season 1, episode 11 - in search of ease with françoise danoy
our guest for episode 11 is françoise danoy! you may also know them as aroha knits. françoise is a franco-māori american australian knitwear designer and design coach living in san antonio, texas. they transform their stories into stitches and help other aspiring designers to do the same through the yarn alchemist collective as well as swatch studio circle. frenchie has also recently joined the ranks of natural dye nerds and sells their naturally dyed yarn with seasonal shop updates. you can find them online at arohaknits.com and on instagram @arohaknits.
each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #snortandcacklebookclub, with a book review by ash and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. this season's #snortandcacklebookclub read is "witchcraft in early modern poland 1500-1800" by wanda wyporska.
take the fibre witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz. follow us on instagram @snortandcackle and be sure to subscribe via your favourite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode! find transcripts for every episode at snortandcackle.com - just navigate to "podcast" in the main menu.
seasons 1-3 of snort & cackle are generously supported by the manitoba arts council.
transcript
snort & cackle - season 1, episode 11 -
françoise danoy
ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays in the background.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast. I'm your host Ash Alberg. I'm a queer fibre witch and hedge witch, and each week I interview a fellow boss witch to discuss how everyday magic helps them make their life and the wider world a better place.
Expect serious discussions about intersections of privilege and oppression, big C versus small C capitalism, rituals, sustainability, astrology, ancestral work, and a whole lot of snorts and cackles. Each season, we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500-1800 by Wanda Wyporska. [Music fades out.]
ash alberg: Perfect. Hello everyone. Today I am here with my friend, Françoise Danoy, who you may also know as Aroha Knits, and Françoise is a Franco-Maori American Australian knitwear designer and design coach living in San Antonio, Texas.
They transform their stories into stitches and help other aspiring designers to do the same through the Yarn Alchemist Collective, as well as Swatch Studio Circle. And Frenchie, you also have started working with natural dyes and selling naturally dyed yarn. So thanks so much for joining me, this is going to be fun.
françoise danoy: Thank you for having me on, it's such an honor and a pleasure to be here with you today.
ash alberg: I'm so excited for this. I'm really excited especially because we're design/biz stories are like similar in terms of not necessarily trajectory but like what we've been doing and also timeline-wise. And you have gone in like much different directions than I have at various points. And also you went like real viral at an earlier stage of business, which I'd love to dig a little more into actually.
françoise danoy: Yeah, sure!
ash alberg: I think it's . . . what I really love about, like, your biz and you in general is that we're quite similar in being like very vocal about our values right up front. But, whereas I've gone the route of just like basically being a bitch right from the get go . . . [Françoise laughs.] I've been like real slow but with an audience that is like OK with that. You went viral . . .
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: And I think that there's a lot of lessons that people can learn in terms of how do you get that growth and still hold true to your values? Because I think it's a thing that a lot of, especially like value-based small biz owners and creatives, fear about growing bigger, is that they're going to lose control over, over their audience and also what it is that they're doing and kind of those core, those core reasons that they started their biz and how their business might look if they were to grow quickly in a way that they weren't necessarily expecting to.
And I think the way that you've handled it over the years has been like a really great example for people. And especially the last few years, obviously our industry has started talking about race and the way that that plays into people's access to spaces that white knitters, in particular, have just, "what do you mean people are uncomfortable coming into yarn stores and going to these large events??" it's because there's nobody who fuckin looks like them.
And then also you stay . . . say stupid shit. Yeah. I would love to chat more about how that's been for you, if you want to talk about that.
françoise danoy: Yes, certainly!
ash alberg: And then also you, Layla, Raven, have been doing some really beautiful collaborations that I think are just super cool and yeah. Also just the way that you have been able to really work your ancestral background into your knitting, I think, is really beautiful and inspiring. And yeah. There's just . . . I want to talk to you about all the things.
And you're also very witchy! Which is super fun and I think sometimes doesn't necessarily come out quite as loud for some of . . . maybe some of your audience members are able to just be like, aahh whatever, but I know that you're
super witchy. [Cackles.] So yeah, I'd love to chat about all those things with you somehow within the next two hours.
françoise danoy: Yeahh. [Both laugh.]
ash alberg: Why don't you tell us a bit about who you are and what you do in the world and how you came to all the different things that you're doing now?
françoise danoy: OK! Let's see. Where to start? So you did go over some of like the basics. My name is Françoise, I'm a Franco-Maori-American-Australian knitwear designer and design coach.
Although within the past few weeks, at least like when this episode is coming out, like you said mid-October, by that time it will be a few months since I made this transition in my business, but I'm starting to transition more fully into design coaching and creative business monitor. Shifting a little bit away from knitwear design and that aspect, but I'm still gonna be doing that because I still love creating. It's still going to be a part of me, I just had to . . . I needed to slow down on things a little bit.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: But I started my career, I started designing knitwear. When I was living in Japan, when I moved there about 2015, wasn't able to work, and I just had picked up knitting, just like a few months before, and I was like, I'll start a knitwear design business! [Laughs.]
ash alberg: Love that.
françoise danoy: Yeah! So, even though I didn't know anything about knitwear design or running a business, I just told myself, this is something that I want to do for myself to create a sustainable business, to make a living for myself and for my family, and just to push myself to create something for myself. Yeah.
And so . . . but the past . . . so the following years that was just really diving deep into designing patterns and learning the ins and outs of business and things like that. And I think, like you mentioned, you said I went viral at a pretty early stage, I think it was like in 2016-2017 when I started running my challenges.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: Especially my five shawls, five days challenge. That was something that really pushed me to the forefront and really started getting people interested in my work and knowing who I was. That was actually something that I . . . the little thing that I teach my students when they're starting to build their business is to pay attention to what's happening in other industries, see what strategies and marketing tools and strategies people are using in those other industries and try to bring them into ours to try and innovate things. You may just find a new way of doing things.
And also with the challenge, I noticed something that people were doing in other industries, specifically with my business mentor. My first business coach that I worked with, she had run a 10 day challenge to drum up interest in her upcoming branding program, and I was like oh, that's a pretty cool idea, I'm going to see if I can do one for something as basic as shawls to help promote my e-book that I made.
Like, I was really nervous, but like how are people going to enjoy knitting up these shawls? But I was like, just go for it anyways, see how it happens, it's a free thing anyway. And people really enjoyed it! I did end the week with getting like breaking out a little all over my face because I was stressed and all that. [Ash guffaws.]
But it did teach me there is a lot of value in simplicity and breaking things down, making things really easy and accessible. Things don't have to be complicated or over the top or like super challenging in order to give value to people. Like there's, you can keep things simple because there's still plenty . . . there's always something to learn and people always hungry to learn new things or even learn things from a different perspective.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: So the challenge is what really pushed me and really helped grow my business. Like I'd use them to get people engaged with my brand and then afterwards I would lead them into a launch. "If you want to continue working with me further, this is how you can do so." And things like that.
And then at the same time, I'd also continue publishing patterns on about like a monthly basis. And like you mentioned earlier, I do draw a lot of my inspiration from my ancestral heritage. I use knitwear design as a way to document my journey to my cultural roots.
Having grown up in the diaspora, I didn't really . . . I haven't had many opportunities to connect back to home the same way that my parents really emphasized. I'm connected to my French side of the family, that's the reason why you don't really see much French inspiration in my work, because it's not something that I find lacking in my life.
