Homespun E14 | Craig Conover

hi everyone welcome to Homespun where creativity and Community come together I am your host Misty Don and today I'm joined by Craig Conover you might know him from the TV show Southern Charm but today we're going to talk about how he rediscovered his love of sewing which led to him starting his very successful home decor brand sewing down south Craigs Journey reminds us all to embrace your hobbies trust your instincts and ignore the haters all right Craig thank you so much for being with me today I really really appreciate it and so why don't you give everybody a little bit of your your background because it's certainly unique compared to other people that I've had on the show and I super excited to have you with me today it definitely is um there's a lot of layers to it but most of them are uh progressing forward I guess and anyway sorry that was a terrible start but I just started to laugh because I was just on a trip and people would be like so what do you do and I'd be like well that's kind of a complex question so I was born on the eastern shore of Delaware and grew up playing you know soccer baseball all that stuff so that's what I thought I wanted to do in college um I did not end up doing that so I ended up in Charleston South Carolina and I went to undergrad there and then stuck around for law school and then in my second year of law school I was found by the people making Southern Charm uh this television show on Bravo was only 23 years old at the time um I basically it took me several months to decide if I wanted to do it or not but I was like what would I regret more not doing it and wondering what if or just doing it and dealing with the consequences later or potential consequences of course four years later I was in front of the entire Supreme Court of South Carolina explaining to them exactly what a reality show meant um but it all worked out so I'm a licensed attorney but uh around you know a couple years into TV I started to pick up on some things that really I fell in love with after taking hch in seventh grade in Middle School and when I was in school no matter what sport you played or no matter who you were everyone took hch and teched and I started to go home and cook every day and half because half the year you spent cooking half the year you spent sewing and and uh so at that point I was really focused on my cooking and then I went through a breakup in my kind of mid to late 20s and I had to leave my garden and my workshop behind but I had this sewing machine that I had bought and I thought I wanted to make clothes originally uh but I had never been taught how to make clothes and it's very difficult but I did not even like a pair of pajama pants well I I uh I can do that stuff now but on the in the beginning um I had remembered how to make a pillow and so I tore up some old shirts that I had and just started to sew and when you know I'm sure your guests all know but you when you construct a pillow you do it inside out and so when I turned my first pillow right side out I got that Rush of accomplishment and creativity and I just fell in love with it and I started to watch as many YouTube videos as I could and Googling as much as I could and I would make runs to whatever store was open at the time to buy fabric and crafting accessories and kind of just went from there um sorry sometimes I'm very long-winded but so for about a year people everyone was messaging I I you know I faced a lot of backlash in my personal life for sewing um no one really understood it which actually helps me now that I I go around and speak a lot at home shows and stuff and I tell people like as painful as it was at the time there's video evidence that shows that no one thought my sewing was a good idea and so it it were're able to turn it into a pro but for a year I tried to start a throwpillow business on my own but I just uh I didn't know where to go with it I uh I didn't know how to scale the business and so about a year after doing it on my own my friend from college and his sister-in-law approached me and we're like hey you know I we think we can really turn your sewing into a business but I they wanted they wanted to split the company into thirds and I grew up watching Shark Tank where you're not supposed to give up over half your business yes but my my dad was like you know do you want you know a 100% of you know a company really not doing anything or do you want a third of something that might really grow and so I accepted their offer and it turned into a real business and we founded sewing down south on April Fool's Day five years ago uh as I love that cheeky little thing to everyone and and then there's been a lot after that but that was kind of my my route up into starting the company Ah that's amazing and it's such you know I've been reading your book so for people who don't know he has a great book it's called pillow talk and I'm almost done I've thoroughly enjoyed it but you talk a lot about that journey in in in your book and um I I just have to say you're so brave and honest about the struggles and the different things that you you faced along the way and how you kind of just came back to this thing that you loved in middle school and um I also really loved that there was really no shame you had no shame in the fact that you love sewing which I think is awesome so can you talk just a little bit about that how you just kind of embrace that