Meet Cadence Kidwell

We recently connected with Cadence Kidwell and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cadence, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

A lot of my childhood, my mom was a single mom in the 60’s, and she figured out how to keep my brother and I in the same house and refill it with furniture and the essentials. I remember hearing her laugh at parties down the street – she was a great role model for “getting stuff done” and being optimistic. She had lots of stories of how she tried new things and started over. There wasn’t a lot of cheerleading or rewards, it was just expected that I would figure things out and I can see that that expectation was a real gift.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Before I opened the shop I was at Florida State University – I really like school myself and also helping people learn new things that delight them. I went back to school when my three children were little and after a decade in the mental health field. While earning a Ph.D. in Creative Writing I experienced the power of creativity in the midst of chaos. My literature focus was Latina Literature and African-American Women’s Folklore. I designed a certificate program for students to develop cultural competencies. University life also instills a strong core of service to people seeking to improve their lives. One of my favorite pieces in the shop is our battered SERVICE sign over the counter, announcing we are here to serve. I often say that I was happy at my job at FSU before dreaming of my own little shop and being a part of the Main Street life in Downtown Thomasville. I decided that I could either steady-on into my last decade of university life or I could join the makers’ life – make a business from a rough-worn building and fill it with beautiful yarns made by strong women. We’re truly an independent business with over 90% of our merchandise created by other independent women makers.

I wanted to knit around me the community that I fancied being a part of, putting these yarns into hands that love them as much as I do and all of us growing together as southern makers. Our location in Downtown Thomasville also provides us the ability to slow down, wander & find unexpected pleasures in the Creative South.

Something I learned at FSU was the value of conversation among those that see the world differently than me – something that used to happen at, say, bowling leagues, and is disappearing in our lives. I believe that knitting, and our shop, creates that space where conversation across generations and life experiences is valued and sought after. That 3rd space that isn’t work or home but enriches you. It has delighted me to find a way to bring my service background to doing good in our community and to set our mission to promote diversity, inclusion, equity and anti-racism.

Two of the projects I am most excited about right now is 1) working with small makers to design just what our Fuzzy Fans need, and in turn enriching that maker’s life with needed income, (our new The Billie Bag is a great example), 2) creating opportunities in the South to highlight LGBTQ makers and our Fuzzy Fans to support them (our Y’All Means All Box has been a great hit!).

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Persistence! Even when it seems like there is not a way forward in what you thought was the next logical step, there is SOMETHING that you can do to move things forward. Even if it is a little thing, it keeps things moving forward and beats the heck out of wallowing when it seems like things are fruitless.

Humility! You may not really know what needs to be done to get where you want to go, and it’s OK to ask for guidance; to seek others out. It’s such a relief to know that just because you don’t know the solution doesn’t mean that there isn’t a solution out there. You just have to keep asking to find the right person(s) to guide you. It’s about being coachable. Find a program, a community, or a person to coach you towards your goal. And be willing to try the suggestions – there is no point in having guidance if you think you know best anyway.

Adaptable! What’s another way to do something when what you thought was the correct path? Nothing is going to go the way you thought so be ready to grab a hold of another solution. Ask yourself, “what else is possible?”

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

I’ve been overwhelmed plenty of times. Some big challenges that come to mind is when we lost the second income we were relying on right after I quit my job to open the shop, and the other, of course, is when we had to close the doors due to Covid. In those cases I do a few things – I do let myself have some moments to be afraid, to have a big groan/cry. Then I start list-making and then I get to doing at least one thing on that list to move me out of the spincycle. Along the way I make a little time each day to do the knitting that I love that led me to have a shop. It is amazing what doing something creative, especially a hard pattern, will do for my sense of accomplishment. I can look at a lot of pieces that I have finished and remember the life challenges that were happening while working on those and see that I have come out the other side. Things may just not look like I thought they would at first.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fuzzygoatyarns.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fuzzy_goat/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuzzyGoatYarns/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fuzzy_goat

Image Credits

Madelyn Zorn