeah, because I had that inner sense without even knowing it at the time, right? And it occurred to me, okay, that then I had you know, well, I graduated from McGill University in modern languages, so I already had some writing skills, right?

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: And so I thought, okay, well a bit of that and a bit of this and a huge passion for the needle arts in general, 'cause it's not like I just liked, you know, sewing or just like c cross stitch. I liked it all. But one attracted me more than the other.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: a bit every day, right? So yeah, so that's how it started. So I started near nearby and said, well, you know, like I this is my intention. So I'd go visit a yarn shop. I'd go visit like, you know, an embroidery place which existed at the time here. And started to talk to people and designers and well what do you think? You know, would you like to participate and blah. And before you know it, I we started the magazine. Now I say we because I'm not alone in this. At the time, my husband was in between jobs. And so he said, Well, you know what? Like I'm you might need some help, you know. So I said, Yeah, yeah, well maybe. Yeah, like I might need it. Okay, sure. So we you know, we plunged in and that's how it started. He does all the administrative work. The administrative, all the technical work, thank God, And so we started in 2005 and it took off. So we went to a lot of shows and so that's how it how it started. But then as we as I was looking for talent and all that, well the quilters felt left out and the knitters felt left out and you know so then I started to say, okay, well how about like a general n needlecraft magazine, right? So that's how it started.

Lyric Kinard: Right. I love that you know, no official publishing experience and you just had an idea and rolled with it.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Wait. Yeah, not always a good idea to start that way, but that's how I started.

Lyric Kinard: You know, it's slower and there's probably more bumps along the road if you don't have the knowledge that you need to start with. But you can always get it, either through experience or getting help from people who do have that knowledge. And it's been going twenty years. That's a very long time in an industry in the magazine world where that's so many of them.

Carla Canonico: Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Tw twenty years. Yeah. It's a

Lyric Kinard: I love that well, you can do that because it's just you. You haven't been bought out and bought out by publishing houses who then close all the magazines.

Carla Canonico: Right, right. Yes. We are we are all ki kinda c closing down or w whittling down how many p up and publications per year we're doing. We went from four to three and so h here we are. So yeah, it is not a career or an endeavor for you know for people who I don't know, like you really persistent, persistent. But so the thing is that a needle pulling thread started twenty years ago and then feeling a little bit of that kind of shift on the ground of where magazines were going, right? and where, you know, like all the so social media was starting to you know

Lyric Kinard: Who are not persistent.

Carla Canonico: to take off. Like YouTube was starting at the time and all that. We started to feel well, maybe you know, we should start to do more online. And our way to highlight sponsored products online, we thought, well, what if we start with a blog? So we started with quilt social, and quilt social sort of was the focus for everything quilting and creative sewing as well, online. So this was a blog, and then every three months we would issue an online magazine, kind of recapping everything. Everything that we did in the past three months. So and it was all free. So it was very good for sponsors, meaning that it was very easy for P people to access. They are available for free, meaning that you can see them at any time and they're still there. But if you want to download a copy, then there is another.

Lyric Kinard: Mm.

Carla Canonico: So it's really like three bucks or something like that.

Lyric Kinard: But the income model comes from sponsorships? Do you have advert which is advertising, right?

Carla Canonico: Sponsorships. Exactly. Yes, exactly. So we do it for that. However, we have a l as we are showing the products, we are showing, you know, like everything qu quilting, all kinds of techniques and free patterns. So as we are doing the free pattern that you can definitely follow along. yeah, there are techniques to you know to look at to learn products to see how they work. et cetera. So

Lyric Kinard: And so that brings in the sponsorships and the people who are like, I wanna get my work in front of your people, my products.

Carla Canonico: That's right. Yeah. Right. Right. Because even because even like for ex example when we are given like a machine to feature sewing machines well they go through a lot of d detail. Well this is what it does. Well how's this one different from the one that we saw last month, right? So it's the same brand but a different model. So we go through all the or they go through all the you know the features and what's in it, the unboxing and how it works and things like that. It's it's very de detailed. It's very rich

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Right. and it is just you've been going for 20 years, so it's financially viable to work through the sponsorships. Interesting. so most of the time I'm talking to people who teach online or do something live in person or with video, and you actually don't.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep, it is. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: But it's still an online business model that supports you.

Carla Canonico: Right.

Lyric Kinard: I'm grateful that it is financially viable and supports you because it I've looked through it and it's a fantastic resource, people. We'll make sure to include all the links in the show notes because you're going to absolutely love it if you haven't accessed these resources yet.

