How to Create Successful On-Demand Education with the Quilter on Fire, Brandy Maslowski
Haley Hatcher 
I’m talking with someone who is truly on fire in the quilting world—Brandy Maslowski, the Quilter on Fire!
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Summary:
I’m talking with someone who is truly on fire in the quilting world—Brandy Maslowski, the Quilter on Fire! Brandy’s journey into virtual teaching started in 2020, when she quickly pivoted to live Zoom workshops after all of her in-person events were canceled. Since then, her career has absolutely taken off, with new opportunities to appear on TV shows, a thriving podcast, and more. Brandy’s passion for teaching and creating engaging online experiences shines through in everything she does. When you listen in, you’ll learn how to create successful, profitable on-demand courses that you love as much as your students do. If you’ve been thinking about offering virtual workshops or taking your video teaching to the next level, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. So grab your favorite cup of tea and join the conversation!
Topics:
The benefits of outsourcing certain tasks in your business and how to know what to outsource and/or streamline first
Brandy’s personal experience with Imposter Syndrome and how she overcame it (and how you can, too!)
The specific things Brandy does to draw her students out to create that sense of community and rapport via the screen
Feeling comfortable asking for feedback and taking the time to celebrate the positive feedback and how to move on from the negative
About Brandy:
Brandy Maslowski is a quiltmaker and artist who travels extensively as a teacher, speaker and NACQJ certified quilt judge. She is author of children’s picture book Kristy’s Quilt, the Consulting Editor of Quilting Arts Magazine, and Cohost of Quilting Arts TV. She is the founder and host of the Quilter on Fire Podcast and can be found everywhere online as the Quilter on Fire.
Episode Resources:
Connect with Brandy:
Click here to read a raw transcript of this episode
Lyric Kinard (00:01.272)
Hello, Brandy, it is so good to see you again.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (00:04.923)
Hi, Lyric. It's so nice to be here. I just love your smiling face. It's so nice to talk to you.
Lyric Kinard (00:10.144)
Likewise, it is always miraculous and lovely and amazing to be able to see people through this technology and get back in touch. And you have been doing so much, so, so much. So, you know, our audiences, people, creatives, artists, makers who want to teach online or already are, and I have seen you just
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (00:26.095)
I've been busy.
Lyric Kinard (00:40.696)
grow everything, do everything, and it's been phenomenal. So I would love for you to give us a very quick introduction of how you got into this in the first place. And then we'll do a quick recap of the whoosh explosion of your career.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (00:58.063)
Yeah, it's been so fun. I mean, it has a lot to do with Global Quilt Connection, actually. So when the pandemic hit, had already just a couple months before, like December, I had already started the podcast because I had missed it so much. I had taken many years off. So I started the Quilt Around Fire podcast up again and I had already been teaching and speaking and judging. But when the pandemic hit, I thought...
I just launched this. just am retiring from my career. I'm just doing this full time. Now what am I going to do? So I got connected with you immediately and I started teaching on zoom in a very low key way. I wasn't doing anything fancy, the absolute basics. And then global quilt connection came along and I was the one of the first people to send you my video. Like here I am world. Tell me what you love. Tell me what I can bring to you that will be valuable. And
Global Quilt Connection really connected me to all of those guilds all over North America and it really just blossomed from there. In a nutshell, if like if you wanted to hear about Quilter on Fire and what I bring to the world, I kind of have three pillars now. I've created pillars. I'm all professional. I've created pillars in my business. The first one would be education. So I teach, speak, judge, I travel, do a Zoom online on demand.
teach, speak and judge. The second pillar is community and that really is all about my podcast. I bring these amazing creators to the world and share their stories and I couldn't be more happier lifting them up. That is something I really love to do and it's really important to me. And then the third part of my business is travel. I absolutely love quilt destination travel. I travel all over the world and I have so much fun. So those are kind of the pillars I've created around my business.
But something snuck in the back door in this last year and that is editing as well. So I'm the editor now of Quilting Arts Magazine and the Quilt Con Magazine. So like you said, things have kind of exploded in a wonderful way, but I'm having a lot of fun.
Lyric Kinard (03:01.438)
I'm glad you're still having fun because that is a lot to be on one person's plate.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (03:02.967)
I am. I know, I know it is. And I have brought people in here and there to help me along the way. that's been, you know, if you, if you just don't have the time to do everything, sometimes you need to bring people in to give you a hand, right?
Lyric Kinard (03:17.761)
Right, well, let's jump right into that at the beginning because this is such an important thing for a business person who is going to be a professional business person, right, to think about what are you doing with your time in your business that absolutely nobody else can do? Those are the things that are high income earning that bring in the dollars, right? But then how much time do you spend on things that are like a minimum wage grunt work job?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (03:28.347)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (03:46.657)
Absolutely.
