Today on the Craft Industry Alliance podcast I’m talking with textile designer Heather Moore of Skinny LaMinx. Heather lives in South Africa and I live in Boston so it was pretty amazing to chat with her and learn about her business and daily life on the other side of the world.
Fabric scraps by Skinny LaMinx
In 2007 Heather started experimenting with screenprinting in her spare time. She had no idea that just a few years later she’d have a shop, nine employees, and a wholesale business sending her fabrics, cushions, housewares, and more all around the world.
Cushions by Skinny LaMinx
Her surface design has both Scandinavian and African influences. It’s modern and simple and lovely.
Skinny LaMinx is a brick-and-mortar shop, fabric warehouse, and design studio on Bree Street in Cape town. Here’s the storefront:
We talk about:
- raising seed money to start a new business (the royalties from a successful illustration job, the popular Kagiso Readers, gave Heather enough financial freedom to start Skinny LaMinx)
- taking on a business partner and hiring employees
- expanding without compromising your ideals (everything in the Skinny LaMinx line remains locally produced, including the cotton which is milled in South Africa)
- Heather’s long-standing Etsy shop and whether a business like Skinny LaMinx is still a good fit for that platform
Napkins by Skinny LaMinx
Heather is very good at Instagram, where she had more than 16,000 followers. She explains how using Instagram helps her in her art practice while also growing brand awareness. I found Heather’s perspective on Instagram especially helpful in my own thinking about social media use.
In our conversation Heather refers to a few things including:
- Jesse Breytenbach
- the 2008 Design*Sponge article about her business
- teaching block printing at Ritchie Ace Camps
And, of course, I ask Heather to recommend great stuff she’s loving right now. Heather recommends:
- The ToDoist app
- the Skillshare class Get Stuff Done Like a Boss
- taking morning walks as a great way to start the day
Check out Heather’s fabric lines with Cloud9, visit her Etsy shop, and follow her on Instagram. You can read Heather’s blog and peruse the entire Skinny LaMinx catalog to see her product full line.
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I loved this delightful interview. I was particularly interested because my husband grew up largely in South Africa! As a missionary kid of white American parents, he witnessed the end of Apartheid firsthand from a unique point of view. His parents have since retired and moved back to the States, but our senior year in college we took a trip there to visit them and see the country. I was astonished by how beautiful it was – the people, the landscape, the history are all extraordinary and complicated. Did you know J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by the South African countryside when he wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
Anyway, thanks for this lovely interview and your insightful, inspiring podcast. I just found it a couple weeks ago and I’m enjoying all the old episodes. Keep it coming!
Thank you for listening, Susan! I’m so glad you enjoyed my talk with Heather.
Another great podcast! I am working through the older ones, too. I love sewing while listening. Fabulous job.
Thank you so much, Sarah!
Can I just say thank you for your newsletter? It is so great and such an interesting read, you do a lot of work to find such thoughtful content. Your links always take me to places that I am glad to go to. Really brilliant stuff – every week. When I first got it, as I had already read your blog post I would open it, quickly scan the first part and that was it. Now I realise how much else is in there and I visit pretty much every link every week. This week I’m loving the blog post about independent patterns, all the softies made from a single sloper and the pigeon lady making stuffed birds and installing them in public parks. I am one of the few I think that really does love pigeons, so anything that gets people to feel kindly towards them is a good thing. What I love is that usually this stuff is new to me.
I would really recommend signing up for the newsletter. You’ll be kept in the loop about what Abby is doing as well as other stuff. Well worth a good read. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for saying so! I love putting my newsletter together each week and collecting the links is my favorite part. I’m so glad that you’re enjoying them, Sara!
Especially dored your interview with Heather ! Thank you Abby for all of your terrific podcasts, really enjoy listening and learn a lot!!
Constance
You’re so welcome! Thank you for listening, Constance.
meant
ADORED!!!!