Whereas on the Maori side, the Indigenous side, I use knitwear design as a way to connect to that, and then hopefully for me, and then also when I share this patterns, I just hope to inspire other Maori and other Indigenous people to connect back to their roots, whether . . . if they want to do it through knitting, or just to let them feel like, you know, they are enough as they are to be able to return back home and back to their roots and not feel ashamed and just know that it's a growing journey, so you're going to be growing and learning new things from a place of "you're already enough as you are" rather than trying to learn the things because you didn't know enough.
There's a difference between the two that I haven't been able to quite articulate but I can definitely feel it. Like when I'm learning a language, it's like just bringing more abundance into my life rather than trying to fill a lack.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: And let me see what else. So yeah, I've been doing that. Living in Japan. Then we moved back to San Antonio last year, and I think that was definitely really a big . . . especially for the pandemic as well, just really trying to figure out what I really want to do, especially after I have been in business for 5 years.
At the beginning when I started my business, I had, OK, I have a five year goal, this is where I want to be for myself, for my work, for other people, and I had achieved that! So I spent this past year trying to figure out where do I want to go next? What's the next five year, ten year goal for myself?
So I've been trying out different things. I'm trying out the yarn dying, and really . . . I do really enjoy that, but like with pattern design, I think that's going to be something just for . . . just for me to hone my creative, like my need for
creative expression, 'cause I'm still going to be releasing a pattern every once in a while and probably doing a yarn update with that, but I don't think that's going to be the core of my business.
And I think it's really going to be focused on coaching, teaching, speaking, and sharing what I've learned over the past 6, 5 years of being a business owner, knitwear designer, all that stuff, with other people. So that way they can also set the foundations of creating a sustainable life for themselves or using the business as a way to help bring more fulfilment into their own lives.
Because maybe some people don't need to run a knitwear design business full-time and leave their job to feel that sense of fulfilment. Maybe they want to do it part-time and just add it to what they've currently got going. So it looks different for everybody, but I know for myself that I think shifting into coaching and things like that, I'm just slowing down on some other aspects and really amplifying that things that I got. Also just really been thinking about sustainability in general but just like . . .
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: . . . materials but also like time and energy, so I've also just been challenging myself. I've got plenty of patterns published already. I've got over 100 patterns published.
Why not re-use that in some way, instead of having to create something new all the time? Just use and recycle, that saves up my energy and also I feel like I'm much more adequately paid for my time when I'm able to just take one of my patterns like here, you can use it, license it out basically. Than creating a new pattern 'cause . . . what I feel when we submit to magazines or create a new pattern for magazines, it's more about licensing the pattern to them, rather than getting paid for the work we put into it.
ash alberg: Yyyeessss. [Laughs.] That's a whole . . . yeah. I would love to dig into that with you. [Laughs.]
françoise danoy: [Laughs.] Yeah. Yeah so, I'm in the process of hoping to reach out to yarn companies, local yarn shops, and just show them, this is what I've currently got. You can wholesale them, license it or something like that. And just really shifting gears a little bit on just like the way that we . . . we see . . . when it comes to releasing patterns as knitwear designers.
Because I do think . . . when Ravelry came out 10 - 15 years ago, I'm not totally sure, it definitely made a huge change in the industry.
ash alberg: Yes it did. françoise danoy: A big shift. ash alberg: Yep.
françoise danoy: And I think now within the past few years, people have been asking, is there a new way of doing things? Because it worked and it did . . . it was a good model for people, like it did give people more independence and more control over their work. But I think now things are just starting to shift. Do we always need to be releasing something new all the time? Is there a way to . . .
ash alberg: Yessss. Exactly.
françoise danoy: And you know for some people, releasing a new pattern all
the time works for them. ash alberg: Yep.
françoise danoy: But it's not for everybody. And for myself, even though I do have the time to be able to do something like that, I no longer have the energy. And feeling like pulled in different places, like I want to put the most of mental and physical capabilities into that, so I'm asking myself, is there a different way of doing things to make a sustainable living that looks a little bit different from what I've been doing from right now?
And another thing that I do try to teach my students is that success looks different. There's a way to be successful and you don't have look like these other big designers on Instagram and things like that. That there are other ways to . . .
ash alberg: To find success.
françoise danoy: Yeah, to find success. Yeah. So for me, I'm still in like an experimental phase of shifting really into coaching and teaching, but I do find
that, just in terms of the amount I get paid for the labor I put in, is a little bit more balanced I feel like.
ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. Totally. And it's also something that is . . . you can scale it, especially with what we've learned with the pandemic and everything shifting online, there are ways of scaling specifically the coaching and the teaching aspect of things in a way that does not automatically directly overlap with your labor. And like, we know with knitwear design that the amount of labor that goes into that is . . . you need to sell so many patterns at the current price point that patterns sell at to even come close to overlapping with your labor that's gone into it.
Especially with, like, where you and I are at in terms of our expertise, like I regularly half joke that I've got 3 PhDs worth of knitting at this point. [Françoise giggles.] Which like, if we were working as lawyers or in IT, it would be very easy in IT to be charging like several hundred dollars an hour. As lawyers, it would be easy to charge a thousand dollars an hour for our expertise.
There's no way in hell you could do that when it comes to pattern design or even physically knitting, and that's fine. But it does mean that . . . and same with the dyeing, like your labor is physically attached. You can only make so much money based on how many skeins you can physically dye, and so that's totally fine, but if you're running a business and especially if you're running a business that is employing other people and you're needing to pay them, then, you know, you need to figure out what are the ways that you can scale that are not directly related to your labor being involved.
françoise danoy: Labor or exploiting the labor of others. Like, I could scale and expand my yarn dyeing practices, but that would involve bringing in other people and making sure that they get paid adequately. And I know at this point I do not have the capabilities to do so.
So that's why I planned the idea of scaling my coaching is . . . but a little . . . but more attainable because if somebody's labor is going to go up, it's going to be mine and not reliant on . . . because I do have assistants helping me . . . [dog barking in the background] . . . just with email management, just bringing in students and things like this, helping with the onboarding.
And they make my life so much easier! I do want to make sure that when it does scale that it does not bring like . . . doesn't like disproportionately cause them to work more for . . . or more difficultly or something like that. Yeah.
ash alberg: No that totally makes sense. I had to mute myself briefly because Willow decided to lose her shit at somebody. [Laughs.] All of that makes so much sense and I think it's also [sneezes.] 'scuse me. It's important for people to hear as well that if you're going to be employing people, it's not as easy as just being like, "oh cool, I'll just pay somebody."
Like it's, you need to know that you can support paying that person on an ongoing basis, or . . . like it's different when you're dealing with employees or ongoing contractors vs a one off contract. If it's a one off contract, it's this much labor which translates to this much hours of work at this rate and so I'm going to pay this person this much money and that's it. And you just look at your bank account and you're like, yeah I can do that, cool, we're gonna do it now.
But if you're going to be having staff who are with you on an ongoing basis, then you needed to know that you can keep paying them and that if it's a bad month, which at this point we've both been in business long enough to see what are the trends, and then, but then also have the weird things of like, last summer the pandemic, everyone was scared, everybody was stuck at home, everybody was knitting. It honestly was good for business.
And then this summer, things started opening back up, especially in the States, and people were able to go back out to restaurants and travel and so . . .
