Shari Butler – Doohikey Designs

Doohikey Designs® is the work of artist Shari Butler. Since childhood she has always been involved with the arts and crafts. Whether it’s from tickling the ivory keyboard, singing a song, or doodling on a piece of paper, She always has something brewing in her creative mind and spirit.

Shari’s beautiful work is populated with vintage like characters and whimsical designs that are inspired from her childhood. With the opportunities of freelancing with some national companies, she was inspired to follow her own dream and to search for her own creative niche.

Shari fell in love with quilting, sewing, and the idea of fabric. She loves and is inspired by the idea that someday when someone makes a quilt with her designs it will be passed down from generation to generation.

Her style is vintage with a modern twist in her surface designs. She is always exploring the arts, and how to increase her skill set through all different types of media. As a surface designer, she’s always in the creative mode. You never know what she will be designing next.

When she discovered the community of quilting, she found her passion and dream job in designing fabric. She now is pursuing creating notions, embroidery patterns, pet products, and more under her brand name, Doohikey Designs®.

Shari is the creator of Binding Babies® a new craft and quilt notion.

Shari has become a business nerd, and has taken after her father’s entrepreneurial spirit. She is excited to serve you better by bringing, and creating products that you will love.

Discount Code:

Code: ILOVENOTIONS, 10% off order

Show Notes:

www.doohikeydesigns.com
Binding Babies
Ruler Roundups
www.thegreatjellyrollbash.com
www.instagram.com/doohikeydesigns/
www.Facebook.com/doohikeydesigns
www.Pinterest.com/doohikeydesigns
https://www.youtube.com/@doohikeydesignsco

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Transcript of the interview with Shari Butler:

Carolina Moore:
I love notions and I’m guessing that you do too. Hey there, friend. It’s Carolina Moore, your favorite sewing and quilting YouTuber and now podcaster, here with another episode.
So today on the podcast we have Shari Butler, and I can’t tell you how long I’ve known Shari. Shari, I also can’t tell you exactly when we met or got to know each other. I just know we’ve been Facebook friends for a really long time, and I don’t know what that initial moment that we met was. Do you remember?

Shari Butler:
I think it was at Quilt Market, but I don’t remember which year to be quite honest. In fact, my name is actually Shari and people get it mixed up because usually it’s like Sherry.

Carolina Moore:
That’s so funny. See, because we’ve been Facebook friends for so long.

Shari Butler:
Oh, I know. I never actually corrected people at the quilt booths or anything. Dan’s like, why aren’t you correcting people? I’m like, because it’s just not who I am. [inaudible] Sherry, but it’s Shari.

Carolina Moore:
Shari. I’m sorry, Shari. I screwed that up.

Shari Butler:
I grew up with that as a kid, forever.

Carolina Moore:
I’m Carolina and my family calls me Caroline, because that’s the nickname of Carolina in Dutch. But Caroline, hey you, that girl. I answer to all of them and I don’t usually correct people. Carolina, I answer to Carolina too. If I know that someone has to write my name or look it up on a list, I intentionally mispronounce my name. I say, oh, it’s Carolina Moore as they’re looking it up on the list, because they can find it easier. Then someone with me says, “Wait, do you pronounce your name Carolina?” “No, no, I pronounce it Carolina.” I’m just trying to help them find it on the list.

Shari Butler:
So you also grew up with that as well?

Carolina Moore:
Very relatable. So Shari, I must’ve been at a quilt market probably, gosh, seven, eight years ago, something like that, I would think. Because you’ve been in the industry a while, but let’s go way back to your origin story of how you got started in quilting. How you found quilting or how quilting found you?

Shari Butler:
So I never was really interested in sewing or quilting when I was growing up. When I got married, probably when I was 27, I decided that I wanted to try. So we went and bought my first machine, which is a PFAFF. I think it’s PFAFF. I wasn’t perfect at it, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t very patient with it. But I was also into digital scrapingbooking, so I was designing for that. I don’t know, I love the design part more if I want to say that versus the start of quilting. But as I got to know certain people in the industry, it made me feel more compelled to learn the craft and to be better at it. So is all my stitches always perfect? No. But I try dang hard to do my best and be better every time.

Carolina Moore:
Well, I mean, does a perfect quilt keep you warmer than an imperfect quilt?

Shari Butler:
No, and that’s what I think is you can’t… Don’t let perfection stop you from anything.

Carolina Moore:
Sure. All the points matching doesn’t mean that there’s more love in that quilt.

