Shannon has been a great mentor, including me in her meetings and in the general planning of her business so that I could really see what it takes to run a small business in the art and craft world. I’ve gotten to do a little bit of everything while I’ve been here. I’ve worked on knitting patterns and knit samples, and I researched and wrote an article for Yarn Forward, the UK knitting magazine that she edits. I’ve gotten to meet other local artists and business people that she works with on a regular basis. It’s been really useful for me to see what kinds of opportunities, both in business and the arts, are available in this area and might apply to me back home. One of the big projects that I took on this summer was working on her new online store; she sells a wide variety of fiber arts supplies as well as knitting, crochet, embroidery, and cross-stitch patterns from a wide variety of designers. Tech-savviness is not one of my strengths, so it has been really useful for me to learn to work with some of the on-line software that she uses.

It’s been a great summer; I’ve gotten to help Shannon start really interesting several long-term projects in different areas. The hardest part about the internship ending is that I won’t get to see all of these cool projects that we started continue to develop first-hand.