part of yourself yeah I mean you know you only live once that we know of you know um but really like you it's so rare to find things that really bring you Joy um and true joy and it's if I've just like I've watched people put other people down for things that make them happy and there's nothing that breaks my heart more than that and I guess you know I was bullied pretty bad growing up just for I I don't know I guess I was never really able to figure out why but it helped shape my life you know even when I was going to sign the contract for the show I was like I hope they have TVs in the jails back at home so like you know the guys that were mean to me will watch because it just sticks with you but fortunately I was able to self validate in high school and when I told myself that I was good enough for me uh and my parents that really allowed me to do things that I wanted to do and I truly believe that you should do whatever you want in this life as long as it's not harming someone else um and you know if someone else has a problem with it it's none of your business right like how other people feel about you is really none of your business and um I just yeah I was lucky like when I got my my first sewing machine I really thought that I was going to walk in with the machine and everyone was going to think it was so cool cuz I think doing things that you want even against stereo ypes or societal things is a show of bravery and like um confence is absolutely yeah and you know I could not have been more wrong um but that was because I was around the wrong people and so I am glad that I stuck with it because I don't know I I you know I I hope I can you know I hope I can use my journey and my story to help people just do whatever the heck they want in this world uh just because someone else did things a certain way I just for me like I was always a why person like well then why does I have why do I have to do it that way or why can't I do that and so I was fortunate enough to have a supportive like my parents were supportive they didn't understand I mean they had a kid that had gone from was a finance major to law school to then reality TV and now he was sewing um but you know they just wanted me to be happy yeah yeah uh so it's you know it's it's neat because a lot of times you have to realize that people's kind of negative comments comes from their own insecurities right and so a whole bunch more people want to do crafting or cooking or gardening or sewing they're just nervous of what people think which is silly right because we meet so many people that come in the store and they're like you know my son learned to se you you know from his grandparents and we always just kept it inside the house cuz we didn't really see an outlet to share that but now he takes the book bag he made to school you know now he wears the hats that he makes and um shoot I do a lot of work with like veterans and the special force guys are like we love the guy that knows how to sew because he can sew all our patches on our uniforms and it's just it's uh it's really fun to see crafting come um back into you know it just got kind you know hch got taken out of schools and it just was Qui you know it just lost its um it LO lost its voice for a little while but I don't think it lost its value so yeah I agree and it was interesting because I really hadn't thought about my own homec experience because I also took it in Middle School um until I was reading your book it had been years since I'd even considered it but um I think I was uniquely fortunate in the fact that uh homech didn't feel foreign to me I was I was lucky enough to be surrounded by creative people and so creative Hobbies were very normal to me but to be able to you know be exposed if that isn't your normal to different opportunities different learnings and then you know like here in your case you've taken that little spark that you you know had in middle school and you've built this incredible brand and business which is just goes to show why those Hobbies matter whether you turn it into a business or not and actually that reminds me I marked one quote from your book and I would like to read it if that's okay with you yeah that's fine because I was just thinking I was like as you were saying that I hope people can just say like why not me you know why not me yeah absolutely and so um the part I marked is you said but I have always thought that our Hobbies whether they rise to a passion or not are also so important and useful they allow us to lose ourselves in an activity that brings us joy we can't all have jobs that also function as Hobbies um oops I mean that's the goal I suppose but most are not lucky enough to find that and I just I love that I love that so much because if it fills us up and makes us happy like you said earlier that's enough right and we we should be enjoying our lives as humans you know we get this one life and if we're not doing things that spark joy and excitement then we're getting it wrong I think yeah and I think that I think Co um really helped with taking helping people take a step back back and focus on whether it be side hustles or hobbies and you know we have this streamlined um you know work schedule that a lot of us end up in you know the nin to-5 that's just the structure of things so I think Co helped disrupt that a little bit and you really got to see like all right like yes obviously I have to make money to take