[Both talk at the same time.]
. . . a regular summer, again, as far as our industry goes, which is that it's quieter. And so with that in mind you're like, oh, this is a normal situation so plan for those being quieter months, but if those are quieter months, that does not necessarily mean that's when your staff are not working.
Like your staff are still going to be working, and actually for normal years, when you could be going out to doing different festivals and things, or if you were getting ready for . . . for a big pattern release or something in the fall, when everybody's starting up their knitting again, then your staff are actually going to be working more in the summer months potentially because they're
helping you prep for those things happening. So if it's going to be a quiet month, you still need to know that you can support their paycheques. And if anybody's going to be taking a pay cut because there's not enough money in the bank, it's not going to be your staff, it's gonna be you.
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: So it's, I think, especially when again we are running businesses that are based on values like, we're not interested in doing the Amazon bullshit and we're not interested in underpaying people. But that does mean that you have to be on top of your numbers and have some business savvy, which when we come into these things as creatives, we often don't.
And I think when you and I entered the industry, there was nobody . . . we both teach, we teach in very different ways, which I think works really well too because there's . . . I regularly, if I've got a student who's like, I really want some kind of handholding and somebody who I can be talking to while I'm learning these things, I'm like cool! I am not your person! Go talk to Frenchie.
And so it works really well, but like you and I did not have that when we entered the industry and it was a time that it was a lot easier to break into it. There was a lot less noise. There was still quite a bit of noise but it was easier for us to establish ourselves within the confines of Ravelry being the main commerce platform for the industry, which it still is.
But it was a time where I feel like it was three-ish to four years into you and I designing that all of a sudden it was like, shit, I need to be releasing something basically at least every month, which is not a good way of designing because it's just, there's not enough time to tell people about what it is you're doing.
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: Also nobody else is going to be knitting at that frequency, so like, releasing that number of patterns doesn't do anybody any good. But it felt as though if you weren't releasing things that frequently, that things were going to be lost and you were going to be lost in Ravelry because also the way that Ravelry's coding and policy works is that if we gave a refresh to an old pattern,
and you knitted it in a new yarn, or you make a couple of tweaks, it's not allowed to be released as a new pattern.
It has to be just you've done a refresh on an existing pattern. It stays as far back on your pattern catalogue as it was from when it first released, so if you refresh one of your very first patterns, it's not going to re-appear as this brand new thing. It's just, it's buried.
Which is not an ideal way of being able to work, and yeah, if you're not constantly putting new things out, then you very quickly nowadays get buried in the hundreds of thousands of patterns that are on there now. So it's, it looks very different, but I think the one good thing now is that there are more designers that are talking about . . . not everybody, but there's more discussion about what is involved in being a designer, and there's more willingness to share the information.
Because those of us who've been in the industry longer know, if you're going to make this a thing, there's a lot of labor involved. And so I'm willing to tell you that yes, you need a tech editor, because I'm not worried about, if you get a tech editor that suddenly you're going to become the next big thing. [Laughs.] Like, it doesn't work like that. But I think initially there was more gatekeeping maybe than exists now. And now it's just, there's so much noise that you gotta figure out a way of cutting through the noise.
But, yeah. I don't know. [Both sigh.] How does ritual and magic and within this I also, I also consider ancestral work to be part of that, you know speaking with ghosts and speaking with ancestors. How does all that play out in your daily life and in your personal life?
françoise danoy: Yeah, so, a couple years ago . . . oh, not a couple . . . I was like, oh, a couple, but this was like 2019. So this was like 2017 or something, I started really getting into witchy stuff. And when I say witchy stuff, I don't really want to say all the stereotypical, but I guess I mean more like the light witchy stuff? [Chuckles.]
ash alberg: [Laughs] Witchy Lite! Tarot and crystals and ...
françoise danoy: Yeah, yeah. [Laughs.] And crystals, I'm still into crystals and stuff like that, but . . . and even though I was really into that, I always did feel like some sort of . . . not a disconnect, but I just like, this is interesting, but if I
was going to be devoting my time and energy into learning, I'm going to get deep into that, would this be the right thing to do that into?
So I just left it on like the back burner just a little bit, just really focusing on like, mindfulness and meditation and self-care and things like that. But as more opportunities came up thanks to things like social media and Instagram, learning more about my ancestral rituals and ways of reading the moon, like, I . . . even though I'm not really into moon stuff, but I tried to learn it from the perspective of my ancestors and really paying attention to the moon phases, because for us we actually have a name for every single phase of the moon every single night, and they have a different affect on our energy flows and things like that.
So some days are really good for high productivity and other days there's time to slow down and things like that, and some can be different from what Western lunar readings can be and things like that. And just really paying attention to that. Also, learning about the different elements of nature, like the forest, the water, the earth, the ground, just trying to find ways to reconnect to that and really . . . really pay attention and see how it has affect on my body, my wellbeing, and things like that.
Trying to incorporate more karakia or prayer incantations into my life and understanding what the purpose of them, of what those are to help transition from going from OK, just finished my breakfast and transitioning into time to work, time to focus and things like that. I'm using that to help ground myself. But I also think like ritual for me is also just making sure to take care of myself, like doing things that are good for my body and my mind.
So just reading again and making a really nice breakfast in the morning, just like little things. I think it's the little things. Like for me, I used to think ritual is like this big . . . which it can be, sometimes it's really nice to do that. But sometimes it's just the little things to do every day to build up habits.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: To keep you at your best throughout the day. And just doing things like just making sure . . . doing some reading before bed, spinning in the morning before I get to work, enjoying my breakfast and enjoying the start of the day. Just really help make it grounded and relaxed into before I have to do the work and just start to really focus and things like that.
And as I'm working, too, just paying attention to where my mind is at. Sometimes it'll veer off and maybe I need to do things to help me focus and stuff. So yeah, it's less about . . . and, so I guess for me it's less about which crystal do I need to pick out today or something. Or do I read some tarot cards? For me I think it's just about developing good habits to . . . so I feel good.
ash alberg: Toootally! Well and I think that that's something that maybe people, more people, have learned as a result of COVID and working from home, in ways that they didn't before. But when you work from home and when you, especially when you are an entrepreneur and you have to set all of these . . . you don't have a boss telling you when you're supposed to get something done.
You are your own boss so you have to straddle that position of employer and employee simultaneously. Like, you need to have structures in place that support you in doing your work, and whether that is like that you maintain a 9-5 and it's just that you happen to work from home rather than going into an office somewhere, or if it's that you really follow your body's rhythms and you're more of a night owl and so you start your day later, and you end your day later, and that works better for you. Or that Tuesdays are always a wash, and so on Tuesdays you take that as your day off, and then you work on other days.
Like, it's figuring out what the things that work best for you. And I think also a big part of that is tuning into the seasons and the way that your body responds as seasons shift. And I feel like Indigenous communities have consistently done this a lot better, but even within . . . within white ancestry, depending on like where in whatever your roots are, when you go back far enough and you go back to pagan practices, those things are still rooted there.
Christian, Judaism, has really . . . and just monotheistic religions in general, they've really separated us away from our natural ways of functioning. But when we connect in with that . . . I, it's a hard thing for me, to be honest, because I live in an area that is extremely seasonal. Like, ancestrally, I come from lands that are extremely seasonal. And my energy really shifts with those seasons. And if I was a farmer, it would be fine because I would be able to have my work flowing with those seasons.
