On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about owning a fabric shop with my guest Tawnee Kinnebrew.
Tawnee is the owner and founder of Wyldwood Creative in Renton, Washington. She opened Wyldwood Creative to share her love of making with the community. She is a maker of all things and has at least 10 works in progress at any one time. When she’s not at work she loves hanging out with her husband Taylor and their pack of dogs, Zeus, Gus, and Willow, and a fluffy cat named Stella. She loves living in the Pacific Northwest, a good DND adventure, seeing live music, and of course sewing! Owning Wyldwood is a dream come true and she is so thankful she gets to do what she loves every day.
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We begin this conversation with Tawnee talking about her childhood and moving to Washington in 2013 with her partner. Tawnee got a marketing degree that led to retail and automotive industry jobs before deciding to become self-employed. She began with an Etsy shop making crochet beanies and later discovered quilting in 2013 after her husband bought her a sewing machine.
Tawnee taught herself to make her first quilt using an unconventional approach, but was hooked on quilting. She eventually transitioned from selling handmade goods to teaching sewing, intending to open a craft teaching space in downtown Renton, Washington.
Tawnee explained how she initially planned Wildwood as a community art space for fiber arts and parties. She made a successful pivot to e-commerce in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
We talked about the name Wyldwood, and also about Tawnee’s unusual first name. We also discussed e-commerce and POS choices. Tawnee explained that she initially chose Rain Retail for its fractional selling feature but switched to Shopify for better SEO performance based on her SEO specialist’s recommendation. While the transition eliminated fractional selling, requiring customers to purchase full units instead of quarter yards, the switch has been beneficial overall, particularly due to improved SEO rankings and better integration with Faire vendors. E-commerce now makes up roughly 50% of Wyldwood’s revenue each month.
We talk about some of the challenges involved in carrying garment fabrics and in curating inventory for a shop in general. We also discuss funding, including small business loans, and the challenges and opportunities involved in being your own boss. Tawnee shares which classes at the shop are the most popular, and she talks about the business-focused videos she’s known for on Instagram.
In this conversation, we reference:
And, of course, I ask Tawnee to recommend great stuff she’s loving right now. Tawnee recommends:
- Rewatching Ted Lasso
- quiltmockup.com
- Playdate with the Universe tarot deck
Keep up with Tawnee on the Wyldwood Creative website and on Instagram.