care of my family but there is a balance that I need to find um you know I saw it with a lot of people leaving the city and finding like a backyard or moving into the city or just changing their life up a little bit and if you can find something that that you enjoy um I mean you just have to find that balance if not you're going to wake up in 30 years and be like yeah I can finally retire and you know might you might not be healthy enough to do stuff and I you know I have to counter myself a lot because people are like yeah but some of us aren't like lucky enough you know to be able to start a business that uh you know we we do have to go to work and stuff like that well obviously running business work but you know my first sewing machine was $199 on Amazon it was a brother uh embroidery sewing combo and that brought me so much joy while I was studying for the bar um and I think that's one of my goals with sewing down south is breaking down the barriers of entry into crafting because they're actually not as hard to get through as people imagine you know if someone wants to start sewing they're like yeah but I have to buy a sewing machine all the setup like it is kind of a intimidating uh idea but it's really it doesn't have to be you know and I like I said I learned most of what I learned on on videos on on the internet and um and and everyone else can too you know whatever it may be yeah I I agree completely and it's interesting I have a very very similar Arc so like I said I grew up with a very crafty family um and my mom and my grandma always sewed but I hadn't sewn in years um and I also ordered a brother off the internet oh wow that was the it wasn't an embroidery machine though but it w it was just a a regular sewing machine with all the fancy stitches and that thing lasted me for years I sewed on that for years and um I agree I think because there is a piece of Machinery involved with sewing it can sometimes be scary for people to LEAP into but it's really not and there's so many resources out there to to get you going well I mean it's kind of like you know people fall in love with video games because it's something to do and just by having other Hobbies around um it's the the same idea you you're going to look forward to going home from work to get to your sewing machine or from school uh it's just and it's a healthy healthy that wasn't like a stray bullet to video games I'm just saying a lot of times people only have that system in their house and just like you invest in that machine you can invest in a little sewing machine and uh I've my best gifts that I've ever given have been you know handmade from that machine and it's really neat to kind of be noal it's like we just are really into nostalgic stuff you know I think we're slowing down a little bit um especially like during the holidays our our holiday lines seem to be very nostalgic and I think there's a happiness that comes from it but yeah I think it's funny like there just weren't what what was nice for me is there weren't a lot of people that fit my kind of demographics and uh whatever it may be in the sewing world that was at at least on TV and so it's kind of giv me this T this seat at this inclusivity table from like a back door being like hey I do something for fun and start a business that not everyone understood and now I'm able to kind of spread that message which is nice but it all comes down to like just do whatever you want to do like who cares what people say exactly and sometimes people just need to know that they're not alone in order to take that step right and so the fact that you're willing to raise your hand and be like look at me I'm doing this thing and I'm loving it and now like I said you've built this incredible business so let's talk a little bit about that Journey specifically because I think it's it's such a a great story so if you want to dive into sewing down south I would love that yeah it's funny so I when I started um you know I suffered with like OCD and perfectionalis like anything I sewed was never good enough and um I mean I liked it but I didn't feel like it was good enough to sell and so I had all of these people basically what I had done for people that don't know is when I started making those first few pillows I posted a picture on Instagram that was little bit of a teaser and it had the pillows in the picture and it had my sewing machine but it was about what I was watching on TV it was like some Disney movie and everyone started to message me and they were like please tell me you made those pillows please tell me you made those pillows and I just knew that it was I truly believe that it was just different enough to work and there was so much positivity around it but I couldn't move the pillows and so when then Jerry and Amanda joined me because I was like what am I going to hire a bunch of like retired women that live in my community to come sew in my garage I was like I can only make like two or three pillows a night how am I going to do how am I going to scale this yeah and so they they came in and there was actually a pillow factory in bluon South Carolina right outside bufort and I didn't even know pillow factories existed I mean I guess I did somewhere but sure you know I thought they made their own products I didn't know that you could contract them to make your pillows and so I got to stay in the design Lane which is what I loved um Anda was a marketing genius who