This Week in my Business - Friday June 19 2026
I'm not earning enough
Fuck Fuck Fuck… Money.
Top Three Wins This Week
I found out I’m not earning enough to continue as I am. Why is this a win? Because I now know the exact number I’m short by.
I do not currently have cervical cancer (that I know of). First round of biopsies came back negative!
Taught seven workshops this week and I am not dead.
Beabyrne.com Business
I’ve started working with a financial coach (Christine Lane - tell her I sent you) who specializes in people with ADHD. I have never been good at tracking money and, even after minimizing every expense, I knew that even after almost 3 years building my business I still wasn’t making enough. Which is very annoying when you work 6-day weeks that frequently involve 14 hour days. Now I know the exact numbers and am on track to learn better tracking habits. Still pondering the future of BeaCorp.
I taught 6 workshops in the last 6 days and have a 7th tomorrow. 3 UV Resin, a DIY Selfcare, and a Corporate Father’s Day workshop making Organic Aftershave and Shaving Gel. I am truly a multi-hyphenate creative! My calendar is here. Hire me!
Austin Kleon’s new book is largely based on lessons he learned from playing and making with his kids. I don’t have any kids and nor does anyone in my network apart from my sister, who’s in a different country. This week I taught a UV Resin workshop at a Summer Camp and met “Weapon S” and “Weapon J” who had just decided to call themselves that. They both made these amazing necklaces out of the resin (actually they made the letters and I made the necklaces). Everything good that happened was described by Weapon S as “aura”, aka “That’s so aura man!”. Kids are fascinating. Occasionally.
Globalquiltconnection.com Business
Slow week as I’ve been teaching so much.
I’m wondering if rather than paying to move to another platform entirely, I can just hobble along with absolutely awful Zenler, but pay for email separately. I’m already running Zoom and Thrivecart for event registrations separately because Zenler is so utterly unreliable. See here for my issues with Zenler. I haven’t even added the issues from May and June yet.
I taught my 6-hour Sew Together Bag workshop on Tuesday as a bonus from the All Star Platter event after attendees helped us get to 500 subscribers on our YouTube channel. Well, actually more than 750! Slowly working towards monetizing it but now we can already help our Teachers by “collaborating” on content which helps them grow too.
Personal
I was thrilled to read on the BBC news “Young women now have ‘close to zero’ risk of cervical cancer death after HPV jab”. Sadly no one offered me the vaccine (it cuts off at 45 in the USA and I’m 47) but I have somehow ended up with HPV. Still a lowish risk on its own BUT the treatment I had for breast cancer had a side-effect of increasing your risk of cervical cancer so I’ve been fairly freaked out recently. First round of tests were negative BUT (again) my age means a further procedure is ready and there’s a delay of a month so I’m sitting here trying not to freak out.
Fortunately (depending on your perspective) my therapist is a big fan of The Secret and after months encouraging me to watch the documentary or read the book I finally did (it’s free on YouTube). I am not a fan of or believer in woo BUT (again, again) yesterday I pulled into a thrift store parking lot where the parking was really limited and I thought “There is going to be a parking space for me” and… there was. So now you know it is all 100% true. At the same time, I did some introspecting while driving back from the aftershave party, and thinking positively about the future…or simply thinking about the future rather than constantly thinking “Shit, I need to only do things that make money, I don’t have time for anything else, Geez I’m tired”, doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
I have finally, after more than 20 years, made the decision to buy a hammock for my living room. It’s a big, weird shaped room, so this will work. I will lay in it and think about the future, and Charlotte will join me and dream cat dreams.
Links & Info
My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here
My workshops for everyone else are here
1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)
These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.
This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.
This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.
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