Since my work is not as a farmer, although I grow things as far as my herbs go, and my dye plants, I find it tricky . . . like I feel like I just start to get into whatever, whatever a new structure and ritual and way of being is and then all
of a sudden the weather shifts and my energy shifts with it, and I'm like ahh, shit. Like summer is always this very weird liminal space for me.
I find autumn is really good because I get this like burst of energy, which maybe aligns with harvest season, but also all the work that I do really syncs in with making things with those harvests and getting my dye pots going, and making and prepping as this weird little gremlin to prep for the winter. I feel like I'm like a bear getting ready for hibernation mode all year round. But then winter comes and I'm still in that mode but it's cold and it's dark and I don't really want to function, and then summer comes and I'm like I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with this heat, and I still want to be like working with my wool and doing all these things but I'm tired and it's hot and I don't know. So yeah.
It's . . . it's a funny one where you're trying to constantly be listening to your body and I think also have some flexibility in the way that we approach things and understand that things are going to shift and sometimes they're bigger shifts, like what you're finding right now with work and it's five years in and it's hey, what does the next phase look like? And then sometimes it's those smaller shifts of tracking the moon and knowing that each day your energy is going to shift and is that correlated with the moon? And adjusting your plans accordingly.
So within business, how has that, how has that kind of worked for you? And how does it play out for you?
françoise danoy: Like the shifts and flows and all that?
ash alberg: Yeah and then the ... I think also with your business you've like really focused on working your ancestral work into quite visibly being part of your business, so I'd love to hear some more about that. And I also really liked what you said earlier about how, on the French side of your family it didn't feel like that was lacking, so you didn't need to make those connections in the same kind of a way because it was already there, it was already present in your life.
And so . . . I love the idea of making that like searching and researching and connection be part of your business 'cause I think it's also quite easy for us as business owners to not prioritize things in our personal lives that are actually important for us, because we say, OK, work needs to be a priority. And so by connecting the two, then it allows you . . . it almost gives you an excuse to go
out and do those things. And justify the time that goes into spending time learning about those things, because you can do that. It's also for work.
françoise danoy: Yeah. So I guess to the first point, let me see. How do I explain that? Can we . . . first of all, I like to work in 90 day cycles, so three month cycles, so setting the big goal for the 90 days and then really just focusing on achieving that goal, breaking it down, and then just keeping an eye out on my energy flows from within that cycle and also within the seasons.
Because now I live in Texas, seasons are not a thing. ash alberg: Yyeahhh. [Laughs.]
françoise danoy: It's always summer. And then maybe some cold. So it's usually always very hot here. So I stay inside all the time. [Both laugh.] [Ash cackles.]
Yeah. I think for me just taking note of the shifts and the ebbs and flows, even on the microlevel, even checking that throughout the day, like knowing in the morning I'm quite energized so I do all my admin work. In the afternoon after lunch I need to take a nap and in the evening I've got another spurt of energy that I can use to do other things, so I'm just trying to find other ways to incorporate that, incorporate that more intentionally and mindfully in my work instead of trying to push through my afternoon slump and trying to push. Like you know what, I'm going to try and honor that and just do what my body says and then get back into work.
So I've got enough, I've got plenty of time throughout the day. That's what I tell myself, that I've got enough time throughout the day to do this. So it's OK to take a break and take a quick nap.
ash alberg: Mhmm. I feel like that's, yeah, that's a hard thing. I'm the exact same as far as energy goes. Like afternoon . . . and it's always something like also, I relate it quite a bit to my walks with Willow, because I take her for a walk in the afternoon. And she's very good, I have her trained to sleep through the morning. And once her afternoon walk happens, I know that by the time we get back, I will lose the next several hours.
It's just, I time it so that if it like overlaps with the end of my productive period and then the start of that afternoon slump, but it does also feel sometimes stressful in terms of, if I'm getting some good work done, I'm like, I don't
necessarily want to break that, but also if I start my day late, like that productive period ends around 12:30 no matter what. So if I start at 8, great, that gives me a good chunk of time. But if I don't start 'til 10, it's still going to end at the same period of time.
And I have yet to learn the skill that you have of like, setting those things in a 90 day period and just sticking with that 90 days and trusting it, and then if there's something else, putting it into the next 90 day cycle.
françoise danoy: Oh gosh, I still get shiny object syndrome. It's bad!
ash alberg: [Laughs.] All the time. All the time. It's just, let me just shove this thing in and we're like six weeks out, which is technically the amount of time we should be spending talking about the thing, but I'm just going to plow through it and then two weeks before it happens, then I'll tell people.
It's yeah . . . which now I'm thinking about that. Maybe I should shuffle some things around that I was planning. But yeah, I don't . . . it's, I feel like it's a thing that we just constantly work at and maybe fail at on an ongoing basis and then just, it's a practice.
And I guess that's part of it, is that just like any other practice, there's going to be good days and bad days, and it's a matter of shifting the maybe mindset around it so that instead of seeing something as, "well this wasn't a productive day," which I think is also especially tricky when you have like multiple pots on the stove and you only get like half tasks done, it's hard to mentally check off that as being, "oh I accomplished the thing," because you're like, well there's three more steps for that specific thing, so it's not done yet, even though you did tick off one thing.
I don't understand people who can have like monogamous projects. [Cackles.] [Françoise laughs.] Not a thing I'm good at!
françoise danoy: [Indecipherable.]
ash alberg: [Cackles.]
françoise danoy: . . . like I was able to focus on one design. It's tough. But yeah, that was before. Now I just, I need to focus on one main thing. So it's either patterns or coaching. And now it's like OK maybe let's go for coaching.
ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. That's super smart. So with the . . . with . . . actually, now I'm really curious, 'cause with your design work, it was very . . . well, not very easy, but it was very clear for how you could connect the Maori ancestry work and especially the pattern work, which is quite specific. And by pattern work, not designing knitting patterns but specifically like motifs and color work and things like that, which then translate quite nicely into knitting.
Is there a way that you're already anticipating bringing that into the coaching and mentoring or is that something that feels like it's . . . do you feel like you need to bring it into that, or do you feel like there is like friction around how you will make that fit and/or does it need to fit?
françoise danoy: Um, so I don't think it's going to be like an explicit connection, but I think what's going to make the main difference is just . . . ah, how do I . . . it's just going to be an undercurrent, just from having a different perspective.
ash alberg: Yes!
françoise danoy: And that's going to come through my coaching. So I'm . . . I could say things a little, like I could just advise things or coach my students in a way that is aligned with my traditional principles and values. Thinking about . . . yeah, so I think it's going to be . . . it's not going to be something super straight in your face, as with my patterns, but I think just through the things that I've learned and as I've connected more strongly with my culture and background, that has also really influenced the change in my perspective on things, and changed my approach and ways of thinking about certain topics.
So I think that's just going to come through naturally when I am coaching. ash alberg: Yeah.
françoise danoy: And some of the frameworks that I do use do come from Maori stories or just values and things like that. So it's going to be, it's going to be a foundational part of my work.
ash alberg: Mhm. Mhm. I love that. And I think that's a really good point that it's, like when I'm teaching natural dyeing, I'm like, I'm a white person teaching you this, and I've made a point of getting really close with my local plants, which also overlap because like, bioregion-wise, where I live is very
much in line with the bioregions of my ancestral lines, so like, that's like a nice convenience for me basically.
