Episode 11 of the Made With Love Experiment Ft. Melinda of @ByrdcallStudio

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Thank you for listening to the made with love experiment. My name is Nicole Snow and I'm the founder and CEO of Darn Good Yarn. This podcast is a look into the lives of makers women and entrepreneurs as we dissect what it is that helps us curate life on our own terms. Creativity is not just for some crafting supplies and a pattern. I believe creativity can fuel you to live your best life and yes it's all an experiment. Join me as we dive into the world of these special individuals and my hope is that you take some morsels of encouragement and empowerment so you can go and create your best life.

(Nicole)

Everyone it’s Nicole Snow I'm the founder and CEO of Darn Good Yarn. I have an awesome guest for us today on the Made With Love Experiment and it's Melinda Byrd and she is the founder of Bird Call Studio and I am so excited to have you on our show today like I am a fan girl. We met at a stitches event over in Connecticut, Hartford. Yeah how can I forget the traffic of Hartford and I remember going up to you and you had a beautiful display like right in front and I was like is this for like rug hooking and you were like no no no come sit down and let me show you everything. I would love for you to tell everyone what your studio, what your business, is all about because I am completely now hooked into your world of making rugs and it's just so exciting for me.

(Melinda)

That's exciting for me to hear because my mission is to share what I know and I learned from my grandparents. When I was a little kid and they started importing supplies for making real rugs from Sweden the year I was born and so I grew up playing with yarn and matching colors and they made me design my first. I want to make a rya rug and they said no you design your own and so they gave me for Christmas present, all the supplies I needed for one pillow. It was a big pillow, yeah, it took me a while to do, but that was my first designed rug but anyway I worked with them in their later years and then rya rug making was not so easy to find at that time and it was not like the hot fashion in the magazines at that time. So it kind of fell by the wayside and so my grandparents passed away, my parents sold the business so they asked if I wanted it and I said no I've got my own career and then 30 years later I realized that I knew something that a lot of people didn't know about how to do it and so I started sharing it in a video and the video just has been seen by well over half a million people and they're contacting me saying how do you do this? So I'm writing a book but in the meantime I was running a studio and providing artwork for a lot of customers so I'm trying to, that's my juggle is running the studio trying to be what other people want me to be as the artist. But also getting information out yeah and there's

03:06

nobody else right now who can teach what I can teach and like I want to get into the history of rya rugs as well because that in itself like.. I have told that story that you told me so it's like old school storytelling or like it's kind of passes from one to another but the history of rya is so interesting for people who aren't who don't know about it.

(nicole)

Can you talk a little bit about what it is and that's a rug right behind you .

(Melinda)

That is the one here that was featured in the show and this is going to be on the cover of my book

(Nicole)

I hope so it's so beautiful

(Melinda)

You've seen it you start here folks! Yeah the history the oldest it goes back to the Viking days and just the logic of once people started to weave knowing how a pile of shag on a weave makes something a lot warmer than a flat wave. So where they were wearing sheep skins or animal hides at one point they're very hard to clean they don't bend easily, so people started to weave with some shag just wool fleece maybe tucked into the fibers of the warp and and beat down and that was the very beginning sort of as clothing and sleigh coverings and boat ryas. Out in the boats it was freezing cold and these ryas then woven were very insulative so then they gradually started to become more decorative over the centuries. Vikings were bringing rugs from Persia and the monasteries and bringing them home and like hey this is a cool rug oh I can do a design like that. So the designs developed and it's mostly from my understanding Sweden and Norway as the main developers of the of the rya rug and then Finland joined in later and made it more of an art form than the practical form.

(Nicole)

I remember reading at one point to that like women would make the rug. They would make a rya rug and they would get married on it, like that was like the wedding I don't know if dowery the right word, but they married and then you'd have their rug you know show off your craftiness I guess.