had worked you know on the dollar menu before she had worked with amazing pop stars that people know and Jerry was the business guy you know he's the reason we make money if it was up to me I would give everything away um but we wouldn't have a company and so we we launched on April 1st like I said and we sold nine pillows the first day and to me that was plenty that was proof of concept apparently to them they were concerned but they needed some more yeah the but the lesson here is we actually only put $1,000 in each because what we would do is we would take the order when someone ordered a pillow and then we would take that money and go have the pillow made and then we would eventually ship that pillow to the customer and so that was new to me I didn't know that existed and that's something that my business part my partner that was good at business brought to the table and I when I speak to people I say like I wouldn't be like sewing down south wouldn't exist Without Partners I know people that run businesses by themselves their quality of life is not the same and their businesses don't do as well because they don't have multiple brains uh and smarter people around them you know you should never be the smartest person in the room and if you are it should make you uncomfortable so we would do that but the problem was it took six weeks for someone to get a pillow which I was like Jerry there's the story on Southern Charm is that I don't get anything done so people are gonna order and then be like of course and then we didn't ship the pillows with an insert at that time so I was like everyone's gonna be like we bought a pillow from Craig and it didn't even come with a pillow um but growth has to be sustainable and take time and so it wasn't until hurricane Dorian um that I basically had to leave the Bahamas where I was spending a lot of time at that that time and basically start helping like starting sewing down south but that was my like peaceful that was my my place of Zen at the time and hurricane Dorian completely destroyed the island that I was living on and and my house and all that stuff so I got on Instagram and said all proceeds of our Bahamian Lobster pillow will go to Hurricane Dorian reliefs well all of a sudden I'm sitting at dinner with my parents and my phone just started to make the cash register sound which on Shopify which most people use to process their orders you hear the cha-ching and I like went to silence my phone I was like oh sorry my parents were like what was that and I was like oh it means we just sold a pillow and they were like no leave it on and so all night we just listened to my app you know one pillow sale after another and it was truly incredible so we sold sold like something like $60,000 worth of pillows that weekend and the problem was is that we didn't have any of those pillows to sell so because you were still making to order right is that yes okay we were still making to order and so this was one of our first big um like learning points or transitional points in the company because it took people seven to eight weeks to get these pillows and even though they were for charity it just you it loses its luster after that time and so we had to start carrying inventory after that um and then when we started to do these popup pillow parties which I had basically gone my goal was to have boutiques sell my pillows all around the country I just wanted to go into someone's store and see my pillows e-commerce wasn't that sexy to me but I mean it's obviously incredibly important in a business and I love I love it now yeah but I needed the validation of other people sell like being able to walk into a store and seeing our pillows and so after going to this opening where you know 200 people had come to take a picture with me and buy one of my pillows from that store I on the way home basically if I want to do something and Jerry says no I just put it on my Instagram story um and then he can't do anything about just a little passive aggressive just a little yeah so I was like Hey we're going on this pillow Party tour like if you want me to come to your store uh just place an order of pillows from us and Jerry called you know texted me and Amanda and was like what is a pillow party and where are we going on tour but boutiques from around the East Coast well around the country but we couldn't do it started to message us and said we would love to buy your pillows we'd love to host you and so we traveled the East Coast uh doing these basically like book signings but with pillows and I would hear everyone's story and we would do towns outside of big cities uh that are often forgotten on you know musical tours or whatnot and it was just awesome like people cried we saved some businesses like all of these unintentional things you know with people with uh you know terminal illnesses came that it was like one of the last things that they wanted to do it was just full of positivity and it helped me prove that like if we had our own store in Charleston people would come and Cherry says all the time he's like everything that Craig wants to do is against everything that I learned in Business School uh but that's what that's why you need multiple kind of opinions and so we ended up on um HSN which was a huge validation for me uh I grew up watching like infomercials I was always L them and I always wanted to buy stuff but my mom would never be like we need this new