Homespun E2 | Jennifer Long

welcome to Homespun where creativity Finds Its voice I'm your host Misty D and today I'm joined by Jennifer Long of SOA story she is a fabric designer for Riley Blake designs and a former professional ballerina join us as we discuss setting big goals stepping outside of your comfort zone and embracing imperfection I am here with Jennifer long today I am so excited for you all to get to know her a little bit more Jennifer thank you so much for being here hello Misty thank you for having me I appreciate it so much so fun to be here oh it's always good to catch up with you I really appreciate you coming on and chatting with me and I I just love your story and so I'm excited for everyone to hear more about it so let's Dive Right In because I think you have such a unique backstory uh you started as a ballerina so can you share a little bit about that you bet so yes my name is Jenner Fong U my business is called so a story um I'm a Riley Blake fabric designer but you're right first um in my pre-teen years I wanted to be a ballerina so I actually worked really hard and was in a professional ballet school from 13 till 18 so all through like my formative years I was doing half day school half day dance wow but how that relates to sewing is that um while I was was studying at the school and training every time we worked so hard we got to go up onto the third floor which was um the costume wardrobe and it was just it was the place I actually really wanted to be it was like lifechanging in there I just felt there was machines everywhere they had the boning in the costume the tutus and it was really transformative because as soon as I would go in there um you'd work so hard and then you would just be transformed into whatever you were going to dance and um it was just a really inspiring time and so I knew if um your career is really short as a ballet dancer so I knew I wanted to have to do something um with fabric and with costumes um in that sense afterwards yeah so that that's so how did you get started then so you youve seen the costumes you and I can imagine all the tool and and beating and and just so much so much Beauty I I did ballet but not at that level I was not at your level Jennifer I did it from the time I was a a very small girl probably three or four up until I was about 14 um but never never professional but love it so we have that in common um the love the love of ballet but how did you even knowing that you wanted to do it and you had an interest how did you make that leap well you know there's never a straight path right um we kind of all always take a path that we were um to get us to where we are but I have no regret of all of those things so I did take courses um while I was studying dance to you know to do costumes I was actually sewing um sewing at the time I was sewing my own costumes and I was actually uh teaching a little bit dance at the side so I was actually sewing costumes for my students at the time as well but I thought well I maybe should have like a day day job and I wasn't really sure about all their careers um so I did did go and take my early childhood education degree I loved children at that like all all the time but at that time I took my early childhood education degree and um I didn't know that I would have such a major impact on myself and the direction that I would go I just thought it would be like a fallback career that I would have and something that I loved however um yeah like we never know what's going to happen I ended up getting getting married to my husband and moving out to a small rural town in Prairie Canada where he grew up and um we had four children together so I wanted to stay home and raise them and while I was doing that I was trying to find ways to to bring income in while I could stay home with my kids and um so being an early childhood educator it was really important to me to provide all these opportunities for my kids and you know just have all of all of that education in front of them but I also had this like deep passion and love for sewing and I really wanted to pull those two together so I started making quilts for other people and um and I actually started creating dolls at that time as well because I wanted um my kids to have toys that were handmade and the most amazing thing happened was that um while I was making toys and dolls and quilts for my own children I realized that they started treating those toys differently than anything else that they had so they because they they could almost feel the love that was in them or the the handmade they were like part of the process with me they could tell yeah choosing the fabric even though I look back at those early dolls and I was like yikes but you know my kids didn't throw those in the toy bin with all the rest of the ones that they bought and so um I really just it let a fire inside of me and um I started learning machine embroidery digitizing so that I could really take my doll making to the next level at the time I really was um inspired by quilt patterns and I I just was reading quilt pattern any pattern I could get my hands on I was reading it at the time and I started working for some small fabric companies and designers ghost writing for them at as well so um I was able to pull in income around a passion that I love to do in and around um my family's schedule when they were napping and stuff so it was just beautiful and so over all those years it kind of morphed into sort of growing that part of my business um and the internet