Lyric Kinard (03:46.879)
and how much is that taking away from the really important stuff?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (03:52.911)
Yeah, I did a full review of my business and I was like, first of all, what do I love to do? What's kind of in my genius zone? What do I bring to the world that's really valuable just from me? And that's the speaking and the teaching and, know, the creative aspect of my business. And what are the parts of my business that are just dragging me under where I can barely breathe and I'm trying to come up to the surface, right? And that was the things like editing the podcast and keeping up with my emails and
trying to respond to every single person on earth who leaves a message on Instagram and that kind of thing. And I still do a lot of that myself. But I when I got an editor for my podcast, first of all, it upped my game in podcasting because my podcast sounded so much better. He was incredible. He was a professional. And I was taking up to six hours to edit these two hour long podcasts. And now I pay someone. He does it. So.
I literally spend the time it takes to record it, the time it takes to listen to it once after the fact. And I have to tell you the big change that happened there for me was instead of toiling through the edits and trying to make it sure everything was perfect and then being done, I'm able to listen to the end result and get that joy in my life all over again of having that conversation with that guest. Because when you're recording it and editing it, do not, you don't get to just
sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy it. You're so mired down in making sure the little ums and ahs or you know anything that sounds silly or you want to remove is out of there. You don't have the time to just enjoy their answer and enjoy their story and it's just it's so much more uplifting to have someone do that task and let me enjoy. So I've gotten a lot more joy out of the podcast because I have some a professional involved now so it's been great.
Lyric Kinard (05:43.402)
It is amazing. And there are so many other things that you can do to streamline your process and take some things off your plate. I've been going down the AI rabbit hole for several months, but not to write things. I've been using it as a virtual assistant and having it streamline some of my processes and like do some of the, editing kind of things.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (05:50.971)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (06:10.585)
Yeah, absolutely.
Lyric Kinard (06:12.523)
You can pull out a transcript of the course you're teaching, feed it in and say, give me a bullet point outline. And it takes five minutes instead of the whole hour to listen to your course. And there you have an outline to add to your on-demand course. There's so many things that can make it easier.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (06:34.095)
Yeah, it's fascinating. I haven't used AI a lot in my business yet, but I have used it in my travel. I planned an entire trip to Hawaii with AI and we had so much fun with our menu. We put our menu into AI. We had it right down to on the first day we bought the groceries AI told us to buy. And when we were finished our week long trip in Hawaii, we literally had no groceries left because we had bought the perfect amount for every meal. It was so fun. It was great. My husband was astonished. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (06:42.42)
Ooh.
Lyric Kinard (06:57.773)
That is amazing. New, new check thing that I am going to try out. That is so much fun. So when you first started teaching, you were doing the usual traveling around and getting hired by other groups. And then like the rest of us at the start of the pandemic, we all kind of were forced to go virtual, right?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (07:03.841)
It was really fun. Yeah, it was fun.
Lyric Kinard (07:21.645)
If my audience doesn't know, Global Quilt Connection is an online listing service where we, at the very beginning, it was anybody who's willing to dive in headfirst into this thing that we don't know anything about, right? Willing to be a mess as we figure it out and get them connected with the people who hire them. And you were one of those people that were very willing to take the risk and dive in. And I love...
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (07:34.841)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (07:51.384)
that about you and having watched you try out and succeeded all of these different things, the editing and the travel. What would you say to somebody who?
likes to have everything all the way planned and perfect and ready before they dive in because I have the feeling you and I have the same philosophy.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (08:16.409)
Yeah, we really do. We have the same philosophy of dive in, give it a try. If it goes wrong, try again. Like it's better to have 10 failures and one really good success than to never try anything because it's not ready. Right. And I've fallen victim to that as well. Like I have this wonderful on-demand course up and it's gone really well. have a couple of hundred people who have taken it or whatever, but
My second on-demand course, I'm still kind of like, you know, so I fall into that as well. And I have to force myself every day to get brave and start again and put my head down and do the work and just get it out there. And one really fun way that I've enjoyed, like with my first on-demand course, what I really enjoyed was doing it live a couple of times before I made it on demand.
And that is just such a great way to test it out. The students, you can offer it for a little lesser price before you get started because they're your guinea pigs or something like that. But you put it out there and they enjoy being the first to see it, the first to try it. They're happy to tell you, this doesn't work, but this would or whatever. So you get great feedback from your students and it really helps you grow and make the course better. yeah, I'm with you on that one. I just really think it's important to put your head down, do the work and get it out into the world.