But I also am like, I don't know all of the things. There's nobody who knows all of the things, but especially if you want to be learning about working with different plants, you need to speak with people who ancestrally are connected to those plants and who are continuing the traditional ways of working with those plants, because they can provide you with so much more context about what that plant can do other than just, this is its particular color.
And if you're going to be working with local plants, then you need to, like, be thinking about your relationship with those plants, which I find is written in a way that to me is very natural, but I think that's also 'cause I'm a hedgewitch, that for the average person is not necessarily the way that they would think about working with a plant. And so I'm frequently directing people to books written by Indigenous folks about plant relations because it's . . . it's listening to the plants and listening to the language that they have, which is different from our languages and leaving offerings for them and it being very consent-based.
And it's, it just, it is a different way of thinking compared to our very like white supremacist and capitalist and basically those two things overlapping with each other, the way that that kind of drives our world otherwise. And especially drives anything that has become commercialized, including natural dyeing. Anything that has ended up in this kind of like hobby space that may or may not be something that you should make money off of, because capitalism tells us that we need to monetize everything that we do.
françoise danoy: Ohh, yeah.
ash alberg: So it's . . . yeah. I think there's . . . there will be so much benefit for your students regardless of what their own ancestry is to be hearing and learning from . . . from a place that is not from a very specific capitalism and white supremacist-driven like bro-markety mindset.
And especially just like having resources of you and then also the things that you know and the people that you know and the resources that you have to share with them that are also not those like bro-capitalist ways of just being like money first, profit first, and people and the planet don't matter, which is bullshit.
françoise danoy: Mhm.
ash alberg: Sooo with, with your design work, with it going on the backburner, do you feel like that gives you more space to be able to do things like your, like your collaborations with Layla and like basically building more space so that you can be primarily focusing on the mentorship stuff? And then when you have time, that you can just put it into one very specific kind of a project.
That's what I'm finding with, for myself, with my books. Like for me, especially as a theater kid like, designing the physical books and doing these larger, these larger collections is so much fun for me because it's like, it allows that creative bit to come out in that kind of performance aspect that is not as strong as it used to be. I don't feel the need to get on stage the way that I did when I was in my early 20s, but I love pulling together like a whole production through the books.
And they are also the most inefficient part of my business, if we're looking at it from a numbers perspective.
françoise danoy: Yup. Yup.
ash alberg: And I am looking at the ways of how do I build the rest of the business to support me taking the time that it's going to take to do those books, because they are what I love the most.
françoise danoy: Yep.
ash alberg: So is that kind of the hope with it? Does it feel like it will be a side effect? Does it feel like right now, until you know how the design coaching is going to take up space, that the other things do need to just sit on the backburner for a bit?
françoise danoy: So I think one of my intentions with the shift is that with coaching and mentoring, because I already have a program that's in place, it's just amplifying and scaling that, which is a lot easier to do than having to create a new program from scratch and really to market that and stuff like that.
ash alberg: Yes!
françoise danoy: So it's going to be really about scaling, which is hard work within itself, but mostly it's just about finding more ease in my business. One of my previous coaches that taught me, she's always really about, it doesn't have to be hard to create the life that you want. There is . . . I think there's a difference
between like hard and creating the patterns, but I think we can just find ways to make it easy for us to make a living from our work.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: And then additionally with that, by putting . . . by focusing on having my coaching being the main support for my livelihood, that with patterns I can go back to creating things that I want to create, instead of having to create. Even though I did enjoy creating things on a constant basis, it did feel like, OK, I think it's time to slow down and really get back to why I started knitting and designing in the first place, for the enjoyment and things like that.
So it does give me more space and room, but with the collaborations I'm doing with Layla, to really dig deep into that and really be thoughtful and have the time and energy needed for those projects. I still have some projects and collaborations that I do need to finish up before the end of the year, because I still have those commitments that I made, but after that, I'm going to not only be like slowing down, but if I do want to create something new, like a magazine approaches me or someone wants to do a collaboration, I'm going to be reeaally picky about it.
ash alberg: Yes!
françoise danoy: And I will be increasing my . . . this is my fee for this.
ash alberg: YEESS!! Oh my god, that's a thing that . . . and it's, it's tricky especially with the small indie publications because often they're run by friends of ours, or close colleagues. And having worked in print myself, I know that those margins are shit. I'm very aware of that. But it's also . . .
françoise danoy: There is . . . [Both speak at the same time.]
ash alberg: It's . . . sorry! [Both laugh.] Everybody else involved in the project has a very clear hourly rate that is supported, except the designers. And I have found working with even, even with close friends and even with publications that I really love, the penalty if something goes wrong on your end as the designer compared to what everybody else gets paid is that like, we're already getting paid peanuts.
And then it's, OK this came in at a time where we then needed to pay our tech editor for an extra couple of hours, and so all of sudden your rate has been chopped by 25% because this tech editor needed to spend an extra hour and a half on something. And it's, I spent 40 hours on this though, and that doesn't include . . . like that was a simple design, and I only spent 40 hours on it. And how does their hour and half equate to 10 hours worth of pay for me? And like already to be honest this . . . like my teaching fee and my writing fee is around $100 US an hour. And for me it's so fucking easy! Like I can write . . .
françoise danoy: RIGHT?! Yes!! Exactly! So like, so comparing to OK, I'm going to either submit a pattern to a magazine or I'm going to submit an article to a magazine, I could write an article in an hour and get paid $100 for that, vs spending 40 hours on a pattern and getting paid $300 for it? Like ...
ash alberg: Yes. Exactly.
françoise danoy: One's a little more . . . I think I could even start raising up the
price for my writing and teaching. ash alberg: Yes! Exactly.
françoise danoy: Oh yeah, so there's one indie magazine that I contribute to on a regular basis, I write for them, and when they ask for a pattern, they actually ask to just use one of my previous patterns that I currently have.
ash alberg: Oh, smart.
françoise danoy: It's . . . there's always space . . . because people and magazines and companies that ask for a pattern that's never been published and they want it to be brand new. But it's like ..
[Both speaking at the same time.]
Your readership also is maybe they've never seen this. It could still be new to them.
ash alberg: Exactly. Exactly. françoise danoy: You know?
[Both talking at the same time.]
ash alberg: And it's like, if you want to like design in a new yarn or something, like it's very . . . if I don't have an exclusivity agreement with the original yarn company anymore, or it's past that point, why is it a problem to be taking this pattern that is . . . You could also take a really popular pattern and be like, look, it's going to be included, it's been knit in this new yarn, it looks different, you've taken new photos so it fits within your branding, or different branding, and if it needs to be tweaked to also fit in stylistically with whatever their layout is, then like that already is some extra labor that needs to go into it, but it's labor that is more in line with the payment that is being offered because . . .
françoise danoy: If I need an entire new . . . like if I have to hire sample knitters to knit my yarn, like there is a very . . . it's based on like how much yarn. It's a lot easier to calculate what the final result of that is, meaning you can charge for that instead of always creating a new pattern that's a little more fuzzy.
ash alberg: Yes!
françoise danoy: So even though there is still some like labor involved when it comes to re-launching a pattern if you did want to knit it up in a new yarn or maybe just have it in somebody else's brand, the amount of time you put into it is much less.
ash alberg: Yes. And it's something that I think also is more in line with honoring the labor that goes into creating things. And also I think there's fatigue from knitters in terms of just new content all the fucking time. And feeling like you never quite have time to get around to working with old patterns that maybe are loved.