Carla Canonico: Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: You do a lot of writing, you bring in other people who do writing, and it's all on a blog platform.

Carla Canonico: Right, so a needle pulling thread is strictly print and digital. Okay, so that's more that has a d a different exactly. And then you have quilt social and it much that work the same way in terms of sponsors say, Well, this is the product I would like you to feature for March, April, June, whatever. I find the

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. It's just a ma it's a magazine.

Carla Canonico: The designers, the teachers that are have time to write. And so now they write the blog posts. Now I have very strict lists of you know a method, a pro process on what I need. I need the details of the product, I need, you know, like how it works. You have to show this, you have to show that, you have to write about this, you have to write about that. And in the end, you know, like it so it depends because so sometimes it's a particular product is best just as a tutorial, and sometimes it's a good idea if we did a tutorial last month and we're reviewing it again this month, then we do a pattern, a free pattern. Now these are series of five blog posts, five consecutive blob blog posts. So one rows into the next, and sometimes they just really are a standalone, but it there's all

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: related so for example thread right so if we had a thread sponsor then we look at one thread line another thread line and so on and we explain what this is what that is you know the qualities and what to watch for how to set up your sewing machine for that thread and this thread so anyways it's so much fun it really is Yeah, there have been difficult parts of it, but in general it's been just a lot of fun for me in terms of the, you know, gat gathering the designers and talking, you know, like and getting them excited. My favorite part in working with the designers is sometimes you know they said Carla I've done this and I've done that b before I'm a bit stuck. What should I do for this particular month? And I love to brainstorm. And I say, I've got ideas. How about this? How about that? How about that? Choo choose the one that you want. And the there's always a spark that lights up. So that part is a lot of fun.

Lyric Kinard: two things I'm thinking from that. One, you actually are teaching mini courses. You actually are helping educate people with things. It's just through a series of written lessons that happen to be in the form of a blog or a magazine. the second thing is do you track any data on how it benefits your writers?

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's right.

Lyric Kinard: If they're writing for you, are they writing are you paying them or okay. good.

Carla Canonico: Yes. they are paid. Yeah, they are paid because it's also the extent of the information. It's not like a five minute or one minute Instagram post. These are you know, they sit down, they have

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: They have a job to do a task with this product and sometimes it's like several products. So sometimes they could like as notions. So there's a scissor, there's this, there's that. So there are a lot of things to cover, especially sewing machines. So how can I say, okay, well you get this, the machine is actually shipped to them. And so they will have the machine for I don't know however long the sponsor would like us to cover that.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: for however many months, right? So there's all this back and forth things. So that's another thing that I enjoy is or organizing all that. And finding the right designer or to teet teacher to do that, right? So who is best, who's technically inclined to tell you all about the machine. It's one thing to sew. Yeah, no can I actually Yes, so the writing there's where I where I come in the sense where I edit everything.

Lyric Kinard: And who can actually write Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: And yeah, so which is another thing I like to do, especially, you know, because of the theme, well, with sewing and all that or knitting, right? As the knitting counterpart. And yeah, so that part is covered where I edit everything. And going back to a needle pulling thread, I edit all the instructions. They are given, strict formatting instructions what to put first, second, third, fourth, and you have to have these things in your instructions. And this is aside from the pictures. The pictures, well we can get to those in some other time. But you know, but that's another set of rules what to do, what not to do, how to take them, how to shoot them and things like that. But even then when I get them in, you know there's always little tweaks that I have to do and it's normal. You know they

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: They are very busy trying to get everything that's in their head down on paper. so I that part I enjoy as well. So that's why what I was saying, it's like even from an early age, I remember being like I don't know five years old or something and being in i in the kitchen the television was on to Bugs Bunny the Bugs Bunny Hour And I remember sitting there and one of my f favorite things was to actually cut out catalogs, magazines, you know, like the images and laying it out on this empty copybook, right? And I used to love to arrange the pieces on the page. Just glue, you know, glue. I had well right, but it never even occurred to me when I was in school that was even a thing.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. So you've been an editor your whole life. Yeah, we don't know.

Carla Canonico: Right? Like a possible career. I d had I known earlier, I would have said, Well, why don't I go into gr graphic design or something? No for formal training in that. And yet I this is what I do. I use it I use InDesign in order to create the magazine. I do have graphic help, meaning where the photos are photoshopped by our graphic help. She's wonderful. She helps me with that. She also lays out the magazine in our for format right off the bat. However, so I work in InDesign in the sense where when it when I get the file where the whole all hundred pages of a needle pulling thread are done, then I go in. If there's something that needs to shift, something that needs to be

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: Mm, always a little bit improved. I like it better this way.