And there's one more thing that I think is really important about the sentiment that we both have here. And that is even if you're feeling a little self doubt and you're thinking, do people really need this? Is anyone going to sign up? Just think about that one person out there in the world who really needs what you have to offer. There's someone out there, right? If you're putting your quilt in a quilt show, for instance, this is a good example. You might think, I'm never going to enter a quilt show. I don't want to be judged or what. But if you put your quilt in the quilt show, even if it's
vastly different or it's your first quilt or you think it's not high quality stitching or whatever, put it in the show because there might be someone that walks by at that show and they see your quilt with the stitches all manky or whatever you you thought you did wrong. They might see that quilt and think, that I can do that kind of quilting or maybe I'm at that level. Maybe I should enter a quilt too. So you might be encouraging a child or a beginner quilter or someone who's never quilted before.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (10:28.717)
or someone who doesn't think their quilting is up to snuff. You might encourage them to put their quilt on display for the world. So you never know what those people out there are thinking about what you're doing. And you might just be lifting someone up.
Lyric Kinard (10:41.409)
That is so important. And the whole idea that what we're doing is serving people and making their lives happier. Bringing, so many people think art and the creativity and the making that we do is kind of, it is a hobby, right? But it's not frivolous. We bring beauty and good things into the world, but when we teach it,
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (10:52.816)
Yes.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (11:01.947)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (11:10.175)
When we teach it, we are bringing that to the lives of other people. We are giving them a moment of peace and joy and ease and beauty that maybe they wouldn't get otherwise.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (11:11.344)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (11:25.145)
Yeah, it's so true. And it's that soul searching type of stuff when you're when you're doing the work and making the art, it really fulfills something in us. And that's why we want to teach. That's why we want to share it with the world, because it can be the same for you. It can be that thing in your life that's going to calm your mind and give you joy and, you know, take that stress away from your day.
Lyric Kinard (11:45.056)
It's a good way to get out of the imposter syndrome too, because I know, like I've been doing this for decades and I can get up in front of a couple thousand people and talk and you know, fine, whatever, but I still get every once in a while, nobody's gonna show up. so, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about. Somebody's gonna find out I really am not the expert in this that they think I am.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (11:48.954)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (11:52.633)
you
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (12:00.347)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (12:05.968)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (12:11.425)
But when you get out of your own head and think it's about you, because it's not. When you think it's about them and whatever, whatever kindness, whatever gift we can give them, it turns everything around. So one of my favorite things to do when I'm developing a new on-demand class is I have the outline, I have the idea. Usually I've been thinking about it for years.
because it takes that long in my head to finally have a push to get something done. And I build a landing page and open it for registration, and people sign up, and then I have to get the class done. Right? And you can do it with on-demand course platforms. You can do drip content. So with my beta launch, it's always one less than a week, and it usually gets up.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (12:52.539)
Better get this done now.
Lyric Kinard (13:07.367)
right before the lesson opens, right? But then it's up!
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (13:12.005)
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I have done that too with my next on demand course that's coming up, but I'm feeling that little tug in my heart because I did it live. I did it for two different classes and I've got 24 hours of content up there that is replays, right? And so I need to change that. I need to somehow go in and review all that video, but it's okay to just have it up the way it is. If people want to take 24 hours of content, they can sign up for that.
Eventually, hopefully I'll have it down to like a little six week thing with whatever. you know, I feel that tug as well as the imposter syndrome. And I have a really great example of something that happened in my world with imposter syndrome that really made me realize you can just choose not to have imposter syndrome. Like it doesn't have to exist for you. But I had this quilt that I made and it sat sort of the topper was finished and it sat on the side for like four years and I was
Lyric Kinard (13:43.223)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (14:07.705)
really just not doing anything with it or finishing it or putting it in a show or anything. And it was a modern quilt. And I really truly have always identified myself as an art quilter. And I made this modern quilt and I was just fearful. And the reason I think I had this thing in my back, in the back of my mind, because someone, you know, someone who wasn't kind to me once said to me, like, what do you think you're doing being a quilt judge when you've never even entered a show? And I was like,
Okay, that's a brick that just hit me in the head. What? What? You know, like, why would someone say that was horrible? And I carried that around with me for quite some time. And then I saw this quilt and I thought, you know, I, I just, I want to collaborate with someone to get this quilted and get it into a show. And I collaborated with a friend. We put it into QuiltCon and it got accepted. And I couldn't believe it. I thought there'd been a mistake that
imposter syndrome was just ingrained in me. was like, are you sure you want it? You know, so anyway, it was in the show. I went to my first QuiltCon in 2022 and this has led to so many wonderful things in my life. That quilt actually sold at that show to a private collector and I had put a price on it that was ridiculously high and it sold. So I got like over three grand for that quilt in the end. I was really excited. And just to sort of wrap this story up in a little bow, I'm going to be
taping and filming on thequiltshow.com in a couple of weeks at the end of March. And we had, told them the story. I told them the story about that quilt and Shelly, the, one of the producers said to me, my gosh, we have to have it on the show. And I said, I don't know who has it. Somebody bought it. It's off in the world. And she said, you have to try to find it. So I went back to QuiltCon and I said to them, I know you don't tell me who bought it, but can you reach out to them and see if they'll email me? And they did.