And it's . . . especially when you're dealing with print magazines, then there is the really lovely about having . . . taking a magazine with you out to the woods when you're going to go camping and there's no WiFi around you and you just are knitting by the campfire and everything is right there. You can mark on it and you're not needing to worry about printing something out and all the rest of that.
It's a funny one because I have a hard time sometimes justifying like with some of my books every once in a while I'm like, oh yeah, I could take one of my old
patterns and put it in there. And I don't always want to. I think for me there's also something about the production of creating a new pattern.
But it's also something that I think I need to remove that sense of feeling like you must provide something new all of the time. And that's where I'm controlling every fucking aspect of it, right? When it's somebody else who's paying you, like it's . . . and especially at the rate that right now designers are being paid, I do not imagine that there's going to come a time where any print publication is going to be able to hire 11 or 12 different designers and pay them for the 40+ hours per design at a fee that is reasonable, right?
Like when we look at what is the fee for tech editors and what is the fee for photographers and the licensing of these individual images, it, like, if we were the photographers for these shows, or for these publications, we'd be making a very different kind of income.
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: And it's . . . and that's not saying that they're not worth that. I think the problem is that the designers are also worth it, and we're not getting paid for our time because it is just so much labor that's attached to it. And so it's why if we're going to choose to run design-based businesses, then it useful to diversify your income sources and to figure out what the ways you can bring in income from existing patterns or to create the space to design new patterns.
But it's . . . yeah. I don't know. It's tricky where it's like, how do you balance out that in between of, or that seesaw of there is more value out there other than just in monetary "this many hours equals this much money." And also in valuing the hours that somebody puts into something and their expertise that goes into it and their creativity. I think it's something that often ends up fucking us over or gets used almost as like a manipulation tactic of like, "you love doing this! And this, you're doing this because creatively it fulfills you, and so that therefore justifies the low pay."
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: And sometimes it's used very explicitly as a manipulation tactic, other times it's just a side effect of the fact that like nobody's necessarily getting paid enough, and the margins on a lot of these things, especially in creative
fields, and especially in femme and women-dominated fields, the pay is shittier, and if there's less money to start off with, then how do we spread that out more?
Which is why I also think it's really important that there's more people doing like what you and I are doing, where it's OK, we see that the potential is there for this to be bigger, and for there to be enough for everybody to be sharing. And part of that also means that we are increasing sources of income and scaling these things so that we can be paying people better, so that we can be living our lives with more ease. Also so that we can be bringing in money to then be distributing to our communities more consistently, and all the time without needing to question it.
If we want to work with people, then we can pay them properly. And if we want to be donating to causes on an ongoing basis that we can do that without worrying about whether or not we'll be able to pay our mortgage that month.
françoise danoy: Yeah. You actually . . . you touched on something and it just gave me an epiphany in my head. You talked about diversifying income and I think when people hear that, they take it to mean like, oh I've got to do so many different products, I've gotta sell patterns, I've gotta sell yarn, I've gotta do this, I've gotta do teaching and stuff like that. And I just realized that you can do that with one thing.
When it comes to diversifying your income, like with your patterns, like . . . putting it on Ravelry or Payhip. That's one stream of income. Selling wholesale to a local yarn shape, that's another stream of income. Working with magazines and things like that, that's another stream of income, and that's always in patterns.
ash alberg: Yesss. Yep.
françoise danoy: So I think just finding ways to diversify the streams of income that you can make from the patterns and really harnessing what all these different things that you can do with patterns outside of a single pattern launch every month I think can be really powerful, and I think I have to give that . . . give credit to all my previous mentors who really helped me come to this realization up to this point right now.
Just because I was like, OK, a different stream of income, OK, I'm going to add yarn dyeing to that. [Snort laughs.]
ash alberg: And you can! It can be a way that then you're supporting then like then another stream of income is selling kits with your yarn and your patterns, right? There's ways of building it and I find that especially when it comes to our yarn, it's . . . there's often a more direct payout as a result of using your yarn in your patterns that is a really nice way of making that . . . not double dip in the money, but like it brings in more direct income potentially.
françoise danoy: Yeah. Yeah. So that's actually something that I do plan on doing with my patterns, but in addition to slowing down and when I do release the pattern to just do a yarn update to go with that, so they happen at the same time and they complement each other.
ash alberg: Exactly. Exactly. And it also then makes the marketing side of it, which is a shit ton of labor that is not paid, that it's easier to connect them and to have the same messaging going out with that being the same . . . like they're connected, and so you're not needing to be splitting messaging across, OK, for three weeks we'll talk about this thing and three weeks we'll talk about this thing and every other day we're going to swap and . . . nope. It's the same thing. We can prioritize the messaging of one over the other, but they are still the same thing going together.
It's . . . yeah. And especially these days with the way that algorithms are changing and people's attention spans shift depending on the season. It's funny, I was writing my newsletter right before we were chatting, and just from the last couple of months, through to last week, all of a sudden there was a shift in the open rates for newsletters. And it was, ah yes, people are getting back into their old patterns. They're getting back into routine, and so the readership has shifted back to close to normal.
Over the summer, it was down quite a bit because people's attention spans are less in the summer months. At least for my audience. And just seeing that correlation and so it's like, OK, let's plan these things to then overlap with that, since we know that there is a trend to it.
And also knowing that everybody's audience is going to be a little different, right? Like it doesn't do me any good to be telling my students, "the algorithm is doing this, so do this." Like that doesn't help. Or telling somebody "this is
the best time of day to post on Instagram or on Pinterest." That's not useful. They need to look at their own numbers and make tweaks accordingly.
And also know that realistically your audience is just going to show up with you as you show up. So whatever works best for you, being consistent in that is going to be ultimately the best way for your people to find you and to come to you and ultimately the . . . also we want to be controlling and maintaining not third party spaces for people to come and find us, ultimately. Because that's where . . . you have the least control over things that have algorithms and things that decide how they're going to pop and add above whatever the fuck it is that you're trying --
françoise danoy: The friggen algorithm . . . [indecipherable.]
ash alberg: I give up with them. And trying to play the game, it's yeah, sometimes it's fun, but if you don't have energy to learn how to use a reel, don't bother learning how to use a reel! But like, then also don't stick all of your eggs in Instagram's basket, because you will get fucked over by that.
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: What is something that you wish somebody had told you about
magic and ritual and all of that when you were younger?
françoise danoy: I grew up religious . . . [Ash laughs.] And in the church, so I just wish somebody had told me about that first.
ash alberg: Yesss.
françoise danoy: Yeah, because growing up in the church I would not have had that, or the opportunity to be encouraged to explore that. And even with like my ancestral . . . so I grew up Mormon. So it was actually on my mother's side, the Maori side, as well.
ash alberg: Interesting!
françoise danoy: Yeah, very interesting. There's a very . . . it's a very big history of Maori and Mormons and how that became a part . . . like, whenever I meet a new Maori person I say, OK, are you my cousin or are you Mormon? One of those two things. Wish I'd figured that out. [Ash cackles.]
