Volunteers came to the shop to make pillowcases (the bags) and small items to put in the bags such as stuffed animals, soft books, blankets, pillows, etc. I started a project called Bags of Love prior to the COVID shutdown. I believe that every business, big or small, must use their business to support and elevate others. Over the past few years, the shop has been involved in several humanitarian projects. My primary work now, being the owner of a quilt shop, is sewing quilts and exploring the many avenues and artforms in quilting.
Much of my work is heavily influenced by the native cultures I lived among during my career in education. My favorite forms of beadwork are bead embroidery and loom work. I eventually narrowed down my interests and concentrated most of my time on beadwork and sewing (with a long stint with knitting). I loved doing all needlearts, including cross stitch, embroidery, needlepoint, knitting, crocheting, sewing (first by hand and later by machine), and beadwork. I am primarily self taught and self motivated. She would take me to local craft stores and let me wander for long periods of time picking out supplies and getting inspiration. My mother did what she could to provide me with opportunities for and explorations in different art forms by enrolling me in community center classes during the summer. My grandmother crocheted and knitted and taught me the basics of both, but I had an innate desire to create in many other ways and using many other mediums. Somehow I emerged from the womb with a creative spirit and talent. I grew up in an environment devoid of the arts. I am an example of the dominance of nature in the nature or nurture debate. The shop is beginning to realize its potential.Īlright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?Įver since I was a child, I had two dreams–one was to be a teacher and the other was to own my own craft store. Fortunately, the shop is on the road to recovery and to being the business it was before COVID. The shop survived COVID, but I have been struggling ever since with the post COVID challenges. But then COVID hit just six months later. I knew that the business had died, but I took the risk and the challenge to bring it back to life and to the potential of what it could be.
The shop was up for sale, and the employees kept giving me encouragement to buy the business. After resigning from a job, I volunteered to work at a local quilt shop to keep busy and engaged. Recently, I took another huge risk by buying a business that had, by all intents and purposes, died. I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. With each move, I took the same risks as the first time with striking out on my own and encountering different cultures, languages, and so on. I ended up spending thirteen years spread out over three different reservations: Pine Ridge in South Dakota, Spirit Lake in North Dakota, and Navajo in Arizona. I remember moving there-by myself-and after a day, I called my mother collect on the only pay phone in town and bawled my eyes out. It was a different culture, different lifestyle, different language, different climate, different everything. Why in the world would I leave New York and go to South Dakota? It was a huge risk financially, professionally, and personally. Family and friends thought I was insane when I revealed that I would be moving to South Dakota. My dream came to fruition in 1996 when I was hired as a high school English teacher at Crazy Horse School in Wanblee, South Dakota. Secretly, it was my goal to leave the big city and go to work on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and pursue a career in Indian education. On the wall of my office was a sign: “South Dakota or Bust.” People didn’t know what that sign meant, and I didn’t necessarily offer an explanation. In one of my many lives, I was a successful senior editor for an educational publisher in the New York/New Jersey area.
CAROL SCHNEIDER PROFESSIONAL
I think that professional risk taking is in my DNA. We had the good fortune of connecting with Carol Schneider and we’ve shared our conversation below.
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