So I got this email from Marianna Stark at Stark Gallery. owns an art gallery in California and she reached out to me and I found out where that quilt lives now and it's in her artist residency. She's got this beautiful Airbnb and it's hanging on the wall there. And last month she sent it to thequiltshow.com and now I'm going to be able to talk about it on the show. you know, it came full circle. And recently I was listening to a podcast and I heard someone say,
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (16:27.449)
You know, imposter syndrome is just made up. This is all just made up. know, it's like, it's like something, it's part of the patriarchy or something. It's just something someone made up when I was like, what? That was a whole new perspective for me, but it really made me realize, okay, I don't have to have imposter syndrome. I just have to put my head down and dive in like Lyric would. I have to get one of those bracelets. What would Lyric do? What would Lyric do? She would put her head down and give it a try.
Lyric Kinard (16:36.459)
Ha ha ha
Lyric Kinard (16:57.215)
Yep, just be willing to make a mess. I make huge mistakes every day and all the stuff I do. But I honestly believe that our community is kind and forgiving. And when I mess up a date, those are the mistakes I make when I was like, I know I said it's gonna be this day, but really asked me this day. And people are forgiving.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (17:00.079)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (17:14.457)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (17:19.929)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (17:23.615)
and kind. And we do things that are generous and gifting to the people we serve and you know they appreciate it. It's all good. It's all good.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (17:35.609)
Yeah, once in my podcast journey, there has only been one out of almost 200 episodes. There's been one that I did not click record and I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated. And I'll tell you who it was because she was the most graceful, kind person ever. It was Kestrel Misho. And at the end of when we said goodbye, shut it down, usually it says, you know, buffering, whatever it goes. And I was like, this is not happening.
What's happening? I felt so bad and I just emailed her right away and she was the kindest. She's like, do you mean we get to have this great conversation again? One more time? I was like, you're so kind. Thank you for being so kind. And we did it over again and it was great. But talk about a kind response. Hey, I was just devastated.
Lyric Kinard (18:14.453)
Yeah, she's brilliant.
Lyric Kinard (18:19.255)
Right, and kindness always pays off. It comes back around. And that's an interesting thing too. Let's talk a little bit about have you ever had experiences where you have somebody who's signed up for an on-demand course or something that you're offering and they're unhappy and they contact you.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (18:21.749)
Yeah, my gosh. Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (18:37.979)
Well, mostly I've only ever had people who are struggling to get on, you know, so I am one who will let's hop on Zoom. will literally walk you through the process. So I've only ever had people who have struggled with the Kajabi platform or something like that. And yeah, the technology part of things. One time I did have a really, I mean, this wasn't an on-demand course though, but I had a really negative person.
Lyric Kinard (18:44.673)
Mm.
Lyric Kinard (18:56.555)
or technology.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (19:06.331)
send me an email. And I was on holiday with my husband in Vegas and I got this email that she had snuck into another guild to watch my on-demand lecture because we already had a contract to do her guild. my guild, my lecture is called Your Mind Matters. So there's five life lessons woven into my lecture and it gets a little bit into the mind. It's called Your Mind Matters. It's not a psychology.
class, but it really does touch on lift yourself up, treat yourself well, surround yourself with people who will, you know, and so woven amongst the 24 or 30 quilts is these little life lessons. so anyway, it was a very negative person who said that was like a psychology lecture and my my guild would crucify me if I hired you and it was horrible. It was just a horrible review kind of thing. Right. And my husband said, you know, is that about you or is that about her?
Lyric Kinard (19:37.738)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (20:05.081)
And I was like, that is so good, honey. Like I was suffering right now because I feel so bad. I, she canceled the contract. I'm not speaking for her guild, right? And then that's income and that's my livelihood. anyway, my husband was like, you cannot, it's crushing you right now. You cannot take that on. You have to just, it's like someone put a piece of poo on your hand and you just go, get rid of it. Blow it right back at them. Right. So I actually went back to them and I said, tell me more.