Lyric Kinard: I love I love to hear how things work behind the scenes. We learned so much that d even from wildly unrelated businesses, when you learn how things are put together, when you learn how things work, there's always something you can apply and learn to do it do with what you're doing. I would love to hear what are some of the things that have been difficult in your business over the years.

Carla Canonico: Yeah, is getting the word out. That I think has got to be the biggest big I mean, wait a minute, perhaps I should go to day one. So day one is like s setting it up. So and the thing is my goodness. Okay, so My husband has is an engineer with an MBA, all right. So thankfully he knew what he was doing. But even there, we both had to learn what we were going to do. Right? So we all had completely different backgrounds, but still things that we could kind of really apply to what we were about to embark. There's still administration things to do. There's still on my part communication skills, right? With sponsors and designers. So everything we knew, we were we were not really starting from zero. However, we did start from zero.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm, of course.

Carla Canonico: On learning about in InDesign on our own. So he learned it first while I was busy doing other things. And then I had to learn it. And so all these things we had to learn from. from zero, right? How to write a newsletter or how to produce an in a newsletter. Photography I was always so excited about. I always wanted people to s to so I always wanted the projects to come to me. I wanted to have full control of the pictures. So that's not so much of a learning thing. It was more of a trying to dream up the best scenario for this quilt, this jacket that is knitted up, embroidery things and all that. So that wasn't a big that was more the fun, right?

Lyric Kinard: Yeah, everybody has a part in their business that is their favorite part, right? And I can tell the designing is one of your favorite parts. But then there are also in every business's parts that we don't want to do and that are difficult and sometimes we have no choice but to do them ourselves if we want the outcome or sometimes we're able to

Carla Canonico: Mm, you bet. Yes. The creative part

Lyric Kinard: get somebody else to do it for us, right? But even then

Carla Canonico: Do it, yeah.

Lyric Kinard: understanding how the thing that needs to be done works and what its purpose is and the process and what outcomes you need are kind of vital to the business owner so that they know what they're getting and what they're asking for when they hire somebody else out to do it. So what are what are the not your favorite parts of your business?

Carla Canonico: Well, being an introvert, social media. I'll be very honest, I don't like social media. It's not like I don't like it. You know, it's just that I'm more of a let's get this done, right? Like I'm not so much of a chatty I know I sound chatty, I know I do, but not, you know, like look at this or look at that. No, like I'd rather be in, you know, actually producing the magazine. The magazine and the blog posts and contacting the designers and 'cause the communication with them is almost for me more important than me showing you something on social media myself. You know, if I had to 'cause I mean I've got I ideas. well I you know, I could show the blank yeah well I'll get to it like tomorrow, you know. And it never came. Just because there's so many things to do, like the edits, the photography, the communication and

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: And when you're editing, there's a lot of little tiny little things that you have to watch for, right? It's not

Lyric Kinard: Yeah, it's very detail oriented. so is social media the main marketing channel that you are using?

Carla Canonico: of you could say that, yeah. I would say. The word across right. So the thing is it is there, you know, but I find I would have preferred to have you know a lot more interaction. But in order to have that interaction you need either someone to take my place or

Lyric Kinard: So it's how you get your product out to people.

Carla Canonico: me removing myself from everything else that I have to do and be social. So I'm being very, very open here, you know, like I'm I'm an introvert by high nature. I'm I'm I'm social, but I really like my space and my work and all that. So when it comes to now I have to switch hats and be social, I'm like not my favorite thing.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. So what does your social media feed look like?

Carla Canonico: Well, it has all the posts. So all the patterns are, you know, when we released like an issue. So first of all, all the releases, all the launches are there.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: for quilt social and it much we have every day that is w every day that has a post is it is also shared online. And this is through Pinterest, through Facebook, Instagram, and X as well, right? So we are there, you know, but it a ta tailwind.

Lyric Kinard: Do you use a social media managing software? Tailwind is good. I've heard lots of good things.

Carla Canonico: Yeah. So te hellwind, right? And so but again for that I have help. So that you know, s I have someone doing that for me, you know, sh sharing that. Because like I said, I just couldn't there are only so many hours a day, right? And night and all that. So yeah.

Lyric Kinard: Good. Yeah, and some things are not scalable and our time is not scalable, right?