(Melinda)

Yeah and if they couldn't do it because they didn't have the ability or the loom they would hire people, weavers, who go from town to town weaving rugs for other people. So they would lay them on their wedding bed or on the bed and they just kept the warm face down so the pile was holding the air pockets and in Finland apparently, I learned for one woman they hung them on a wall in their home until the spouse died and then it went on their bed. So I'm learning lots of different things and some might be just in certain areas. Yeah I'm putting this in the book.

(Nicole)

This is in no way medical advice here that's my disclaimer, but I'll tell you I

06:28

was dealing with a little bit of like arthritis and my wrist in my right wrist

06:32

and it was actually holding me back from doing a lot of like my arts and crafts. I had a little bit of workplace injury at Darn Good Yarn a year ago. Everyone laughs it was because I was taping boxes and the repetitive motion like really messed my wrist up and I actually sat down and I just started really ripping terry into one of the rugs, one of the kits I got from you and I'm gonna tell you like I'm convinced that it helped all of my stabilizer muscles because it's not, I don't want to say it's a wussy it's not a wussy craft. Like you have to put some oomph into that and that I like I don't have wrist issues anymore and I'm convinced that it was because of that motion and you're like cranking that yarn through. Yeah you get biceps developed when you work on a rya rug

(Melinda)

Yeah you gotta be a hardy girl. Almost half my customers, maybe a third are men believe it or not. Yeah which you know it's unusual for fiber arts they don't really you know

(Nicole)

You're right about that and the other thing I think is interesting to point out like what I really like about this rug making technique is that you're holding three different, usually three different colors I think that's probably the newer that I think that's where you were leading into, where three different colors and usually three different weights of yarn as well of wool yarn and that's how you're getting that really beautiful shade so if anyone the people that are watching this maybe for our listeners who are just listening on podcast you'll have to come in, oh you have this is perfect,

(Melinda)

This is a threading card and it shows like how you it's like a pallet, the rya artists palette as you know, but like you put three strands on the needle and you can get a huge spectrum of color.

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(Nicole)

It just creates a lot of beautiful depth, that I think you know that people who are into rug hooking if they do their own dying of their own wool like they kind of like to get that multi tonal effect like you achieved the same when, just by mixing the three different types of yarns the different tones off of that. Which is just so cool

(Melinda)

Yeah its hardy it just feels so good in your hands

(Nicole)

I'm totally love it I love how vibrant it's just different. You know when I met you I have been thinking about like in terms of Darn Good Yarn you know what the next step is and I see, so in India you know we deal a lot with yarns from India and you see often art sort of dying out or the quality diminish over time because the next generation isn't there to backfill and learn and make that art better. Like it's just dying off because you know the kids go move to the big cities and they go live their life and so then you have and it's happening around the globe. These old school like folk arts are dying off and I'm like man I have I've been just putting out into the world and after I met you I'm like, okay I think I really have to do this some kind of show or documentation that really displays each of these handicrafts that are limited. These limited chain like these limited supplies like out into the world you know.

(Melinda)

There's no reason it has to be rya rug yarn that's my experience but I use rya rug yarn but you have so many yarns at your fingertips. Imagine playing with what you have,

(Nicole)

Yeah I am that's going to be the next step but I have a two-year-old as well and I get it I like I'm sure a lot of crafters can like identify like I'm sort of like a squirrel, I'm like oh this craft okay, and then next craft.

So tell us a little bit about your other studio and I think this is like really would be very interesting for a lot of our listeners because a lot of people I find, they juggle a lot and so you know they're either juggling between motherhood and their business or maybe a full-time other job. So you have like you have a your actual, it is that like more like your full-time job if you want to call it?

(Melinda)

I mean the Rya has totally taken off with a huge demand and what I was doing before which is mostly print, making carving wood cuts and linocuts and printing on paper. Also printing on clothing and the clothing. The t-shirts they had a huge following and they still have a huge following but I just can't keep up with that so I'm kind of I'm selling them on Etsy and let people know exactly what's there and they get that very shirt that they see but I also I mean I have painted on glassware. Pretty exciting work not normal stuff but like portraits and flowers and I mean well it's glassware, I make floor cloths, floor canvas that you walk on, and I love floor cloths. I mean I could go in so many directions to but the rya has just it's like that's what everybody who contacts me wants. Many emails a day, and I've met so many people around the world.