Lyric Kinard (20:31.725)
All right.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (20:34.297)
Like really? What really was the problem? And she did tell me more and I'm like, well, I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, but it's too bad that your guild is going to miss out on that because you were triggered by something and I'm not going to be able to share my story with them. So that's kind of the way that it ended up, but literally that's the only real big thing that hit me in the heart and I had to deal with it and move on, right?
Lyric Kinard (20:57.461)
It is really, really hard. I often say, especially in my in-person classes, that whoever signs my students up filters them, because I only ever get the best students. They're always amazing, right?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (21:06.459)
Yeah. I know they're incredible. I've never had a student who, I mean, I'll have someone who's struggling with technology. just, yeah, I think I only have one rule in my workshops ever. And that is no one suffers in silence. And it's even more important while you're on Zoom teaching or, you know, like when you're virtual, because I can't wander around and discover that someone's struggling. I have to...
count on them to tell me that they're a little bit behind or struggling. So I'm constantly asking, you know, is everyone caught up? Does anyone want me to repeat that? I can do it again or whatever. But that rule at the beginning, I say nobody suffers in silence. You have to even if you secretly send me a note in the chat, that's totally fine. I will just review it again and make sure that you're caught up. And if you make a mistake, let us know. We all make mistakes. It's totally fine. We'll make sure you get caught up and you can fix it and I'll tell you how to seam rip it or whatever. Right. So
Yeah, I really try to be the person walking around the room even though it's a virtual room.
Lyric Kinard (22:10.793)
Right. And that's, those are two different skills. Like I have had people in an in-person class who were, there's one especially I remember who was just really, I mean, she was almost in tears and I went and sat next to her and talked to her for a while. And it was, you know, it was a design class that my usual audiences, I tell them at the beginning, you're going to be uncomfortable because this is way out of the box for you. You know, we're doing, we're doing
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (22:23.685)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (22:40.077)
weird abstract stuff that takes a while to sink in. And as I sat and talked to her, I realized it wasn't actually about the class. It was other stuff going on in her life. And she was like, I took a day off and this isn't actually what I wanted to be doing. And I just looked at her and was like, my friend, what do you wanna be doing? Why aren't you doing that right now? This is not for me, this is you, go.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (22:50.437)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (23:04.301)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (23:08.957)
and just the relief. If we understand that it really isn't us when people come to us with criticisms or with anger, in fact, even if somebody is trying really hard to be mean to you, I make up stories in my head about the worst day ever on the planet that they're having because it really is about them and that allows you to not take on that burden.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (23:24.922)
haha
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (23:28.431)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (23:37.666)
Right? I loved what you were saying about Zoom though. Let's chat about that because live Zoom classes are a completely different animal than in person. And that is one disadvantage. You can't walk around and look over their shoulder and look at this person. I mean, if she's crying in Zoom, you know, he or she has their camera off, most likely. Right? So I know there are a lot of things that I do.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (23:46.843)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (23:56.805)
Yeah, you can't tell. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (24:04.937)
as a teacher, what are some specific things that you do to draw your students out to create that sense of community and the back and forth on the screen instead of in person?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (24:18.341)
Yeah, well, I love to pull the lurkers out. So a lot of times I'll have a workshop where someone's like, I'm just going to sit and watch. I'm not going to do anything. And it's OK. It's OK to do that. Totally fine. But, you know, go try to pull some fabrics anyway. Just show us what you would use or something like that. So I love to infuse these little moments for everyone in my workshop. So at the beginning, I'll say, OK, we're going to quickly go one by one. I just want to see what your fabric pulls are so we can see what people are working with. And that's a fun way to get everyone started.
Lyric Kinard (24:28.535)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (24:46.563)
And then midway through, if we have sort of a little milestone that we've accomplished halfway, like say we're making a little bucket or whatever and before we turn it or whatever. So I will try to make sure that everyone is on board and I'll say we're going to be showing where we are and what our fabrics look like together at this point. So let's just make sure everybody gets together and I give them time. And if someone's behind instead of saying, we're waiting for someone.
I'll say this is good time to take a break. If you want to use your break to catch up, that's fine. If you want to go get a coffee or tea or take a bio break or something, that's great. But we're going to come back. want to make sure everybody's caught up to this stage so that we can share what we've done. We're having fun and then we can move on to the next step. And then I always try to leave time at the end for the show and tell. And when we do a little show at the show and tell at the end, it doesn't matter if they're finished.
So, you know, I say, let's just show where you're at. It doesn't matter if you're still at stage two. Let's just show your fabrics again and how you think it's working out. Or you can ask about a struggle or anything. So please show what you have anyway. And usually the people who have sort of decided they've dismissed themselves before the class even starts. This rarely happens, but once in a while it does. They've usually come around and they've picked something and they're so inspired and I'm going to try it on my own later. But, you know.