Shari Butler:
No. Because the time that you put into it, even when you’re learning, all those stitches are just filled with love, and that person who gets that quilt will cherish it no matter what.

Carolina Moore:
I a hundred percent agree. So you found quilting, but it sounds like fairly early on you started getting into the industry side of quilting.

Shari Butler:
Yes. So back in 2008, I went down to Christensen Wholesale and I was talking to [inaudible]. I was actually going to make stuff for Etsy to sell, and I talked to Brett, the owner, and I told him that I did digital scrapbooking designs and he wanted to see what those were. So he said, well come in, I think in a day or so, and I went down there with my portfolio and I was already getting in line for the next Quilt Market.

Carolina Moore:
Wow. That was fast.

Shari Butler:
It was very fast, very scary. But I quickly got jumped into doing fabric designing, which I absolutely loved. I loved doing that, and I loved the fabric designers I got to meet and be with. I loved working with Riley Blake. I think towards the end of what I was doing, I kind of got burned out on that, but I was also going through quite a few miscarriages at that time.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, that’s so difficult.

Shari Butler:
So it was like emotions with infertility and it just got a lot. I was making quite a bit of children’s fabric lines, so it was hard, but I still put my love into it and I did what I could, but it was hard.

Carolina Moore:
I can’t imagine. My heart goes out to the Shari of that time who was struggling with this. Being faced with that, you going to work and you can’t escape.

Shari Butler:
But it made me who I am and it helped me to develop something that I wanted to help bring joy to others that brought me out of darkness.

Carolina Moore:
Now, did you have family at that time with little ones that you were able to have the joy of making for them?

Shari Butler:
My nieces and nephews, I absolutely did my best in trying to spoil them and even neighbor kids, I always showed them love. It just was always a little bit bittersweet and hard sometimes when you have empty arms, you want those arms filled with love.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. I can’t imagine. We’re going to jump ahead a little bit for anyone who, like the listeners, to know that this didn’t stay your story.

Shari Butler:
No. Nope. It didn’t stay my story at all.

Carolina Moore:
Because you have your rainbow baby.

Shari Butler:
I do. I was able to get Grayson here, and he was born in March 5th, 2021. He was a blessing to our family at that time. He’s still much a blessing to us. We love him and we are excited that… I mean, it brings a lot of creative into me and you also get a lot tired, perks of working mom. [inaudible] warn me about that.

Carolina Moore:
Well, so in the early years they are physically exhausting. They take a lot of your physical energy. As they get older, it’s less physical energy and a lot more mental energy that they take.

Shari Butler:
Oh, don’t tell me that.

Carolina Moore:
Well, you wanted to be warned.

Shari Butler:
Okay. Yes, you are warning me, which I am grateful for because I’m learning motherhood and it’s great, and I don’t regret having our son and having his light in our home.

Carolina Moore:
So you were designing fabric and making some quilts. Were you doing quilt patterns at that time as well?

Shari Butler:
I did. I did a few quilt patterns. I wasn’t doing quilt patterns heavily until Wistful Winds came out and my other few lines that start trickling out, that’s where I put more supporting patterns to that because at first I didn’t really market myself as much as a fabric designer. I know that’s crazy, but I was also doing other work as well, so I’m getting better at that.

Carolina Moore:
There is a whole thread that I’ve seen in having these different conversations, especially with women of the self-promotion. We’ve been taught that it’s supposed to feel icky, and so it does, but it shouldn’t and it doesn’t need to because people want to know about these things. They want to know all the cool things and how are they going to know the cool things if we don’t tell them the cool things.

Shari Butler:
That is correct. I think part of me was, I think my confidence was going down through the miscarriages I had. So when Wistful Winds came out, I actually had a personal trainer who was working with me, so oh, I was working on my health to lose the weight, to get feeling better so that we could try again. But I wanted to try naturally. That’s the other cool part about Grayson is he came natural. It wasn’t through IVF or anything like that. So she helped give me that self-confidence back. That’s why I started creating the patterns with it and I felt like I could actually do more.

Carolina Moore:
That’s awesome.

Shari Butler:
[inaudible] makes sense.

Carolina Moore:
No, and-

Shari Butler:
So it was a health journey slash recovery, mental health type stuff that I was going through.

Carolina Moore:
Well, it’s all woven together for sure. Yeah. So at some point you said, I’m going to design this notion. What was the thread that got you started?