But, so over the past few years I've been able to get back in contact with my grandfather, which has definitely been the biggest source of learning about Maori culture and things like that. It's just been really interesting because he's also very staunchly Mormon as well. And so a lot of things that he does teach me as well, there's a lot of Christian influence in there as well, like he says he's a godly man and Christian and things like that.
So on that end, sometimes it's difficult to go past . . . when Mormonism came into the family and go past that and go back into traditional practices and things like that and bringing them into the modern age. So it sometimes is just also a bit of a conflict. Not a conflict, but it's a tension, at least within my family, to try to find those ancestral teachings and stuff like that.
ash alberg: Mmhm. I would love to pick that apart a little bit more, because I think also the influence of Christianity in particular but just again generally the monotheistic religions like Islam and Judaism and Christianity, in each of their different forms, because they all have also then their own kind of like splinter tendrils of different types. Mormonism is a type of Christianity, and so the way that they have taken over traditional and, and Indigenous practices and then nowadays how things sometimes find . . . sorry, my brain is, has decided to go in 17 directions all at once. [Laughs.]
How . . . sometimes there's very clear tension, other times there's . . . I always find it really interesting when witches also happen to like practice and pray to different saints and the ways that religion has allowed some of the traditions to bury themselves in and maintain themselves. And then also, how do you separate things out fully and figure out for yourself what are the pieces that you want to keep bringing with you, and what are the traditions that you want to continue pulling with you, and what are the things that don't serve you and/or don't serve that particular practice?
I feel like everybody's got their own version of it and their own, their own ways of deciding like what needs to carry on and what doesn't. But, have you found there to be anything like . . . it sounds like you don't stick with the church. [Laughs.]
françoise danoy: Oh no. I left the church ages ago, so I dropped that completely.
ash alberg: Is it then tricky to be learning different things about your Maori heritage and be like learning a new practice and then for the Mormon kind of
sprinkling on top to be scraped away so that you can get down to . . . or are there bits that make sense to allow to continue together?
françoise danoy: For me, it was actually less about the Mormon stuff and more about like, Western feminist ideals.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: Really making sure to deconstruct what I'd learned. And for example, I'm going to be talking about menstruation so it's a heads' up everybody. So I'd be reading in my book, like how to weave. There'd be a little section saying that when women or people are on their period, it is not a time to be weaving.
And my initial gut reaction to that was like, what? We can weave if we want to, no matter! And I sat down to really think about what that meant. What . . . and this is something that actually my grandfather taught me was like, just don't learn what the customs and protocols are, but why would they sit in place in the first place?
AndsoIwasthinkingOK,whyarethey ...sowhyisitnot ...womenarenot allowed to . . . or people are not allowed to weave when they're on their period? So I thought about it and first of all, it's just like . . . first of all, when I'm on my period I don't want to be doing anything!
ash alberg: [Cackles.] Yeah! [Snorts.]
françoise danoy: Weaving and knitting is like the last thing on my mind when
I'm cramping and stuff! [Ash laughs.] It's OK, it's a time for rest. ash alberg: Mhmmm.
françoise danoy: It's permission to step away from the work, from the grinds of capitalism.
ash alberg: Yesss!
françoise danoy: And take a friggin break. ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: There's also like a spiritual aspect, and also an issue of cleanliness. Literally, back in the day, we didn't wear underwear!
ash alberg: Yes!!
françoise danoy: Who the fuck wants to get blood all over their stuff??
ash alberg: Yes, totally! [Laughs.]
françoise danoy: So it was an old thing but it was literally like, cleanliness. You don't want to be, you know ...
ash alberg: Bleeding on your work. [Laughs.]
françoise danoy: Yes. Bleeding or just like, women or people on their menstruations, shouldn't be in the garden, shouldn't be near food, it's just literally common sense. Don't be bleeding all over the place!
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: It's OK, take a break! But this is something that is to be respected and to be . . . not be shamed, it's just a time for rest and that's what it is. And I think maybe other people have their own more metaphysical and spiritual approaches to it but for me I come at it from a very common sense thing.
Like other things would be, and this is something that I applied to my knitting, is when somebody is weaving, that they are not to be disturbed, that there shouldn't be any food, tobacco, children around and things like that. And when I really, again, when you think about this, just when somebody is working that their work was so respected that they understood that they needed to be left alone so they could really focus on the work and not be distracted.
How many times when knitting, we're counting stitches and somebody comes and starts talking to us that takes us out of it!
ash alberg: Mmhmmm.
françoise danoy: And so it was to help us preserve that, that mind flow or that zone that people get into so they wouldn't be disturbed and they could stay in that zone and produce their works of art in order to be able to master their work.
ash alberg: Yes!
françoise danoy: So it was just little things like that that really got me, that really challenged my Western perspective and ideals and just really get back down to it. Like what, why was this put into place? And things like that.
And it would be really interesting to see nowadays, for example, like within the Mormon . . . not the Mormon, the Maori community, there'd be a lot of people embracing being nonbinary, trans and things like that. And every once in a while somebody Maori would be like, oh, this is all this Western stuff coming, you're trying to be like that. And I'm just like actually, I'm pushing back against that and thinking, I think you're the one that's being influenced by Western ideals because they're going past before Christianity came in and imposed that two man and woman --
ash alberg: Yep. This binary bullshit.
françoise danoy: The binary bullshit and all that stuff! They're going past that
and going back and trying what their ancestors really practiced. ash alberg: Yes!
françoise danoy: Because Christianity really did have an effect upon how the teachings have . . . not warped, but they've just really changed. And when you, like on the surface level, the reason why there are so many Maori Mormons is because on the surface level, there's a lot of similarities and familiarities between what the Mormon church teaches and what was really valuable to the Maori.
For example, the emphasis on genealogy and the family union and things like that. On the surface level, that really made sense, but it just changed the whole foundations from shifting away from Papatūānuku, the earth major, and Ranginui, the sky father, and all their children, to one god? That just . . . that changes --
ash alberg: Everything.
françoise danoy: More than just . . . yeah, everything, basically. And other things like that. For example, like saying that woman are . . . they birth the children. From a Christian perspective, it's very different from like traditional ancestral perspectives of things like that. Whereas with Christianity it's like yeah, woman have to bear children, that's really important, but that's a secondary thing. But in Indigenous cultures, that was something that was upheld, that was sacred, that was celebrated and not shamed.
ash alberg: Yeah. Tootally.
françoise danoy: And it just feels different, motherhood in the church vs
motherhood in Indigenous cultures.
ash alberg: Yes, and it's valued differently and it's . . . yeah. All of that. And
I, I want to go back to what you'd mentioned about like, for nonbinary and trans, and like non, like literally nonbinary identities and there . . . there so frequently, 'cause I see it here as well, there's so frequently tension around like, for our two-spirit community, there's a lot of people within the community itself, not within the two-spirit community but within the Indigenous and Métis communities that are like, this isn't right because of that Christian influence.
But in reality, the two-spirit is actually like the most traditional because when we go back far enough, and this is across the board, across the entire world, that overlap within nonbinary identities and the correlation with being an edge-walker and with being somebody who actually holds a lot of magic and importance within the community. And I think that's also probably why they were stamped out so heavily by those colonial forces, because there's something really fucking scary about people who embody both and/or these identities and these roles and who are able to step into multiple spaces that otherwise are quite specific about like, your role is this and your role is that.