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Exactly. It's not. Yeah. So that's where we are at. And yeah, so now we are shifting gears, you know, like adding more things like so we went from print and the digital with a needle pulling thread. Then twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, we started quote social

Lyric Kinard: good.

Carla Canonico: And now we are seeing, well, what else now? So I'm so now my husband developed Postfeed. So Postfeed is a an automated tool that shares brand posts onto retailers' social media platforms automatically. and participating re retailers so the ones that opt in they get the information which really helps the you know the retailers it's a huge job for them to manage a retail store all the people all the everything that goes with it and then turn around and again be social well it's very hard to do so this ri really gets rid of that pr pro problem for them, you know, so that yeah, big

Lyric Kinard: That's brilliant. Brilliant for the product manufacturers and for the retailers. And we'll be talking to John eventually on the podcast too about this because I love the idea. so if you had a do you do goal planning? Do you do like vision this is what this is my big dream and

Carla Canonico: Exactly. Okay, sure. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: I'm working towards it or are you already living it?

Carla Canonico: Well we are. Yeah, we are because you know, like there's always room for improvement. Like e ev even what is there, there's there's always room for improvement. There's always things to im improve behind the scenes and you know, and like the I mean you should see the first issue of just as an example, the first issue of a needle pulling thread to what it is today. I mean leaps and bounds. You know, like at the beginning it was like, mm, well, okay, so we know we need this and this and that.

Lyric Kinard: if you waited till you knew everything before you put it out there, it would never happen. And it's

Carla Canonico: I wouldn't Have started. No, because there's also there's also the thing about you don't know what you're getting yourself into unless you were in the business to begin with. No, yeah, thank God that I didn't know. That you know, when I think about it, I say like, my god, that was an if I don't know if I would do something like that again. Because you really don't know what's mm-hmm, yeah.

Lyric Kinard: that's so true. We dive in and we don't know what's under the water. Yeah, but what a fun journey.

Carla Canonico: begin so like anyway, so you know, so like at the start, we launched it the fall t two thousand and five. And okay, so and we launched it at the creative festival at a at the time. It was like so we had a booth and all that. Okay. So like w during the show, so maybe the third day

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: The third because we gave like I think ten thousand copies out to everybody that walked in, right? As the big launch.

Lyric Kinard: Right. That's a lot. Inexpensive.

Carla Canonico: Yeah, well already that is a crazy notion, but anyways. So okay, so through three days after, 'cause the show was like three or four days, this lady comes over and she's got my first i issue, right? And she's got all the post-it notes all around the edges. So not the spine, but the top, the side, the bottom edges. And it says, Hi. Well my name is so and so, you know. And Can I talk to you? I said, yeah, sure. And I'm wondering what is my issue doing with all these post-it notes. Wow. So she says, look, I really want this to succeed. So I hope you'll you don't mind me sharing this, you know, that and she pointed out all the things that I would never even imagine. It was it was well done, but all the important details that make it from a magazine to a professional. magazine. When I applied that, then things started to change and evolve. It was really amazing.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. You know, that is so scary, but also what a huge gift from magazine number one to have somebody volunteer their gift, their wisdom, their knowledge to help you. You know, it could be scary. She could have just said, You did this wrong and this wrong and this wrong, and it's all terrible. And she said, No, I want you to succeed.

Carla Canonico: Yes. Yes. First issue. Time. Yeah. That wasn't yes, that wasn't the attitude. It was an attitude of, you know, like I want this to work with you as you said, you know, and so I listened and yeah. And then I got other t tips along the way from you know, people who are who had that thing. Plus I find like when you're starting it, And again, no formal training, you know, it's like you can't you don't know what you don't know, but because you are also in it so deeply of all kinds of other ki of details that you can't see everything. You know what I mean? And this yeah, and

Lyric Kinard: absolutely. The forest for the trees, right? Can't see the trees for the forest? Something.

Carla Canonico: Forest, yeah, I guess something like that. So the thing is that even now it's like I see the edit that I make, right? All the ed the edits, then somebody else transfers that onto the pages. When it comes back, what I thought would have been a good idea, I said, yeah, no, no, I don't think we should do who do that and I will change it. Because you're seeing it with fresh eyes in that case, right? So it's sorta the same idea, but I had a lot to learn as well about that. about, you know, developing a magazine. So

Lyric Kinard: Yeah, I love seeing with fresh eyes. That's and it's because it came back to you first after time and second in a different format. And that's it applies in so many different ways for teachers who are editing or writing or doing anything. Like when I write, one of the things I do is, you know

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lyric Kinard: Technology is fantastic, right? So I have my computer read it to me in a monotone voice while I'm not looking at it because I love ri writing, but I'm a absolutely terrible editor. you get so I get so close and so in the weeds that I have no idea I'm not seeing any of the mistakes. But when I hear it in a different medium, immediately it's like, pause. I have to go fix this thing. You know, so

Carla Canonico: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Exactly.