has been amazing for that as well but I ended up designing dolls for a company a huge company that produced dolls overseas and I got to really learn um that whole process about how to manufacture a modern rag doll and it's something that's really near and dear to my heart and I alongside that I was also um writing patterns um behind the scenes for a lot of designers and fabric companies at the time too and it wasn't until my youngest one went to school um that I was like I feel like I have something to offer the world and I wanted to see if I could make it as a fabric designer so I love all the Styles and I love like a good Farmhouse Country quilt but because of my early childhood education I really felt it was so natural and drawn um for me to design for for children and for kids and for really for families bringing the whole unit together and absolutely yeah I and what an amazing way to tie all of all of that together and and you know I have been a fan of many of your collections I think they are so creative and well thought out and you can just see um I can Envision the children playing with them and loving them I can see the attention to detail that you've put in them and I just think that you do an incredible job so if you haven't heard that lately it's amazing thank you from my heart Misty I really appreciate that and you know I'm a huge fan of you and I appreciate that um so much thank you no no problem at all so um so then you you you made this leap and I I love where we've gone here because for the life of feel creative it never moves in a straight line right it's always kind of this Meandering path that we least expect like people ask me often did you think you would be teaching quilting when you grew up and I'm like if you would have told me all those years ago when I was sitting there with my grandma sewing that this would connects to my career in some way you know 25 years down the road I would have never imagined never but I also wouldn't change it and I think that's the same right you know you as a as a young girl there you are wanting to be a ballerina but recognizing this beauty in the costume room and seeing it just kind of your life wander its way to this beautiful beautiful place it's it's really really amazing I also wonder if you might share because you touched on something that I haven't heard anybody else talk about which is the the ghost writing side how did you find that opportunity in writing patterns uh for other people yeah well interestingly enough I think there was I mean I was following um designers at the time too that I loved I loved sewing and um I got into it like from a tester point of view so at the time um you I don't know if it's as big of a deal now as it was you know 15 years years ago but um to Tech edit someone's pattern they often had people test the pattern so they would send you the pattern and you could like sew up the whole pattern and then give them feedback but I found myself because I was like obsessive about quilt patterns I would have like a stack of magazines and patterns by my bed every night and that's what I would read and I would think while I was doing it oh this would be clearer if they would do this XYZ or this would be make it I would I would have written this pattern this way and I didn't know at the time I was just like absorbing it all in but I was really like teaching myself um fundamentals of quilt patterns and what I liked and what I didn't like and so when I started testing for other designers in the industry that I loved the feedback I was giving to them they were overwhelmed with positivity from it they were like wow thank you so much I didn't think of that before and um I was like oh I just thought everybody thought this way you know and um so I I was kind of taking it back and then they'd say well have you ever considered writing a pattern and I says well I've like made my own designs all the time and so I was started helping these designers in this way and then once you kind of it's all about making connections because once you start making connections within an industry or within um a company then word gets around they're like oh I have someone that's writing patterns for me that's excellent you know we don't have any errors in our patterns then um they like share your name around too and it kind of like just goes through that way and it was just beautiful at the time because I mean I love it all the time but it was really beautiful at that time because I didn't have to be on social media I didn't have to right promote myself I could focus on my family and then just do what I loved which was like writing patterns for people absolutely I love that and like I said I just hadn't heard anybody talk about that angle specifically and I think it's another reminder that you know if you don't have time to put out a bunch of Instagram posts or you don't have uh time to maybe even uh design a fabric collection it doesn't mean that it can't be a a beautiful step on that journey to still offer a skill that you're ready to dive into right and and I think it ties back to obviously your your uh your early childhood education right you knew how to teach and so to be able to take that passion that you have and translate it and help other people translate it is so great and so that's one thing I've learned as a designer and and a teacher is that that I have to ask for help sometimes and it's okay to um you're not failing if you're not doing it all by yourself right and what we say in the quilt pattern industry