And for the nonbinary identities, we come into more than that and we can step into multiple spaces and we also, again, as edge-walkers, we step in between a lot of those spaces and we hold that liminal space. And there's a lot of power that exists within that, and that is obviously something that is, if you're a colonial force you don't want those people because it's too powerful, and by stamping that out, then it's a means of control.
And there's something so fucking beautiful about . . . as, like, just . . . learning more about those queer, traditional identities that existed pre-colonization, regardless of who was doing the colonizing and when in time that colonization
happened, how they've maintained and, and just learning that we have always existed and we exist in every location as well. And that regardless of the influence of particularly the Christian, Judaism, ideals that it has managed to be resilient and to continue through.
But then I think that there is that tricky thing of figuring out, OK, which thing is the . . . that Western influence, whether it's Western Christian influence or Western feminism influence, which is also very much influenced by Christianity and white supremacy frequently, right? I think there's, what you were talking about, the . . . with menstruation, that's totally the same response that I have whenever it's, "if you're bleeding you can't do this or you can't do that," and it's this thing of fuck you, I can do what I want, but it's also that same thing of yeah, I don't want to! I'm actually like cramping and tired and I need to be in the bathroom all the fucking time. I don't want to do anything.
françoise danoy: Yeah and when I used to work like regular 9-5 job and oh fuck capitalism for making me get into work on my period! I shouldn't have to.
ash alberg: Literally! Yes, literally! [Both laugh.] Literally though. And like I've started seeing businesses like Chani Nicholas' team literally has unlimited menstrual leave, and I was like, how the fuck do you make that work? And I thought about and I was like, this is exactly how you make that work!
Like when I think about . . . I don't want to work when I'm bleeding on like day 1 and 2! I don't fucking want to do anything. And my body really doesn't. Like I find especially now that I've like shifted into my 30s, my body is just like extra angry when I'm bleeding.
françoise danoy: Yeah.
ash alberg: And like OK, if this is a thing, if I'm being kind to myself as my own employer, then me, employer Ash is going to tell employee Ash, take the fucking days off, go sleep, go take whatever drugs you need to make this slightly more feasible so that you can function at whatever your base level is, but that does not mean function at the level of doing whatever capitalism tells you you're supposed to do.
And as a boss, I'm like OK, how do I make this work for me and then how would I make that work for my staff? And I think it's basically that, it's just, we
need this much work done within this timeline, and as long as it gets done within that timeline, I don't care what days you actually show up for work.
Like, you have access to this day in the week and from this hour to this hour, and as long as your work gets done within that time frame, cool. And if that means that there's a full week that you don't show up every single month because you're bleeding and it sucks, that's fine! You're still going to get paid your wage.
Obviously that doesn't work for every single business, but it also makes me think that maybe it should work for every single business, right? Like we should be able to accommodate people and it goes for folks who are menstruating, but it also goes for folks who are from the disabled community.
Like folks who have chronic illnesses that we figure out ways of, if this is your role, and this is what you have said I can do this, like you've applied for the job, we've agreed that yes, this is a thing that we're going to do together, and also you have whatever things happening in your life that stop you from showing up at a 100% all of the time, or Monday to Friday, 9-5, then how do we support you in accomplishing what you want to accomplish and what we've agreed together that you will accomplish for whatever the business is?
Around also supporting your body and giving it the rest that it needs and giving it the supports that it needs and if that means that you show up 50% of the time but you get your work done within that 50% of the time, why does that mean that you are, like, less valuable of a human because you can show up 50% of the time? Like, it's . . . yeah. I don't know.
Now I just want to pick all of that apart. [Laughs]
françoise danoy: [Chuckles.] Yeah. There's so much you could get into for sure.
ash alberg: Yeah. So, what's next for you? Obviously like you're in this process of figuring out what the fuck is actually next, but do you have any ideas?
françoise danoy: Just . . . let's see. What's next, like short term is just making that transition over into coaching and all that good stuff that it entails. But just really amplifying that and just working on helping more aspiring and beginner knitwear designers, not only learn the knitwear design process, but help them
produce patterns for sale in a less stressful way, like in a more organized way that decreases stress, which I'm always about, but also helping them build the foundations of a business that will be able to support the lives that they want to live.
And yeah, just really focusing on that and with that extra time, really focusing on projects that bring me creative fulfilment.
ash alberg: Yes.
françoise danoy: Ah, yeah.
ash alberg: So good. Something I think we all probably want in some capacity or another.
So before we say goodbye, can you give one suggestion for if somebody were to find themselves suddenly go viral, what would be your like, top thing that you would say, "keep this in mind?"
françoise danoy: Ooh. Let me see. When I went viral, and like my things started to really expand more, I think the first thing that I did was actually look for somebody to help me.
ash alberg: Mmm so smart!
françoise danoy: To keep up with that. I know that hiring somebody, because it's like an investment of money, I think of it as an investment of money over time.
ash alberg: Yess.
françoise danoy: Because money you can make back, but you can't get time
back.
ash alberg: Yeah.
françoise danoy: And of course at the beginning, because money resources are limited, you have to use time, which is like a really important . . . resource, to grow your business. But at some point, it's OK to start using those money resources to help bring time back. So I think that was something that was really
important to me, was like when I started really getting big, like OK, it's time to hire help and start developing some standard operating procedures.
And so we started to set up some systems to help automate things, that way I can start really focusing in my zone of genius.
ash alberg: Yesss!
françoise danoy: Which at the time was pattern design, so to really focus on
that so I don't get pulled away to these other things.
ash alberg: Yep. So fucking smart. Yep. That's . . . I fucking . . . systems of operation are . . . they're my least favorite thing, and also the thing is what allows you to move forward, right? Like when we don't write those SOPs out, we're basically just bottlenecking ourselves. And it's like . . .
françoise danoy: My assistant is like a pro at writing out those SOPs. I . . . if she . . . when the day comes when she's, "I can't work for you anymore," when she trains the new person, she'll have everything outlined for them.
ash alberg: So good! I also love that point of, once you hire somebody, get them to write out their SOPs, like it's not . . . you don't need to be writing out every single bit. Write them out yourselves as you're doing them, and then as you hire people in, part of their job is to then write their own SOPs so then that succession planning in whatever it is built in there.
françoise danoy: Yeah, for sure. My assistant is so great.
ash alberg: [Laughs.] Awesome. Well, make sure that people know where to find you in the show notes and have all those links and things. And keep an eye of course on Frenchie's feed so that the next time that there are challenges happening and/or other fun things happening, that you are following along. Because they are quite fun! And Frenchie always does a good job of leading those things. Slash your assistants on your behalf do a good job of doing those things.
Thanks so much for being here this afternoon and for chatting with me on all these things!
françoise danoy: Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun! I actually really like talking about business and all that stuff and mindset. And just
everything that we talked about is just like my jam. Each of these things could just be talked about for like ages so yeah it was a lot of fun to be talking about this, and also just reminds me why I love talking about it so much. Yeah, it's great. [Ash laughs.]
ash alberg: Alright, thanks my love! françoise danoy: Thank yoouu.
ash alberg: You can find Françoise online at arohaknits.com and on Instagram @arohaknits.
[Upbeat music plays.] You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com, just click on podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle, and join our seasonal book club with #SnortandCackleBookClub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast via your favorite podcasting platform.
Editing provided by Noah Gilroy, recording and mixing by Ash Alberg, music by Yesable.