A childhood compulsion redirected into craft can become a lucrative career without business planning

Evidence

I’m so grateful that right about that time my older cousin Loretta moved into our house temporarily while her husband went off to Korea with the Navy. She offered to teach me how to knit. If it hadn’t been for Cousin Loretta, I don’t know where my compulsive addiction would have led me. For all I know it could have dangerously escalated into home invasion bedspread plucking. But I took immediately to the craft. … My knit business began when I started to barter my crafty handy work for acting classes and workshops. Even Tony Robbins traded his fire walk seminar for a gorgeous sweater for his wife. Walking over hot coals with Tony put a fire under my ass and before long I was knitting like a nut in my Meisner acting class where other actors and models who were earning big bucks took notice. The next thing, I was in the knit business without a plan or investors. My hobby went from making the occasional sweater for starlets to accounts at Saks Fifth Avenue, Henri Bendel, and Bergdorf Goodman, as well as high-end boutiques, and wearable art galleries from Brentwood to SoHo, Rodeo Drive to Madison Avenue and Las Vegas to Aspen. — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 75

Categorization

• SEED: The barter economy of Hollywood — fire walks and dance classes traded for knitwear — could anchor an essay on informal exchange in creative industries.
• XREF: connects to: An uncredentialed craftsperson gained two decades of studio access through persistence — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 78

Broader Connections

• An uncredentialed craftsperson gained two decades of studio access through persistence #exemplifies (0.78) — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 78