now is that like it's really not like you cannot Tech edit your own pattern because you're just too close to it so even like the best writers they need someone else to look at their pattern to read it because catch it you can't catch all the things and everything's better together anyways absolutely that's where the magic really happens because we can all bring our strengths to the table and then get the the best result at the end which is what everybody wants right we can all help each other Rise so I I love that um so you're a busy Mom you're a busy mom of of four you've you've made this great leap into you know designing your own fabric now working with Riley Blake so can we touch more on that and what you're up to for sure so um I just want to I think this is kind of also maybe an important thing to say about like the journey and how to get there and perseverance because um so I knew in my heart that I really wanted to work with Riley Blake designs in this capacity and I submitted um a portfolio to them with all my collections in it at um at the beginning and it got turned down and they were the only company I submitted did to and of course I was like sad um you know for a day and I was like hurt um but I was thinking okay my friends at the time were saying like oh well like why don't you try a different company you know like submit it to a different company and I thought like I wanted Riley Blake and so this was the goal I know I think this is something also that um like all of the things pulled together like from years of professional dancing you were just taught if you wanted to you know to have a role or you wanted to make something that you really had to push and you really also had to self-analyze yourself and so I took actually the next full year and looked at my work analytically and I was like okay how can I make this better how can I make this um more um accessible and then also I did a lot of research um on Riley Blake and where maybe I could serve the company and fill in the needs of um designers they already currently had so I did a lot of research and a lot of work and I think when people see the end they don't always see the pa the whole pathway that it's taken right or the nose that you have received in order to get there absolutely and I think it's super important that we we just can't get discouraged by nose because there's nose all of the time even now there's still nose you know absolutely yes I mean and and the end of the day um I can't remember who told me this but it stuck with me for so long but you know we often think or hear what's the worst that could happen if we put ourselves out there and really the worst is no but also what's the best that could happen right and that's that's the reminder that even in those NOS you have to keep going because there's something great that's waiting on the other side we just have to be willing to look at ourselves willing to adapt and change and not just respond with negativity and instead respond with opportunity um because it's out there and and I love that you shared that part of your story because so many of us have experienced that and it can be devastating and it probably was for a little while right oh yeah I mean of course there was like there were tears of course but they also like propelled me further forward right and then a year later I submitted a portfolio that now looking back at the two the first one wasn't ready like Riley Blake had it right you know what they're doing you know and the second one was was ready and I was so grateful for this opportunity with them but um you know I'm working on my eighth and Ninth collection with Riley Blake now and um yeah so I feel so blessed and grateful and you can just yeah use those as a learning like lose those as a stepping stone and as a learning instead of getting discouraged or turning my back and trying to go in a different direction I just was like okay what can I make better here and um yeah I've learned so much too I love that I absolutely love that it's such a good reminder to all of us that that we should be continually learning right there's always always more that we can learn and and more we can improve on ourselves it's really easy sometimes especially if you get too busy to just become complacent but I know for me um I don't feel satisfied as a designer unless I'm challenging myself in new ways unless I'm I'm learning new things and um and that applies across the board both professionally creatively whatever we can do and Misty you know what I tell my kids all the time so like got to take up our advice sometimes too but I say like growth actually happen I always tell this to them I'm like growth happens in the hard times right so like when they're playing High Level Volleyball or whatever else and like they come home and they are so sore I'm like that's when you're getting stronger that's when you're growing you know or when they've had to work hard on an exam to get the mark that they did that's the part where there's growth not the part that's easy and I feel like that's for us too like for all of us that we actually grow more when we have to like persevere through those tougher times absolutely you know I think in our minds we always want that straight line to the goal right we just want we know where we're headed we just want to get there but it's never that easy it's always that that winding zigzag from one thing to the other um and hitting those hurdles that we don't expect but that also make that reward reaching that goal at the