And then the other thing is I always make sure they have their written instructions and they have all the information they need so that they've got the tools from me that I've taught them and now they can take the pattern or the instructions and they can follow it because they've seen it on the screen. So yeah, I usually try to just have those little supportive elements all along the way.
Lyric Kinard (26:25.805)
There's different communication skills. think we need to, a screen is a little bit of a barrier and as a virtual teacher over communication is our modus operandi, right? So before the class starts, making sure that everybody has the written instruction and the materials. I know teachers who will have like a pre-zoom or a quick recorded
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (26:50.97)
yeah, so good.
Lyric Kinard (26:53.055)
video just for their Zoom students to say if you do this little thing it will make it easier for when you start the class, right? And then
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (27:00.463)
Yeah, yeah, it's really good. It's good to prepare them in advance. Like I have different guilds at different levels. so some guilds are actually still at the point where they're saying, are we going to do it on your Zoom or our Zoom? And how does it work? You know, I have that level. And then I have people who this is the hundredth time they've done it. They've got a whole team and I literally just have to click the link and show up and it's all good. Right. So it all depends. Sometimes I'm on my Zoom, sometimes I'm on theirs and every...
Lyric Kinard (27:27.767)
How do you make that decision who's soon to use?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (27:30.139)
I usually like to use mine to make sure the time is good and I'm not going to like sometimes you know a guild will only have half an hour or something on zoom you know and then it ends abruptly so I just chat with them or I'll have a little let's have a zoom with your team who runs your programs and we'll just make sure we've got everything you want and supply lists especially if you have any questions about supply lists so it's interesting like one thing that I learned
from you and through Global Quilt Connection was that video is so effective. And so I love to talk about with the guild about advertising the class. Let's make sure this is full and what can I do for you to help out in that, you know, from that perspective. And one thing is sometimes I'll just do a quick little video talking through the supply list.
Or sometimes I'll do a quick little video saying, these are the three workshops I'm offering to your guild. If you're wondering what they're all about, here's this, here's that, and here's that. And this is what they're about. So go sign up, you know. And if they can share that video through a newsletter to their entire guild, boom, the classes just fill, fill, fill, fill. And it's great. So video is so effective because they get to see who you are. They get a little taste, right? And they're not thinking, this is another one.
you know, that's going to be dry or something that I'm not going to be, it's going to be too hard for me or some of this, you know, limiting beliefs they have, you kind of can overcome that.
Lyric Kinard (28:46.977)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (28:52.331)
And it does not have to be complicated for you as the teacher. You can hold up your phone and walk around and just talk to your phone. They're not expecting anything produced at all for that. And it's personal. And it's your talking to them.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (29:05.295)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (29:11.247)
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, one little tip, I think I heard it somewhere in one of your forums. You have so much great information going out to the world. I remember hearing someone say at one point that they tried the teleprompter idea and I was like, the what? No. And ever since then, I have been using this little app called teleprompter and you can't even tell that I'm just reading it, but I get to write the important points down and I can even just put it in point form, but I can write a whole little script. It's right on the screen that is recording you.
Lyric Kinard (29:30.221)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (29:40.719)
and it just scrolls and it's just so great. And that is a really great way for someone who's nervous about being on screen, who just feels like they're talking ahead and they're not making any impact. If you have the words in front of you, it's such a comfort and you really can just get everything that you want to say in the right order and it works out well.
Lyric Kinard (30:01.779)
I adore the Teleprompter app. I use it on my phone or on my tablet. I don't very often use it when I'm recording head-to-camera on my webcam, but one of the wonderful things about it is it scrolls the words right up next to the camera, no matter how you're holding the camera, so your eyes aren't flicking back and forth. And you can make the size of the script different. You can make it faster, slower.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (30:03.448)
I know, I love it.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (30:16.099)
Yeah, exactly. I know. Yeah, you're not looking all over the place. Yeah, that's perfect.
Yeah. And you can make it slower. Yeah. Slower and faster. When I realized you could do that, was like, this is so perfect. Because at first I was like reading so fast, was like, okay, I got to start again. I didn't make it. But then you can change it to slow down and it's perfect. So yeah.
Lyric Kinard (30:35.661)
Mm-hmm.
Lyric Kinard (30:39.885)
I'll do a couple of practice every time to figure out the right speed. And there's always a word or five or 12 that I trip over. I've gotten to the point where I don't edit those out anymore. I just kind of laugh like I do in real life and figure out how to say it and keep going because that's just the real part of who I am. I can't get words out.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (30:48.665)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (30:53.605)
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I love, I love leaving bloopers in my podcast. You know, if, if I ask someone a question and they don't answer it then I ask them again and they go, wait, I didn't even answer your question. And it's just really good. I'm like, cause they realized it it's just a little blooper and it's fun. People really can relate to that because it's just a nice natural conversation. Right. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (31:06.582)
Mm-hmm.