(Nicole)

That's so cool. So how do you have it, I mean you have the demand obviously and you have sort of the family lineage with it. Is that the calling or is artistically like this is where it's brought like this is, I don't say full circle that's corny, but it kind of seems like that a little bit.

(Melinda)

I never intended that to happen but it happened and I knew it happened. I knew it was happening as it was happening, and that was when I had to make a decision first of all to write the book. To integrate trying to revive this art but I knew it was going to totally take all my time and I would have to give up everything else I did pretty much.

(Nicole)

Was that difficult?

(Melinda)

Yeah it was really difficult and I still think well when the books done and when the excitement settles out then I'll paint paintings again and I'll make floor cloths that I'll do this and that and I just don't know if that's going to happen. Well what if I teach more people to teach and kind of get this snowball effect I'll lighten the load because other people can promote it and do it and get more stores and shops and art centers selling the supplies keeping it alive. I feel like my mission and what I hope to kind of do for my grandparents who are long gone now, is prove to them that they really did they were there on the cutting edge of a really incredible craft. It wasn't there for them after a while after a couple of decades it was tough for them and they kind of gave up, and I felt sad for them but here it is I mean yeah I'm becoming my grandparents.

(Nicole)

So what would you like if you had an ask like you know we have the Darn Good Yarn community, like have you started to train teachers already? Like you have a certification course or?

(Melinda)

That's the book, the book is going to be the start because I can send that out around the world and I, then - once people because people don't know what rya is. Most people say Ryan it doesn't really matter but I can't draw people into learning something that they have no idea what it is, and it's so easy to fall in love with rya as you know.

(Nicole)

It took me like five. It took me seriously five minutes and that was like in an audience because you were doing a demonstration, and it was like the last thing you want to do I mean think about learning how to knit in front of a whole bunch of people. You're like oh my god this is going to turn out terribly and I was nervous and like seriously it took no time at all. Like yeah it's a great craft

(Melinda)

So I have to keep getting it out in that type of way and then have someone that I teach say I really like this. This is where I want to go in life and then bring that group together and teach everything I know although every time I teach, I teach everything I know pretty much and then the book has all the details but like I'm teaching starting tomorrow an eight-week class at a retirement community that I taught at last year, and I mean this happens to be all women that sign up but they design their own, they learn the math but just could be daunting but it's not really that bad. Though it's really rewarding for me but they probably won't take it and take the ball and run I need a younger audience who will do more with it. One little story I'll share with you, this morning I got an email from a friend in Sweden named Mia. Mia contacted me about three years ago and she said someone had given her a rya rug kit and she didn't know how to do it she couldn't find anybody in her community who knew anything about it, and she asked me to teach her and I did and I thought and that's when I decided I have to write a book because if people in Sweden can't find the answer to how to make a kit. So she emailed me today and said well so she gets my newsletter and in my newsletter I asked for people who know a little bit about Rya, to offer to be a mentor where if somebody in their community buys a kit and doesn't know what to do or buy supplies and doesn't know what to do, they hook them up I link them up, so they can help each other so I got an email from another woman in Sweden who bought a kit from me just a few months ago, and that woman needed an interpretation actually a the Norwegian instructions and Mia helped her and solved her problem. I was like that's exactly what I need that's so that.

{Nicole}

I love that, that is so cool, it's like you're building community too and I think there's that essence of I think so much of our crafting, it's almost like crafting is the secondary effect of this community of individuals like just trying to create and that's cool, that's cool that you're doing that. How many people a year do you think or a month do you think get hooked on to rya?

{Melinda}

I mean maybe I might start maybe two or three people a week on a new project. That's and that's just I mean it's not that many but then I get like on the video comments of all these people who have never seen this craft before, say this is where I want to go in life so I see the comments come on the YouTube video which is kind of reaching out, reaching to people but and then I've started a Facebook group off my Facebook page Bird Call Studio and the group has about 90 people who have signed up and they talk to each other. I've got to put it in their hands and they help each other, that's really rewarding for me.