end so much richer and so much more important to us because we know what we've gone through and um yes and that is a part that that we don't talk about enough we don't talk about those hurdles and it's it's a good reminder to everyone whether you're just starting out or you're farther along in this industry that that they still come like it it just it's never that straight line at least it hasn't been for me if somebody's figured that out please let me know I don't know what I have never seen it no and then just having that you know having the same kind of positive attitude through all of that right and being able to being able to Pivot when you need to Pivot but then also just um you know being grateful and thankful and I also love the idea of when you start looking forward too far forward like that straight line it sometimes feel like you never can reach it but when you um look back you look how far you've come and how much you've achieved too so I just yeah it's good to look both ways absolutely it it totally is well and I I think we've touched on this a little bit but if you had advice to offer to someone who wanted to make a big leap say you know they they uh have had a desire to write patterns or had a desire to design fabric what would be that one piece of advice that you would you would give them to help them make that leap well I think if the fire is in you um it's been put in there for a reason and I think that you need to stay true and follow your heart um I always say I have no ego so I think that is like a big part of it is being able to learn all of the time like we've s talked about that already Misty about like learning all of the time and so I think that's when you get better it's not you know it's not thinking that you've ever arrived it's always trying to go through that process and then also if it's a really far goal like speak the words like say it out loud where it is tell tell your husband or your children or your baby or your dog you know like tell them you know I want to achieve this goal yeah and then maybe start backing it up and and having like like realistic goals along the way so that you can feel like you can achieve that and that goes for anything in life but um I know that I do that for myself um annually like annually I set quarterly goals for myself all the time that I want to achieve and um some of them I make some of them I surpass and then some of them I just like you know re like I don't feel discouraged I didn't get it I just like adjust yeah absolutely I love that and for me because I I am I often I should say not always but often I fall into this uh cycle of thinking oh I I not I don't deserve that I don't need that you know I don't I don't need that's too big of a goal but that's what dreams are all about right and so so even when I'm afraid to speak them out loud because they feel too big to me I love to write them down and so I love to journal them and um and write them down in my journal and then the way that I look at it is it's like okay so there that's the cake that's my cake goal that's the big one that I'm trying to get to but how do I break that down into little bites you know yes what's one little thing I can do each day to move me towards that Big Goal because right now that feels scary but maybe if I take enough bites to get halfway through then all of a sudden it's like this could happen I could actually say these words and so you know but I think there is power and actually articulating in whatever way is for you whether it's writing or speaking to someone um to say this is this is what I want to do this is really intriguing to me and then maybe you get you know four or five bites in and you're like actually you know what I thought I wanted that and I'm not liking this at all that I could adjust yeah and I I mean I believe it's been put in our hearts that desire for a reason you know um like I believe that it's been put in our hearts from God and so I believe that it's been put for a reason and so you know I don't want fear to be the reason why I don't follow that right and exactly I always say like a few seconds of courage to get to get you there right to the next to the next part because every step does take courage you know and I mean if you just kind of imagine your like security Z this is like an early childhood education thing but if you imagine your security Zone like this you never ask ourselves or our children like this is where you feel comfortable but you don't ask us to go way over here you just ask us to go here and then come back in and then once you're over here your circle expands a little bit bigger and so you keep hopping over that limit so your circle of like security keeps expanding and what you feel achievable in stuff and so that's how you grow your passions or your business or yourself as a person I believe yeah I love that I absolutely love that I think that's so true I haven't heard it framed that way probably because I'm not in early childhood education but that makes so much sense you know every little bit that we we put ourselves out of our comfort zone it stretches us and makes us more comfortable with that um I I often tell the story I don't know if I've I've it to you or not but the very first time I was ever on camera uh we had I was I worked behind the scenes filming in the film studio for years and years and years which many people still don't realize but so we had filmed a tutorial with Jenny it had released and we didn't realize until after it released that we had made a pretty