knife my mom's like we have knives in the drawers we're good yeah and uh so HSM was great and then we did a partnership with Thomas that really elevated the brand and things just started to snowball because we were being yes people and I wanted to say yes to everything but Amanda was very good at saying you have to be good at this before we go into this because I wanted to go into candles really bad um that became a passion project when I was at winter house and filming this show and on my downtime I would design this candle line which you guys never got to saw unfortunately but so now we make all our candles in Charleston and then we got into kitchen stuff and one step you know one foot in front of the other and that's kind of what helped me was I used to beat myself up because I was 31 when I started sewing down south which doesn't sound that late now but at the time I was like how have I not done anything with my 20s like in my head I just didn't feel like I had accomplished anything yet yeah and someone was like dude tomorrow is the next day of the rest of your life and I don't know why that stuck with me where they were just like you can legitimately start over tomorrow like just start just do something they were like even if you keep moving like even if you move backwards at least you're just not standing in this you know paralyzed state of not being able to make a decision and you know having partners helps with that too so um that was I mean Vera Wang didn't make her first dress until she was 45 I think so I think that's right yeah I was gonna say and and my mother-in-law I think she was almost 50 when we started our our family's business which is yeah that's awesome it's it's awesome it's amazing and CU you guys are 16 years old now 16 years yeah we've been a business 16 years and so it just it flies by and you know when when you put in the time and you're passionate about what you're doing um it takes time but it works out and I think that you your story is definitely a testament to that and I would love if we could touch a little bit you you mentioned the charity aspect that kind of really kickstarted things and that we've seen that in our business business as well like being willing to share and give back um has made a huge difference and I didn't know if you could um elaborate on that just a bit more I so my goal forever was there's such a uh nice sorry there's a softer way to say it but I just wanted to get rich so I could help people I mean that was my goal I wanted from the first golf ball stand that I set up on the golf course like when I started to make money there or when I like waited tables or bartended I was like I want to be wealthy one day so I can tip a $100 like I want to be wealthy one day so I can donate to Charities or help and there's plenty of ways to help um without money but that's just what I I don't know that's what kind of drove me and that's why I went you know into the law Direction where I was like I really enjoyed the law and I could help people but it was also going to be a way to make money um at a young age so I could start my philanthropic IC Journey sooner um that just kind of always drove me what I tell young business owners and small or and sorry small business owners that are having trouble getting the word out about their product it was my natural instinct to do it but and a lot of people they want to do it but they don't even think about it if you start to give um you know 10% 5% whatever proceeds of a specific product or your company even for one day the week whatever it may be there's your local news stations o hold slots for local small businesses um that are doing good in the community so if your business is doing good by contributing to Charities local charities you actually can go on like the Sunday Morning Show at your no local news uh station it also gives people an excuse to buy your product so people might want to buy my pillows but they can't justify buying new a new pillow at that time but they're like you know what we can give you know to this Hurricane Relief Fund that we wanted to and get one of Craig's pillows at the same time like that's a win-win and so absolutely the charitable thing is just it's it's kind of a cheat code at least it has been for us where the reasons are completely genuine and like authentic to us but yes it also helps your business um and so I've had a lot of fun where it also drives me well it still just drives me to make more money because the more money that sewing down south makes the longer my leash is to just go do whatever I want with Charities and Jerry will find me traveling wherever I may be and I was like hey you know we're sponsoring you know we're sponsoring this now or we're sponsoring this team or I don't like our sponsorships go all over the country now and they're in every like little category it could be but now what that led to is I was asked to join the board of Hope For The Warriors which is probably my proudest accomplishment since starting TV 13 years ago um I do a lot with the veterans and Veteran organizations and I found Hope about probably five years ago um and they give 92 cents of every dollar raised to the calls and so I think we're in a time where nonprofits scare people because you know there's been a lot of information that's come out that a lot of times when you make a donation it might not always be going to the cause that you think it is um and so I've been