{Nicole}

So you get the teachers in place or you get some kind of cool certification in the works and like okay, now you have this do you go back to the art that you were working on, that you sort of put on hold or what do you think would be the next step?

{Melinda}

I don't know, but the main point of that is I would be able to do whatever I want okay, and so and I've not been designing new ryas lately because for time practically everything every hour I spend on Rya is for somebody else at this point so it’s nothing for myself. Well I could design it, turn to a kit but it takes time so I have designs in my head that I really would be dying to do but also I mean I'm getting older and you know things I carve and it takes tools and hands. I just had hand surgery a few weeks ago and I’m back to normal again but I do a lot of physical stuff with my hands and so I can't do everything forever. So painting maybe where I head eventually but I think it's gonna be Rya, I've become an evangelist when I talk about Rya people have told me that and again.

{Nicole}

You are, I mean like I'm in. You know I have to tell you, I had a quilt rack an old quilt rack in my house and I turned it into my Rya stand and so I hooked the rug up and because I was finding like I was moving it around my house and then I said okay, like I need something that's where I can sit at a table but my table isn't always available. And I've gotten like quite through the rug so like I have maybe not even a third left to complete so you have this big heavy rug on you and then usually my daughter kind of hanging on me so I took this quilt stand. I'll have to take a picture of it actually because I think you'd be interested and I clamped it on both the top and bottom so now it's like almost like as if you were have a tapestry and you sewed it onto a thing. Like I just sorta clamped it and I can work on it very quickly now, like you know yeah it's pretty cool.

{Melinda}

You should post that picture on the Friends of rya because that's kind of thing people share, then they show what they do.

{Nicole}

Yeah and it's nice an ergonomic because the quilt rack is like exactly at like a nice height of a desk where you're not hunched over and it's nice on your wrists. Ill show it to you. I just think it's so cool what you're doing and, I understand the sort of stretch between having something you want to do and then like sort of your mission at hand. I have a lot of similar feelings like even in running the business every day where you have this business. It is it’s own little microcosm, your employees and stock and all of this and then I have these like passion projects that I'm like well if I get to this place then I'll have time for this. Exactly what you're talking about like being able to revive other crafts is really where my heart keeps tugging towards and finding things like that. But I'm like all but I have this business thing I have to run.

{Melinda}

Yeah and I want to read books. I collect all these books I want to read having nothing to do with rya but they sit in my bookshelf till I have time.

{Nicole}

Yeah I think, you know, I think part of its a technology, you know an answer from technology to help us. That's what I'm learning at least and I'm finding the right people to help us too. You know who are just as passionate.

{Melinda}

I'm learning a little from you doing, reaching out this way to so many people.

{Nicole}

You might find someone that can completely revolutionize the way you're doing it and yeah you know. Can you show people I don't know if it's available to you but for everyone who's watching to show just the back of the rya rug. I think its actually the coolest well I shouldn't say the coolest it's a it's just, it's unexpected.

{Melinda}

This is a little one that I have.

{Nicole}

This is one, I bought that one for my mother-in-law for her birthday. I got major daughter-in-law points very needed good points.

{Melinda}

So like this is when I drew in the backing as stars and here's the front of it, and just for the fun of it I'll show you the same in gray, but that's all natural grays

{Nicole}

Are the sheep, like a special sheep or what, what's special about the wool?

{Melinda}

Well the wool on these backings is from Norway and it's the spell so sheep which is in the direct line of evolution in norway. There's a bill so and spell so and they're like my branch. So it's course they are rugged sheep, that don't need pampering. It's wool that would never be used as a sweater around your neck because it would be scratchy, itchy.

{Nicole}

So these are my spirit animal, kind of rugged and harsh.

{Melinda}

Your a rya girl! I've heard that when they had these sheep that were really coarse, and there's actually one called the Rya Fur from Sweden. It's a very rare sheep now there's only I think like two thousand left in the world and so that's one of the breeds that really did almost die off but it was saved but there are other sheep breeds, it has such coarse wool that their hair wool was used to make the backings it was the only thing they could think of doing with this wool. Making something very coarse totally waterproof for sleds and boats.