significant error in instructions and um unfortunately that weekend it happens it totally does it happens but Jenny was out of town at Quilt Market and I can remember our our marketing department and everybody in the studio was like we have got to get this correction and Jenny's just like just miss you just hop on and film it you know how to like to tell it and I'm thinking in the back of my mind these people have no idea who I am and I'm gonna get on Jenny's Channel and correct her this is gonna be the worst and some people responded that way but mostly people were really grateful right they were really grateful to have the correct information and can just remember after I did it I was like well that was so scary I never want to do that again and now I know well exactly and so then you know you know probably a month or two down the road we started making quilt Snips and that was just my hands and I'm like well this is I can do this I I don't actually have to see anybody um and then it just it kind of expanded we started doing lives and every single one of those steps was significantly out of my comfort zone and now every day I get to show up and do this job that I now love like I love it and I I look back on that and I'm like how in the world did that girl who was so afraid of being in front of the camera in that way make this make this jump um and so I'm grateful I'm grateful that Jenny kind of gave me that nudge and was like just just go tell them how to do it and like okay okay thank you for sharing that with me and with everyone because is it is exactly it embodies everything that's exactly how we all feel right no one is just like born you know comfortable doing all of the things they are absolutely skills and one of the things I think I've learned the most in the years of doing it now because it's gosh I don't even know how many years it's been now five five six that I've been making videos but um one of the things that I've learned is I don't expect Perfection from anyone else and so so I I don't think we should expect it from ourselves either like it's okay to get up there and you know if my stitches are bad I'm like whoop better fix that you know and that's one of the things that I learned from Jenny for sure is she's so great at just rolling with it and so having her as an example definitely helped uh that's beautiful and and making that re real like it makes you real right it makes us real like real people we're moms we're humans we're you know we're really people we're real people that are just doing like these dreams that we've had yes yes because for me like I can be such a harsh critic of myself I am never that way of anyone else I think everyone else is just like amazing and inspiring but then I'm over here beating myself up and I've had to really remind myself if I wouldn't treat someone else that way why would I do that to myself and I and so that would be my my piece of advice give yourself credit give yourself Grace um and just just try spread those wings a little bit I love it exactly we have to love ourselves first and put our oxygen masks on ourselves before we can like truly love on others yeah yeah I agree it's so true age um okay so I we have we have had the most amazing conversation so let's just shift gears a little bit so as a creative one thing that I have to do to constantly fill my bucket is to do something different and so I'm wondering what you do to stay creatively fed yes well well so I actually work fulltime um in this industry as well I work full time for Riley Blake designs um and then I also am a have my business which is so a story yeah and um so yeah you are right we do need to like just fill ourselves up and I'm my kids are 18 is the oldest and 11 is the youngest right now okay and so yeah we have four boy girl girl boy um so it's really big busy evenings and weekends with sports and activities and homework and just being present and I think a shift that I have made from being available all of the time and staying home to working full-time and running a successful business is that it's less to me about the quantity of time and more about the quality of time so absolutely refilling for me is um just like removing distractions putting my phone away I've actually like done a lot um of of like putting that device away so I can focus completely on on a child or my husband or you know just be present um when I need to be present and then also exercise is a big part of who I am that I it's the easiest thing to let go because the only person that I'm hurting is myself like no no one else knows if I've worked out today or not right so if life happens that's the easiest thing for me to let go and since January see it's my next goal since January I am um committing to putting myself and I have been doing it for 19 weeks already and I've been feeling fantastic just it doesn't have to be the same showing up every day but it's like you said some days can be small like 15 or 20 minutes and some days can be an hour and a half it just depends what's happening in my life but being able to put that Oxygen on for myself has been um actually like more productive for me in all areas of my life so that's huge I love that I love that so can you talk a little bit about what you do for Riley Blake sure so I manage the pattern department at Riley Blake designs so all of the um years of ghost writing and reading all those patterns at night who knew that it was going to lead to um um this dream job so I am yeah so I can't say it enough so blessed and