able to develop this uh this trust with my followers you know from doing like hurricane rescue stuff or work with veterans or whatever it may be that allows us to build this ecosystem of positivity where yes it does help sewing down south but that in turn allows us to do um more stuff and so it's been that's a definitely a core principle of sewing down south um we try to give as much as we we can and I would love to start a nonprofit We just I say it all the time and it's on my list we manda's just like again keeps me grounded where she's like we have so much in the pipeline right now Craig like you can be on the board of that nonprofit and help them one day maybe we can do it but um so I think there's a lot of beneficial things and it's fun to just be part of your community um I think absolutely it builds respect and um people take you more seriously too yeah and and I think it's it's a a great reminder to hear like you know you've got this very successful business you probably could spin up a nonprofit if you if you posted on Instagram and said you were doing it um you'd have it going tomorrow but there's so many great organizations out there to partner with and sometimes that's even more powerful because like you said it builds up the community you meet more people and it um it allows continuous Outreach so being willing to to say like it's not our time just yet but I you know I can be on the board and and make an impact in this way is powerful it builds like also just volunteering your time I mean I I always like I understand that a lot of these are blanket statements and people are like we don't have the time to do it but these are for people that do and if you can find the time to go volunteer at like a food drive or clothing giveaway whatever it may be like we do a lot with the homeless in our community and we employ some of them and um it's like it just is a Snowball Effect like you don't have to overthink it and you know what you might end up doing something and you don't there might not be any evidence that it was it helped your business but it helped your soul and it helped the people that you helped and I just I would be very remiss to say that I don't think it all comes around you know it just it comes around and um so for us you know like I said that's just something that's always driven us and um I think it it helps the business too oh absolutely I love that so what would you say maybe to someone else who maybe feels alone in their hobby or their Craft um that was in a very similar situation to you to just kind of encourage them in their Journey yeah I mean I hope that you have a supportive partner um because it would be tough if you don't but if you know hopefully that you do even if no one else understands like what your vision is is I mean it goes back to what I said in the beginning I mean not a single person in my life thought that sewing down south was a good idea not a single one and we built it into what you see now and so just because no one else can see your vision I think you should trust your gut I don't think you should feel guilty spending time on your side hustle because you know I'm hitting that age now where I'm really seeing that my parents are just doing this for the first time too and just living for the first time too and your kids would want you to do what makes you happy you know I know you want to spend as much time as you can with them but spend time on yourself too and the commun like you like through technology you can just find incredible groups uh of like-minded individuals but you should just be more selfish with your time I mean it took me a while to get get there I used to get my validation from from going out um it was definitely a big chapter in my life that's where I felt valuable when I went out and felt cool and um and I understand that's a part of a lot of people's lives but then once you find that passion or that Hobby and you can put your time and effort into that and then maybe you get to start making money off it through like Etsy or whatever you're selling like that's when you really start to find you know value in something and now I love you know staying home and sewing and stuff like that and you know everything balance but please just never give the haters the time of day I I can speak to it because I'm in reality TV and it happens but I was just speaking to one of the par athletes over at the par Olympics and she said she had to turn her Instagram off for like four months one time and I was like yeah but you have so many followers who love you that you're by doing that you're taking the energy away from all of the people that are rooting for you and love you and you're giving it to people who don't deserve that time they're also never going to root for you you're never going to appease them but they don't actually materially affect your life and honestly if they saw you in person they would probably say hey I want to be your friend you know that's just their yeah like they're like I used to know in the school bus like the kids that would be mean to me I know that they were going home and getting hit by their dad or you know they had something at home going on like it didn't say anything about me it was just I always felt empathy for them and I don't feel empathy for the online haters but I also like if someone says something mean on my page I just block them like why do they deserve space in my ecosystem um I mean we