{Nicole}

Yeah and there was a video of you with this. You were making that, where can people find your videos and things like that?

{Melinda}

Um that's the only video I've made to completion and it's on YouTube ,and the best way to find its just go to youtube and type Rya rug making and you will find it.

{Nicole}

That's R Y A for anyone who's maybe just like listening and walking, on a walk right now, or something yeah

{Melinda}

I've been working on some other videos with the same guy who did that video. We've put them aside until the books done because I don't want to get too frazzled but I'm thinking as a coaching mechanism for people like once they start making a rug. I can I'm working on a video that will have all the tips and tricks. Just timesavers what's the word from passing tricks?

{Nicole}

Hacks?

{Melinda}

Yes, Rya hacks but there's lots of hacks, and that people have figured them out on their own but it's just why not learn it from a video and share it with somebody else.

{Nicole}

Absolutely yeah. Maybe I'll do a little video of how I set up my quilt stand because it totally increased my speed and that's what I needed because like my little two-year-old she has red hair so it's just like you see this little poof of red hair and like you're like okay I have 20 minutes to craft right now. Like you need to get after it Nicole.

{Melinda}

Yeah that’s smart. I know they used to sell them I think in Sweden but Norway. Norway's catalog it's like very old fashion directions that come with the kits. And show a woman dressed in 1950s clothing working on a rack and I've never seen that rack or anybody using it. It's just in that little picture but I know that people use them but you've developed your own.

{Nicole}

That's really cool actually I'll take a picture tonight and I'll email it to you, just so you can see what I'm doing. This has been so much fun, I hope that everyone goes to check out what you're doing. Erika who works with me here, she's going to post the links to how anyone can find you and you said through your Etsy store is really the best way to do that?

{Melinda}

Well through Etsy they can see everything and read about everything and see ten pictures of everything so yeah that's a good place to start.

{Nicole}

Yeah and I'll tell anyone that's starting if you're even interested. Melinda you have some really just nice basic kits like you don't need a lot. Like it's not like other crafts where you need to have, I don't know like a loom or anything else that you can just sit there with the yarn and your needles and do your thing. So if you just get the kit, the kit truly has everything you need in it and that's awesome. You don't have do swatches or anything like that.

{Melinda}

Yeah my hope is people make a kit and then say I can make my own and then just get yarn colors and just design their own.

{Nicole}

Yeah but your kits are awesome. I got your water swirl and I'm like I cannot wait to get this started. I'm finishing up the other one still. I collect them, oh my, I'm like you with the books it's like you just collect them and you're like I will have all the time in the world at some point to get all on my crafting done said every single crafter.

{Melinda}

You have to take your daughter and get her doing it. Yeah we just we just learned how to plant seeds last night in soil so were making process. All right well this has been so much fun I always like to end the shows with one one special question is, what's the best advice that anyone has ever given you?

{Melinda}

I think there was a time when I was trying to see if I could make it as an artist and I wanted to be as good as other people, and I think finally somebody said, be yourself. It's the individual of you that is the essence of you and that's what shines and there's no being like other people that can make your essence come through and make art joyful. So I try to be myself.

{Nicole}

That's cool, that's a great message. It's hard and it's good, it's always a good reminder because we're our own worst critics sometimes.

{Melinda}

Yeah, don't judge yourself, just let things flow and love what you do and smile and just share it with others.

{Nicole}

So cool. This has been so fun, like I just I feel like I'm reconnecting with an old friend like even though we've only met that one other time. But it's just, you have so much love in what you do and it's it's just it's really refreshing to see someone have so much joy in our creative industry and I sometimes it does get this like, kind of weird commercialization and watching people on Instagram and it does get highly competitive and it I think it holds people back more than frees them to really be themselves and I think that you're a really great beacon of light for a lot of crafters and makers out there. Thank you very much I've enjoyed talking with you today!!