Rustic Fire to Fibre!

This week we had a special guest from Oregon who not only creates amazing 3D felted pieces but also has her own online academy as well!

The full interview replay is available to watch inside the membership, which is now open to new members here, but below is an overview of the interview:

Christie lives out in the sticks in a little town in Oregon, made up of only about 300 people. Most days she can be found felting away in her lovely studio built just 100ft from her home, courtesy of her handy contractor husband!

Like many new mums, (or moms for our American friends) Christie wanted a creative outlet when her son was born. She tried a few different crafts, but no surprises that needle felting was the one that stuck (or that she took a stab at!)

I love learning where people got their business names from, and Christie's name evolved from a previous business name which she had when she did Pyrography before she started felting. It was called Rustic Fire🔥and so when deciding on a name for her felting business, she tweaked the name slightly, and became Rustic Fibre!🐑 How cool is that!

What I love about Christie's felting journey is that it has naturally evolved into where she is today and she has enjoyed not having a set plan. When she first started, Christie never imagined it would turn into the business it is today though!

As is the case for many of us, she first started to sell her work when friends saw Christie's creations and ask if they could buy them. This led to her initially starting an Etsy store to sell her pieces online, and later on her own website. She now also has her work in some shops and galleries where they will display and sell her items for her.

Inspiration:

Christie's main inspiration, and also one of her favourite things to felt, came from her late grandma who had a love of her garden birds. Christie showcased many of her bird sculptures at an exhibition, which took her about a year and a half to prepare for. Her work is incredible and she has developed some fabulous felting techniques, including making realistic looking feathers. Take a look below:

Here she is with a few of her creations ready for an exhibition:

Christie's crane sculpture and some of her other pieces in the exhibition:

Christie's owl sculptures and some other exhibit pieces, including one of her favourites: a cute family of quails on the right (aren't those babies cute!)

Christie also included one of her first big sculptures, a heron. She acknowledged that sometimes we can be critical of our earlier work because over time we refine our skills and improve, and we can look at our work and think of what we could have done better, but she commented that she still loves this piece, and rightly so, I think it's beautiful! I thought this was a good reminder too; when we look back at our projects of when we were first starting out, we should appreciate that our skills build with time and those first pieces have helped us get to where we are today, so we should own that and be proud of them.

One of Christie's first big sculptures, a heron, and some of her smaller birds:

Christie has another exhibition coming up next year, which sounds really exciting so keep an eye out for her work for that, some of which she will be including as tutorials in her online academy.

How she got into teaching:

Christie gradually started her move into teaching when her friends wanted to know how she created her pieces. She began by teaching her craft loving friends, and then started teaching workshops in person. She teaches children as well as adults and even goes into her son's school sometimes to teach there! Later she started teaching online which ultimately led to her creating her online Academy a couple of years ago, and last year she built a website for it.

Christie's Rustic Fibre Academy website; home to over 140 tutorials:

I especially loved Christie's approach to teaching. When creating her online tutorials, she films everything from start to finish, including her mistakes and her thought process when she is designing a new piece. I think this is such a good reminder for all of us- no matter how long you have been felting, we don't need to do everything perfectly- we just need to enjoy the creative process and let it flow and see where it takes us, and be willing to adapt as needed (such as when your wire armature snaps!)

Facing Challenges and Adapting:

What also struck me about Christie is her self awareness. There have been various occasions where she has adapted her business because of experiencing burnout or stress. One such example was when she started selling kits to go with her tutorials, but she found it was too much to keep up with that as well as all the other parts of her business and so she stopped and now provides material lists and suggested suppliers instead. I thought this was a good lesson to keep in mind: take time to reflect on the things that recharge and refresh you, and what drains your energy, and adapt as needed.

She also said that whenever we start to doubt ourselves, we should think back to why we do what we do- the needle felting, and when we make that our focus, we're good.

Christie also manages her work life balance really well. Currently it is summer for her, which means her son is off school, and so she adapts her routine to make sure she spends time with him, and less time in her studio. She also said that she never worries about taking time off, which is a wonderful place to get to as an entrepreneur, and one to which I aspire!

Future Plans and Words of Wisdom:

As far as a plan for the future, Christie is happy to continue seeing where the business naturally evolves to, but her dream would be for it to do well enough for her husband to be able to take a step back and focus more time on his artistic endeavours, which I think is such a great goal.

Her closing words of wisdom were not to take things too seriously and not to look at everyone else's work and compare it to yours because the comparison can eat away at you and stop you. So her advice was to just enjoy the projects you are working on, and to also buy good quality wool. I echo those sentiments!

Thank you so much Christie for such a lovely interview. We loved meeting you and look forward to seeing where the future takes you! 😍

To connect with Christie, please visit her links below:

Website: https://rusticfiberacademy.com/home

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rusticfiberart/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rusticfiberart

Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/RusticFiberAcademy/