Lyric Kinard (31:15.565)
Mm-hmm.
Lyric Kinard (31:20.469)
Right, because it's about community. It's not about, I mean, this is a back and forth. This is us giving and them receiving and they, don't you love traveling and going and wherever you go, somebody's like, Brandy. And it's like, they already know you and you have no idea who they are, but they're already your best friend.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (31:24.047)
Yeah, exactly.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (31:37.73)
haha
I know it's true. Yeah, and it is really, it is really fun because they know so much about you. And I sometimes I don't even know their name. And one time I had someone, this was deep in the pandemic when we were all still wearing masks at Houston. And a podcast listener came up and walked by and turned around and said, I recognize that voice. And she came up to it was so sweet. And
Lyric Kinard (31:56.876)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (32:06.075)
You know, it turns out she's like one of the most listeners, best listeners of all time. And I remember posting on social media. I think I met my best listener of all time. And then I had this flood of no, no, no, I'm the best listener. I'm the best. It was like really sweet. So those are the kind of things when people leave you feedback and lift you up. Oh my gosh. It just makes you feel like, this is the reason why I do this. You know, I send an email out to thousands of people every week talking about the podcast.
Lyric Kinard (32:17.631)
It's me.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (32:34.611)
And I get so many replies to that email. I could shut that off if I wanted to. don't. love like my inbox. I get 200 emails and, but I just have to be a part of my community. have to con you know, connect with them. And I don't want to just let that go by. I want to say thank you for listening. I just can't even believe you're here and it's awesome. Thank you. So yeah, I love that part of it. The community is good. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (32:57.589)
Right. teachers, this is a thing. It's okay to ask for feedback as well. Right. I love the feedback that happens as well. Teachers, if you listen to podcasts, if you take other classes, and as a teacher, you know that the two minutes it takes to leave a review or write a quick
testimonial for somebody else, and especially if you say, and by the way, you can use this wherever you want to because I want to tell everybody about how amazing you are. That is a golden gift to whoever you are giving it to.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (33:27.12)
Yeah.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (33:32.537)
Yeah, it truly is. Yeah, and you asked me about difficult feedback if someone's struggling, but let me tell you about the most heartwarming feedback I've ever gotten of all time. This was a creator named Julia MacLeod and I didn't know who she was. And so I was in a cab going to an airport from somewhere and on the social media, I see Julia MacLeod writes, Brandy is the Terry Gross of the quilting world.
And I was like, I'm Canadian, so I didn't even know who that was. And so I just said out loud in the back of the cab, who's Terry Gross? And the cab driver goes, Terry Gross. She's like really famous. She's like an interviewer. Like she's, you know, she's a bit older, but she's really famous and she's known for her interviews. And I was like, my gosh, this is like the best compliment ever. She's this famous person on NPR. And so anyway, the really nice part of that story is that,
One of my sponsors, once in a my sponsors will bring forward a person they'd love me to have on the podcast while they brought me Julia McLeod. So she actually airs tomorrow on the podcast. So this is early March that she airs. But anyway, it's was just kind of like a little full circle thing. She gave me such a nice compliment. And then all of sudden I'm having her on the podcast. So that was really sweet.
Lyric Kinard (34:46.093)
that is sweet. And I know Julia and I'm gonna tell her you said so. She was amazing because she is absolutely amazing.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (34:49.627)
Ugh.
Yeah, Our conversations were so great. I know I absolutely loved having her in the podcast, so I can't wait for that to go out to the world.
Lyric Kinard (35:01.303)
That is so cool. Tell us what you have coming up in your business that you're really excited about.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (35:08.973)
Well, I'm doing a lot of travel, so that's really fun. So one thing that's coming up right away, I leave in a couple of days to go on a cruise with Quilt and Stitch in Heaven in Texas. And for the first time, though, I'm not teaching. So this is kind of unusual for me. They've asked me to come along as an influencer. And I thought, wait a minute, I have influencers on my podcast. I don't know if I'm the influencer, but it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of hard to accept being called an influencer for some reason. But
Lyric Kinard (35:28.073)
Hahaha
Lyric Kinard (35:32.299)
You're the talent.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (35:37.947)
So I get to go and do all of my fun social media and YouTube. And so if you go to my YouTube channel and my social media right now, you'll see all kinds of stuff about this cruise to the Bahamas that's coming up. So that will be fun. And then I've got some TV appearances coming up this year, which I'm very excited about. Thequiltshow.com. We're taping that at the end of March. So that might even be done by the time your podcast airs.