I someone in the TV World told me like this mental health professional like it's like kind of like cutting they're like you can you can you can read 50 nice comments but you're going to scroll until you see the mean one you know it's going to hurt your feelings and you're going to carry that around with you and so I don't know I just don't let them steal your joy you know because you'll never find someone doing better than you talking [ __ ] about you and if you're really serious about getting good like think about like soccer practice the varsity teams over here and the JV teams over here you're never going to hear the varsity players talking crap about the JV guys you know they're they're going to be focused on their game and being like Oh that guy might be good enough to come up but you'll hear the JV guys talking crap about the varsity team you know but there's going to be a few JV guys working their butt off trying to make the varsity team and it's just like all right like there's always going to be people out there that want what you have whether that's a mentality or the fearlessness to be silly on the on on the Internet or the fearlessness to have a hobby that they don't understand it all comes from MB and really just try not to give that um any attention but I know it's hard but yeah it actually reminds me when I when I first started making videos because I worked behind the scenes filming for for Jenny for years and um when I first got in front of the camera I'll never forget someone commented I love everything about Missouri Star except that Misty D and I was like what it was so hurtful in the moment but now it just makes me laugh because I'm like well first of all they don't know me and um and I think if they did know me they probably wouldn't say that to my face you know and it's exactly what you said you know it was really easy to just feel hurt and be like oh my gosh I can never do this again but luckily I was able to you know kind of crawl out of that hole that I was in for a moment yeah yeah painful you can't let them steal your joy or give them the power and you know it's not going to end unfortunately but just you can curate your you know the people that you're around and we got we interviewed Damon John one time and he was like you have to edit your friend group and the people in your life and yeah um you know you have to protect your online space too just as much as you're the people around you and if people if someone's not rooting for you then they really shouldn't be around um but again all of it's easier said than done but just don't let the people that don't deserve your time you know absorb that energy because there's so many people that are excited you know to have you around basically yeah there's plenty of positivity so we don't need to give power to that one one or two negative when she said she told me she like because she had a lot of followers and she makes like these fun videos and we were in this world of positivity out at the par Olympics and um you know she said yeah I shut my Instagram down for 4 months and I was like oh my gosh I was like but what about all the people that we're looking forward to seeing your videos you know and she's like I never thought about it that way yeah um it's such a such a good reminder well I truly truly appreciate you taking the time for being you know being here and talking to me and just sharing your story so openly and I want to encourage everyone if you haven't be sure to pick up um his book Craig's book it's called pillow talk it's fabulous um and also let everyone know where they can follow along with what you're doing personally or with sewing down south yeah oh and I I was going to say asre said that sorry I no you're fine as I just went around like I went from this like veterans charity event to par Olympics to like dealing with regular life everyone's trauma is different and some people have a lot like more than or you know a lot crazier than others but like the emotions are still the same and we're all humans and like you can bounce around and talk to all these different communities people and you're like oh like I do that too or like I deal with that too and so we're all way more in common than uh we think but I uh that's so true yeah you can follow me on my Instagram um it's just CA and then my last name coner but sewing down South has a great Instagram that we like to do to keep everything up with us and then I'm going to be with you guys soon which I'm really excited you're coming out for birthday bash I'm super excited I think we're going to do a pillow party and a Q&A so that should be really fun I can't wait um I'll be out in Hamilton and um it's going to be a blast at the end of September so excited again to build our our community and with Y all and uh but yeah just Instagram's the best place I guess and then our website sewing down south.com and if you're in Nashville or Charleston visit our store uh we've got a store on King Street and a store in 12 South and uh I'm gonna make it out there I'm gonna I'm gonna make it to the store you should and there fortunately it's it's too even if you hated the store you're at least in Charleston or Nashville you know well I don't think I'm gonna hate it so you You' got great things so again thank you so much for your time and I'll see you here in a few weeks when you make it to Hamilton yeah I'm excited thanks for having me Misty y see you later [Music]