Episode 050: Kara Gott Warner on a new creative chapter & a podcast announcement

Today’s guest is Kara Gott Warner, the host of the Power Purls Podcast and is the former executive editor of Creative Knitting Magazine. The Power Purls Podcast is a weekly podcast where Kara empowers newbie knitting entrepreneurs to start and grow a thriving passion-crafted business through engaging conversations with knitwear designers, industry rock stars and everyday knitters with compelling back stories. In fact, her latest episode is a conversation with our SweetGeorgia Knitwear Design Director, Tabetha Hedrick. Kara is on a new journey of creating a business in knitwear through her podcast and delivering video-based knitting education and workshops through her Patreon community.

(Just a note, halfway through our conversation Kara had to switch from her microphone to her phone, so the sound quality changes halfway through, in case you were curious!)

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Felicia talks with Kara about her transition from being editor of a knitting magazine to focusing on her podcast and beginning online education through her Patreon community.

In this episode, we talk about:

• 6:00 Kara’s new creative chapter vs the traditional “dream job”
• 8:30 Myers Briggs personality test, StrengthsFinder test, 16personalities.com
• 11:30 The Power Purls Podcast
• 13:45 The Instance podcast via Frogpants Networks, making a full-time career as a podcaster
• 15:00 The idea of becoming your own media company
• 17:00 Becoming an influencer vs designer
• 19:30 Standing out in a saturated industry. Kevin Kelly, 1000 true fans
• 26:30 Kara on preventing podcasting burnout
• 29:00 Felicia talks about podcasting in seasons
• 31:00 Kara’s Stitchucation Shawl workshops on Patreon: a five-day challenge exploring an intuitive approach to shawl-making
• 40:00 Kara’s take on the future of crafts education
• 47:00 Kara’s tips on how to make big career changes and thinking with the end in mind
• 54:00 Felicia’s Announcement for End of Season 2 in order to make time for content development. Help provide feedback and thoughts about future SweetGeorgia content via our survey link: https://bit.ly/sgyshow

Links and Things

Here’s where to find Kara:

• Web: www.KaraGottWarner.com and www.PowerPurlsPodcast.com
• Facebook: PowerPurlsPodcast
• Twitter: @karaknits
• Instagram: @karaknits
• Etsy shop: www.igottknits.com

The SweetGeorgia Show // podcast announcement, end of Season 2 is coming…

This IS a milestone episode and as I have been sharing my journey with you guys over the past while, I’ve talked about things like the process of writing my book, having a second baby and how that has changed things, including how my work life and home life are structured. It’s changed my sense of self and like I said from my New Year’s episode, I’m finding a way forward this year.

Now, I’m going to be a little vague here, but I hope you bear with me. Several years ago, I started on a project to fulfill a vision that I’ve had for sweetgeorgia for years and years now. But the timing and conditions just weren’t right and my project got put on the backburner. And then in between having Russell and Nina, I started on this project again. I got a big chunk of work done on it, but then when I got the book deal and pregnant with Nina, again, it went on the backburner.

Now, Nina has just celebrated her one year birthday and it’s like something inside me just naturally clicked and said, it is time. She is awesome. She isn’t a baby anymore and she is all walking and feeding herself with a spoon. It’s all kind of crazy how time flies. And now, I feel ready to begin again. Third try is a charm, right?

I totally feel like this is a choose your own adventure story as well. When you commit and walk through one door, it means you don’t have the ability to walk through the other doors. While it would be awesome to open and walk through all the doors, there’s only one of me and there are only so many hours in the day.

So, as I did when I had to dig in and immerse myself in the work of writing the book, I need to dig in and immerse myself now in the trenches of creating and building something that will hopefully become deeply valuable and inspiring to you all. I can’t share the details of what I’m making just yet, because I need time and focus to give it some shape. But that is why I’m letting you know that we will be tying up season 2 of The SweetGeorgia Show podcast in a few weeks. We still have interviews with Erica Jones, the founder of Weavolution coming, as well as a conversation with knitwear designer and author Barbara Benson about working with colour and another episode with Jen Lucas about her latest book of knitwear designs which will be coming out next month.

Last season, we recorded 27 episodes and this season, we have done another 27 episodes. I am incredibly happy and proud of the shows that we have released this season and I encourage you to check out the archive of episodes to get encouragement and ideas for your own creative practice. For me, I am super excited about making really great use of the time that I spend on making the podcast on making some truly deeply valuable content for you. My heart feels like it is bursting, I have so much to share with you. In fact, I will share with you that I have a sticky note on my computer screen that simply reads “you must create remarkable content” and so that is what my plan for the next several months.

If you are interested in being one of the first to hear about what we launch when we launch it, vague as it might be, I invite you to enter your email address below for me. I’ll let you know details when I have them.

If you are interested in having a say about what I make next, I absolutely would welcome your thoughts and feedback! You can let me know through a quick survey at: https://bit.ly/sgyshow. In fact, if you complete that survey, you will receive a coupon code that you can use on our SweetGeorgia online shop to get $5 off anything you like.

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you so much for joining me this episode! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your fellow knitting friends. And if you like what I’m doing here, please leave a rating and review on iTunes for the show. I read each and every email and bit of feedback, whether it’s on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, so I welcome your comments.

Thank you so much to Kara for joining me this episode. Until next time!

Music Credits:

The Young and Beautiful – by Ivory Hours
Like the Dawn – by Oh Hellos (on NoiseTrade)

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