honored to be part of the Riley Blake designs family and have be able to contribute in this way um so yeah managing the pattern department at Riley Blake so you work with all of the pattern writers and I imagine a lot of the designers as well yeah it's dream job it's so good so fun so fun and I love that like did you even think when you were ghost writing that that was even a possibility no you know I I just at the time I mean I didn't actually think too far ahead because I was like in the thick of raising my kids but I I think like you are saying I am a perfectionist and I think it's um you know like part of all of these things in my life that have taken me to here brought me here and so um I think I just really like wanted to make sure I was doing this like fantastic job and so I always wanted just to you know it was never good enough here I always wanted it to be just that much better and so I think you know it just it served me well and who knew that I would end up here when my kids were all in school but it has been um like every day I wake up and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to work with all of the designers and work with this company that I love so much and I'm so passionate about um and work on something that I feel like I really have something to offer for this industry absolutely oh I love that it's that's so amazing and it's a a real life example of doing what you can to to work towards those goals and seeing it come to fruition so I love that so much Jennifer thank you you thank you so what's what's up next for SOA story what do you have coming up oh so much excitement so um I have a a collection that's out right now it's little witch we're just doing um like promoting that collection Missouri Stars actually um has that collection on so make sure you go to Missouri Star and grab the fabric and the patterns um for little witch I have another collection that's coming out in October um it's called it takes a village and it's uh my take on just lifting up all of those around us um in our communities and one thing I just wanted to touch on is that as an early childhood educator I wanted to really make sewing accessible to children and make sewing um like a family experience so um I brought to Ry break and created these I'm getting known for my felt panels so if you haven't ever seen um a felt panel just like look it up it is uh so wonderful for kids I on my felt panels I make two seam allowances a quarter inch and a half inch so that depending on the age you're working with but they're just I do have some here they're just these wonderful little um so great Jennifer I'm so glad you talked about these because they are darling I love them yeah you can just like you know cut out all these shapes and there they are people have been like um like sewing them onto their bags and just different kinds of things or you can use them as play playmats or just to develop um you know kids fine motor to develop their speech develop their creativity and um an exciting news this year is that Riley Blake is making them ever green so things like silent Silent Night felt panel and all those ones that have been so popular our um shops can continue to reorder those so that's oh that's wonderful so exciting and again congratulations thank you thank you yes that's awesome and then the other really exciting news that we just shared um recently so it's hot off the press is um that um in the quilt pattern department at Riley Blake designs because I am a machine embroidery digitizer as well and understand that side is we are just um helping some of our designers that um kind of need like have been having requests I guess for U machine embroidery and one of them is doll like dolls that I have already been producing for years and years and years on my site so um I already offer machine embroidery dolls on my website and in my membership but we are offering these through Riley Blake now too as well and these dolls if I could just speak on them for a second absolutely yes um they are completely copywritten like I said I did do this overseas this is the first little collection I'll just grab it they're darling these are completely done in the hoop and that is um the way that they are done is copywritten and it's I'm sharing that with Riley Blake but it's totally um Innovative because every piece is actually done in the hoop and even the final assembly with these arms and everything the way it's done is in the hoop so um children can even press start on your embroidery machine and make these great dolls and they come in three different sizes too so um dolls have been a huge part if you look at my feed there's been dolls there for years and years and years and years so it's been a huge part of who I am and um I'm so excited to be able to bring this through Riley Blake to um to shops so it'll be on a USB to shops yeah that is so wonderful Jennifer I am so thrilled for you and I'm thrilled for us because we get to enjoy them so thank you so much for being here with me today and sharing some of your story and can you let everyone know where they can find you if they want to follow along with what you're up to and it absolutely so it's so a story um like SE w o r y.com is my website all my links are on there um on Instagram I'm so a story Jenifer long is my name and if you're interested in the doll membership it's modern ragd doll.com I I love it awesome thank you Jennifer I will talk to you later have a wonderful day thank you everyone and bye Misty thank you for having me [Music]