On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we’re talking about building a career as a quilter with my guest, Molli Sparkles.

Molli Sparkles is a multi-award-winning quilt maker who describes himself as a quiltmaker to the stars, fearless leader of the Glitterati, and spiller of truth tea. He blogs at MolliSparkles.com, and is a regular columnist for Make Modern and Textile Fibre Forum Magazines. His quilts have been exhibited and sold internationally, with a flair for humor, subversion, originality, and self-worth.

I Am the Glitter Bomb

We start out by talking about how Molli got to Australia (he’s originally from Oklahoma and went to college in Pennsylvania). Molli tells the story of how he got the name Molli Sparkles, what he calls his “nom de quilt” and why he uses that name rather than his given name online and in quilting circles. He talks about the concept of “quilt drag” and how he uses his blog to push gender boundaries within the quilting world.

Gender Kisses

Next, Molli talks about teaching himself to sew through online tutorials and making his first quilt in 2012 as a gift for his grandmother who raised him. He immediately fell in love with quilting, and with blogging about quilting, and since then has gone on to create many beautiful and interesting projects, some of them rather delving into controversial topics. We reference:

• Molli’s quilt, No Value Does Not Equal Free
• Gender Kisses
• the Don’t Be a Dick mini quilt and Molli’s Don’t Be a Dick pattern on Craftsy
• Molli’s Today Show segment

And, of course, I ask Molli to recommend great stuff he’s enjoying right now. Molli recommends:

• English Paper Piecing
• Bloc Loc rulers (affiliate link)
• improv designing on a design wall (we reference Kaffe Fasset’s gray and white gridded flannel as the ideal background for a design wall)

Keep up with Molli on his blog and on Instagram or Facebook.

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