Lyric Kinard: Getting fresh eyes or a different perspective, an outside perspective or looking at whatever you're doing from a different point of view helps you see it so much more clearly.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Well, I've I have found that y you cannot edit your own writing. And so what I do is I like for example with the editor's letters, right? I will write it and I will leave it for a couple of days. So I'll just jot it all down, improve it as much as I can at the moment, and let it be for 48 hours and then come back to it. And then I'll say, Yeah, ugh. That doesn't sound right, or the story's wrong, or whatever, right? And so I find that helps. And also transferring it from the word document.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: document that I originally wrote it in on to InDesign that for some reason And like you said, you know, you know, like it like hearing it in another medium or s or it was seeing it, reading it off of another screen of some kind with the pages that I had just finished embellishing two days ago, seems to make things stand out. Right. So that's another yet another step, right, to further, you know, refurbish the letter.

Lyric Kinard: This is a huge plug for not leaving things till the last minute because then you do have time. And just like even with your newsletter, send it send a test to yourself. Because when I'm editing my newsletter, I've got all the blocks and all the editing visuals in the way, right? And then I see it exact same thing on the same screen, but I'm reading it in the newsletter going,

Carla Canonico: Yeah. You have to. Right. Yeah. Hmm. Mm.

Lyric Kinard: Same, right? And this is also reminding us this is this is just standard practice for writing, but it applies to so much else, right? When we are making an online course or when we're writing a blog post or when we're making a social media post, sure, get it up, put it out there.

Carla Canonico: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: But come back and look at it and learn from it what you can do better next time. Part of part of our thing and part of the social media thing is it's not like a magazine or a written blog post where you can edit it a number of times before you put it up and change the writing with a video, with things like that. Yeah, it's better to just get it up and you can't.

Carla Canonico: Yeah. That's true. Mm-hmm.

Lyric Kinard: Change the video once it's up on social media, you can change it in your online course. But you can certainly learn from it. Instead of looking at it and judging, you can be your own advisor, your own wisdom giver, and look back with kindness and say, I want you to be able to do better instead of saying, that was terrible. Because we're our own worst judge.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yep. Yes, we are. We are.

Lyric Kinard: Right. But we can learn and just choose one thing to be better at on the next video. And like you were saying, you look back at your first edition of the magazine and go, But what a beautiful journey to see the improvement.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. yeah. Yikes. Mm. Yeah. Well actually if s someb were to see the first issue, probably wouldn't notice, you know, because you don't know what to look at. Yes. That's right. And the lady who came to s to see us that time, she had experience in editing, writing and things like that. So that's why she came and said, Can't do this. Why? Because and so yeah.

Lyric Kinard: Hm. But you would because you know better. Mm-hmm. Well, that's that's because she has the experience and the knowledge, right? And

Carla Canonico: Yeah. The experience. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: There's something about the same looking back and not being a harsh critic of yourself, but learning as you go, finding out what you can do better, and then watching your journey. That's the thing with video, we have to be bad in public. You have to be willing to kind of suck at it until you get good. But it's a journey and

Carla Canonico: Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: We are the only one looking at it going, that's terrible. Really? If we're if we're offering information, if we're offering our gift, if we're sharing our joy of creativity in whatever medium we're working in, really we're bringing people something that makes their lives better, no matter how bad we think we look or sound or the video is, right? You know, so

Carla Canonico: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Lyric Kinard: change our own perspective and our own judgment on what we do because it really isn't about us. It's about offering this gift to people who will have joy in their lives because of this growth in creativity.

Carla Canonico: Right. Right. Right. Well there and speaking of that, I don't know but all the designers that I have w worked with, like a lot of them want to participate all the time. Who am I to say no? They're very good, they're talented. So recently, I had asked them, I said, you know, could you start doing like reels, right? For YouTube and Instagram and things like that. And so, but I'm not good. I said, No, no, no, no, but the thing is that you have to remember you're knowledgeable. That's what I'm interested in. You can always get good. You can always it plus it's never live, right? So you are preparing it in your studio and you know try take one all the way up to take ten if you have to get good at it. And the one thing that I really love about what I've been doing for 20 years it has always had designers Not all of them, but you know, like a good half of them, they've sorta developed great skills at writing, at formatting instructions, and tea teaching has they've gotten more confident at it because of what we do together. And now, yeah, so now with the video com coming in, could you do like a small reel? Well, my god, I've never done it. Well, here's the chance, just do it and see, see what comes back. And then slowly

Lyric Kinard: Mm, perfect. Yeah, send them my way. I'll help out.