And then I'm going to be on Quilting Arts TV again with Susan Brubaker-Knapp as a co-host and I'll be featuring some fun little technical skills as well. So I'm really excited about those things. But one thing I wanted to mention is my quilt destination travel. So the trip that's coming up this year that people can come along with me is England and Wales. So we do this full two week tour of England and Wales.
It is so fun. This is my fourth time doing it. And I will do this trip every single year if they keep having me back because I love this show. It's called the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. And we do a full tour of England and Wales before we get to the show. And then we have three days at the show at the end. So we see all the most famous things in London. We go to Stonehenge and Bath and all these little places in Wales. We stay in a mansion one night, which is just so fun. And the food is delicious.
We do high tea. We just have so much fun. And of course, there's shopping, lots and lots of shopping like Liberty of London. I mean, who doesn't want to go check that out? Right. So anyway, that is such a fun trip and it fills up. They can they can go to my website and find it right there. Quilteronfire.com. Click on events and they can also find it at opulentquiltjourneys.com. So they have that's where you actually sign up with them so you can go straight there.
Lyric Kinard (37:06.441)
Where can they sign up for that?
Lyric Kinard (37:13.898)
Excellent.
Lyric Kinard (37:23.725)
I want to go so bad.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (37:25.389)
It's so fun. love that. The highlight of that show for me is that everyone who enters the show gets in the show. So you see all levels of quilts from beginner to expert and everything in between. you just, yeah, it's just a really great show.
Lyric Kinard (37:38.976)
It's a lovely sharing of this creative outlet, this joy that we get. Quilting, I love all the arts. I have my hands and my fingers and all the pots and all the pies, right? But quilting, the tradition is built on community. It's built on being together and doing a thing together. So I love that that continues with it. Before we go with you, I want to ask you just a couple of fun questions. One.
If you could look back on your beginning business as a teacher's self, what is one thing that, one piece of advice that you would give yourself, knowing what you know now?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (38:20.293)
Yeah, I think it would be really to assess what really is your genius zone. Like what do you really love to do the most? Because, I mean, I'm not against trying everything. Dive in and try all the different things, but don't keep doing all the different things. You know, narrow it down to the thing you love the most and do that. And, you know, one of the things I really, really enjoy is speaking. And that really has been...
the monetary thing in my business that's done so well because people keep inviting me again and again. And that is something that just brings me so much joy. And it's the people who will come up to me afterwards. I literally had someone come up to me after a lecture in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And she came up and she brought me a whole little packet of tea because she follows me on social media and knows I'm not finding good tea in the United States for some reason. And so she brought me all this tea and there was tea in there from Canada.
I said, where did you get that? And she said her sister lives in Canada. anyway, really. So the advice would be to really look for what is your genius zone. When, when people ask me, I'm on a lot of podcasts, which is really fun. I think I've been on over a dozen of them and this is a common question, right? And I always say, find what you love.
do more of that. Just keep doing it and just do what you love and forget all the rest, right? And then eventually you'll be able to come around full circle and share that with people who you are lifting up as well, right? So just really focus on the thing that brings you the most joy.
Lyric Kinard (39:51.149)
Perfect, absolutely perfect. And one fun question to fly out on, what is the last thing you made?
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (39:55.643)
Sure. There's things I'm supposed to be making, but I put this aside for you because this is the last thing I actually made. Okay, the quick story is my aunt in the States, I went down to visit her in Lewiston, Idaho, and she had this huge bag that she bought at an estate sale. And it was full of fabric and she thought I would love it. And it was all velvet, which is not quilting fabric, but really kind of cool for fiber art and art quilting.
So I've been on a roll making all of these little pin cushions. I've been having so much fun. So I'm finding all these little vintage bowls and things, and I'm making all these little pieces of velvet. It's kind of hard to see, but I'm having a lot of fun with it, putting little stitches on it and just having a blast. So I'm making. I know I'm making these soft, luscious pin cushions, so I'm having a lot of fun with that. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (40:29.834)
look at that.
Lyric Kinard (40:42.078)
there's so much and so tactile.
That is so much fun. Well, Brandy, thank you so much. People look in the show notes for all the links to check out Brandy, check out all the amazing things she's done and is doing. And I cannot wait to see where you go next, Brandy.
Brandy@quilteronfire.com (41:06.043)
Lera, it's been so nice to see you again. Thank you for having me on your show.
Lyric Kinard (41:10.591)
It's always our pleasure. Take care.
Categories: : Podcast