Meet Hobby Bobbins - Bold Journey Magazine

Oct 19, 2024

March 1, 2024

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hobby Bobbins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hobby below.

Hobby, thanks for taking the time to share your lessons with our community today. So, let’s jump right in – one of the most essential skills for unlocking our potential is self-discipline. Where does your self-discipline come from?As a neurodivergent person self-discipline is essential. I had to learn how to take care of myself and my body’s needs using a very different set of rules than those around me. Growing up I was always told how to do things in a way that just didn’t work for me; advice like “just make a list” never quite got me where I needed to be. I would write a list and next thing I know I would be doing something completely different that had nothing to do with anything I had written down. I have come to learn that I can easily get burnt out, overwhelmed and even depressed if I’m not making sure I meet my needs and adjust as needed. Many good things have come with this, as challenging as it can be sometimes. When I feel myself overwhelmed and taking on to much, one of the tricks I’ve learned is to carve out two hours in the day to do something that just makes my heart happy! That could be anything like sewing, reading, starting a new project, or even giving myself the freedom and grace to just scroll on my phone if that is what I want to do. My sister wants me to try to write a book one day because she loves hearing about all of the little self-discipline “brain hacks” I’ve come up with that work for people who think and function like I do. Who knows, maybe I will someday!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?A little about me that many of you may not know is that I grew up in Clearwater Florida and moved to Washington State when I was 29 years old. I moved to Washington right before the pandemic hit and my whole world changed. I had always wanted to move out of my home state and Washington was so different than anything I had experienced before. When the pandemic began and places started to close down, my working life as I knew it was upside down; as it was for many of us. During that time I did a lot of self reflection, invested in learning about my own needs, and started to explore what really brought me happiness. In Florida it was rare to find something like a 1950s house dress at a thrift store, but when I moved to Washington I was overjoyed to find so many vintage items everywhere I went! My personal theory is that many people move to Florida to retire, which means before they move they are normally downsizing and offshoring their items in their home state. Washington has a low “throw away” culture and many families live here for generations, which leads to an abundance of amazing things to sort through.

During the pandemic I found myself collecting so many odds and ends. I wanted to start sharing some of the amazing things I would find and teach people about them as I learned. One day I happened upon an online auction where there was a beautiful wedding dress that was selling for $25. I just loved the look of it and couldn’t help myself. I won the auction and waited until it arrived. This is where things got interesting! The wedding dress had caught on fire right before they had shipped it out, due to a mishap at the post office. The sellers had tried to take it to multiple places to have it repaired but no one was willing to take on the work. They sent it to me for free and I decided, why not try my hand at it? The first video I shared about it quickly went viral and I started to build a community of people who wanted to try to offer their advice, invest themselves in the story and even start sending me their own dresses. One thing led to another and now I restore vintage items full time! Everything from jewelry to clothing and even home decor and lighting. It’s been a true honor getting to share people’s stories who donate items to me and get to give these wonderful items a second chance.

If you’re interested in learning more, or giving a vintage piece a second chance, you can check out my little online shop here: https://hobbybobbins.myshopify.com/

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?This is a tough one to narrow down so I’ll try to give one answer to touch on each impactful area:

1. A quality about myself that I think has been most impactful in my journey would be my willingness to accept my limitations and be open to learning new things from those around me. If I drive myself to burn out or ignore all of the advice given to me by those who follow me, it would just lead me down a very lonely stress path that I’m sure would show in my content. I may not post on a robotic and structured schedule, but when I do it is because I am invested in it; so I know others will be too.2. I have gained so many skills over my last few years doing this type of work but my favorite is definitely the ability to take on projects that no one else would touch and make them look like new again!3. Advancing my areas of knowledge have been vital in my line of work. Honestly I think my favorite is all of the knowledge I’ve gained from those in previous generations who follow me. They are so keen on giving their best washing tips, sewing tricks and resources to help and it makes me feel very special to have them as a resource to turn to!

Advice I would think to give to someone who is just starting out in their own journey is to keep in tune with your needs, your resources, your limitations and your mentality. If you stay true to who you are and invest yourself without expending yourself, I personally believe you will have continued success in all you put your heart into; and even in your failures you will be able to better maintain the grace that you need to change course and try again!

How can folks who want to work with you connect?I absolutely would love to collaborate with more people, businesses and creators. Ideally I would look for opportunities where we could help someone in need, provide/review a product that is inline with some of my content, or gain a new collab partner who can supply products that I can use for my restorations. It’s silly but things like organizers, notions, fabric, etc. all end up becoming vitally important and I love to find partners to help me and my followers keep things going in the right direction.

If anyone wants to contact me for a collaboration they can email me at [email protected]

Contact Info:

Image CreditsHobby Bobbins