Hello friends,

We have some important news to share with you today about Craft Industry Alliance’s next chapter. It’s exciting and we want you, our members and subscribers, to be the first to know.

Kristin Link and I founded Craft Industry Alliance together in October 2015. We worked together day in, day out on all aspects of the business and we’re really proud of the community that’s grown around it.

Today Craft Industry Alliance has over 1,240 paying members. These are businesses of all sizes, including hundreds of solo entrepreneurs who run small shops from their homes, dozens of mid-sized businesses, and many large craft corporations including JOANN, OLFA, Coats, Darice, CSS Industries, Creativebug, Sulky, and many, many others.

We are so proud of the work we’ve done through our journal, blog posts, and webinars to bring high-quality news about what’s happening in the craft world to the people who need it most when they need it. And we’re especially happy to be a hub of community, where business owners come together online to meet one another, share ideas, problem solve and collaborate.

Recently Kristin has expressed to me the desire to get a job outside of her home. For the past decade and a half she’s been working from home first running an online fabric shop and blog (the popular site sewmamasew.com), and now Craft Industry Alliance. I fully respect her decision to move on to the next phase of her career.

I could never have founded Craft Industry Alliance without Kristin’s vision and know-how. Her presence will always be part of this organization and I’m so grateful for all that’s she’s given to me as a colleague and friend and to the organization. I will miss her dearly and will always count her as a close confidant.

I remain totally dedicated to Craft Industry Alliance and love working on it every single day. I have so many ideas for the future and so much enthusiasm for our members and for the crafts industry as a whole and so I have decided to buy out her share of the business.

I know that I can’t steer this ship alone. I’m very pleased to introduce to you to our new Community Manager and Outreach Coordinator, Erin Dollar. If you’ve been reading our journal, you’ve likely seen Erin’s byline many times over the past several years. You’ll also recall that she taught a webinar for us in 2017 about selling wholesale and has been an advisor for our popular Goldfish Bowl event.

Erin is the textile designer and artist behind the home décor company, Cotton & Flax. She licenses her surface designs for fabric, home décor, stationery, and other clients. She’s also a teacher, writer, and enthusiastic advocate for small creative business owners.

Erin and I are excited to begin working together and we have lots of things brewing for the coming months. I also wanted to take a moment to recognize the other members of the Craft Industry Alliance team that make this organization as amazing as it is: Lindsie Bergevin, Deborah Boschert, Kara Gott Warner, Melanie O’Brien, and Paula Wilson. Please check them all out on our new staff page.

For all of you who have been members, readers, and supporters, thank you. I’m looking forward to being part of this next chapter with you.