Carla Canonico: Okay, that's right. Yeah, I've got a list. I've got a list, you know. And so yeah, so they're all really good. And they be because of that, I find that even their that experience has also improved their careers as quilters, tea teachers and all that. So I don't know, it's just a wonderful world to live in, really. But I'm a little biased.

Lyric Kinard: It is. Yeah, the it is. The creative world is full of people who bring goodness and beauty into a world that needs it. nature is glorious on its own, but the built world, the human world needs art, needs creativity in order to make it livable. and that's part of the joy that we bring.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: bring. That is that is what we put out into the world. So if that's part of your driving purpose, kind of it kind of does help you get through the really rough parts, right?

Carla Canonico: Yeah. Yes, yes. Well there w there was also it's it's not just that because like I don't think that I'm that we that I was alone in having this idea. But it was also with the with the goal to highlight Canadian designers, although in the magazine I've had many from you know, from the States and led like over the years and one from Nigeria, a couple from France, so they've been up in Italy too. So, you know, like he

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm.

Carla Canonico: Here and there, right? But my point is that I wanted to highlight Canadian D designers because they were, yeah, you know, so it was a lot easier for them to get through.

Lyric Kinard: Perfect. Yeah, opening up a world where there's not as much overwhelm from the American audience, right? From the American crowd. I love that you had a specific audience that you wanted to serve both for your designers and then sending it out. The technology we have online is still so miraculous to me.

Carla Canonico: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lyric Kinard: that you can have a blog, you can have a digital magazine that is accessible to people around the world. You know, it lowers so many barriers and lets us have a reach that's immense.

Carla Canonico: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: It's beautiful. Carla, it has been absolutely delightful to talk to you. I wanna ask you one question before you go that is just for fun. What is the last thing that you made?

Carla Canonico: A lot of fun. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Made in terms of the cra crafting. Okay, so the last the last thing I made is a cardigan.

Lyric Kinard: Anything.

Carla Canonico: And right now I for it was called Kreene. gosh, I have to spell it because I wouldn't know how to pronounce it. C-R-I-N-A-E-A-E. Cardigan. And it is a knit it's got cabling in the back and cabling in the front, has a shawl collar for cold winter days. So it's really good. So that's the last thing. Right now I'm making a lace scarf, but it's very big, right? So it's a fingerweight yarn and it is lace work, which is absolutely beautiful. So that's for a friend. So there. For Christmas. Way ahead of time. Yeah.

Lyric Kinard: Just how fun is that? Yeah. and if you have photos or patterns, you know, we'll add them into the blog post and everything. That would be amazing. Where can people find you? What are your URLs?

Carla Canonico: Okay. Okay. URLs are a needle pulling thread.com and just like the song. That's how the title was inspired. So much joy up out in the hills, so much joy when you're crafting. And then there's quiltsocial.com and knitmuch.com. Very easy very easy.

Lyric Kinard: Mm-hmm. Excellent. And we will most definitely have those links down in the show notes and in the descriptions everywhere that you listen to the podcast. It has been a delight and a pleasure to chat with you. It always is. I'm so lucky when we run into you at the trade shows.

Carla Canonico: Wonderful. Thank you. And likewise lyric. Yes, yes. It was nice to see you in May at the laptop, was it?

Lyric Kinard: I think we were both at H and H and Namta. So that was fun. Very good. Well, thank you for being with us.

Carla Canonico: that's why. Yeah. Good. Yeah. H and H as well. Great. Thank you for the opportunity, Lyric. Thank you so much.

Lyric Kinard: It's been a pleasure. All right. Take care. was so much fun. Friends, what was your post-it note moment? The thing that changed everything for you? Write it in the comments below. I'd love to hear about it. and if Carla's story lit up something for you and you need to make reels or you want to start teaching online I invite you to come check us out at the Academy for Virtual Teaching. We have ways we can help you on your journey. grab our three-step promo video free workshop. The link will be below. And if you need a little help with equipment and technique, the video making crash course is there for you. Again, my friends, you make the world a better place, never stop creating.