Shari Butler:
Okay, so it wasn’t necessarily, and I couldn’t create this notion. I actually didn’t have a ton of money at that time. I put everything into IVF, whatever, and with all the failed miscarriages, I didn’t have a ton of money at that time to make a gift for my design director at Riley Blake and also for Cindy, the other owner. So I created Binding Babies and Gina fell in love with it and she’s like, “you need to sell these.” In fact, her friend and my friend Juana Burgess said, “you should call them Binding Babies.” I’m like, “no, no, no. I don’t know. I don’t know about this.” It’s cute. But I wasn’t necessarily going to put that out into the world, right? Then-

Carolina Moore:
Step back a second and tell us what is a Binding Baby? Explain that for anyone who hasn’t seen a Binding Baby before.

Shari Butler:
So a Binding Baby, basically it’s on a spool with a character head on the spool and I created legs for it so that it can wrap the binding around and they can actually take that binding either on the spindle layer machine or on a flower spindle base that we have. We also have a heart base now that they could attach their binding onto their quilt without having it go all over the floor, in their lap, being torn. It makes it so much easier and smoother.

Carolina Moore:
So it is both adorable and useful in that it’s a way to wrap up your binding to keep it off the floor and out of the way, but it also looks really cute. If you’re not using your binding right away, it’s also a cute way to store your binding until you’re ready to attach your binding to your quilt.

Shari Butler:
Yes, it can store, I forgot that part. Yes, it can store your binding. So we basically put cute plus bond equals functional because we wanted to bring the joy back into the quilter sewing room.

Carolina Moore:
I love that because we all have cute little tchotchkes around our sewing room and I definitely have rolled up binding ends that I’ll probably use for either mini quilts or that I’ll piece together to make a scrappy binding at some point. So a place to store that until that time comes, but also looks cute at the same time, is so clever.

Shari Butler:
It’s fun. So I didn’t realize it was going to become as popular as it was. So when I was debuting Wistful Winds, the night before, I actually hand painted six of them to put on the shelf in my booth and everyone’s like… Kept asking about them, and I got approached by Fat [inaudible], how does it hold the binding? At that point, we did not have the legs at that point. So we took it home, we fixed that problem and we came back and they wanted to order right then, but we had to get everything in place.
So we started to hand make them in August 2016, and we launched the website at the end of August, but we didn’t do wholesale yet. We were trying to figure all of this out and then we got some people asking about it for wholesale and we had to act quick. We had to act quick. We actually tried China over. It just didn’t really work out for us. When we got our quality back, there were some that are quality and then there were some we had to discount or throw away. Does that make sense?

Carolina Moore:
So the initial gifts that you gave were hand-painted that you made yourself?

Shari Butler:
Correct.

Carolina Moore:
Then you started producing them, I’m assuming in the garage or in an office at your house. Did you then find someone else to produce them for you so you weren’t spending your days hand painting little faces on heads and attaching them to little spools?

Shari Butler:
Oh, we did. We tried China. We got those back at the end of 2017. We got our first shipment and we decided we weren’t going to return back to China, and so I quickly found a local shop to cut [inaudible] to the spools from that point forward. So our spools are actually designed by us and they’re manufactured only for us, and now we’re back to hand painting them.

Carolina Moore:
When you say we’re back to hand painting them, does that mean you or do you have a team that helps you?

Shari Butler:
My husband and me. Well, my husband paints the spools and then he’ll connect everything and then I’ve been hand painting the faces and [inaudible] them. I’m actually working on hiring some local moms or local young women to want to come help me take them by per piece. So I can get some of that off my plate.

Carolina Moore:
That sounds like a lot of work, hand painting all these cute little faces.

Shari Butler:
It is. But again, the comments when you get back from a customer that they’re just so happy that this notion is the cutest thing ever. But I didn’t know I needed it until I needed it. They didn’t know exactly, they would buy it, they didn’t know how it was. Then when I had my, and I need to update more videos, don’t get me wrong, I needed to do more tutorials, but when I had, they saw my YouTube video of how it actually worked, it just magically helped them to learn how to use them. They told me, they find out that the binding is just so much easier and smoother going on than without it.

Carolina Moore:
I love that. I’ll definitely link to the YouTube video in the show notes for the podcast, but also what we as quilters are doing is hand making things and we’re using tools that were designed by other makers, and some of those tools are then manufactured somewhere and that’s fine. But I love that this is, it’s also a handmade tool that helps us in our handmade process. It’s that connection again.

Shari Butler:
It is. We want to still keep it in the USA. We might try another version with a different country. We are just not sure yet, how we want to go about that. I just need to get the hiring in place and that’s where I kind of get stuck and we don’t need to go into that, but…

Carolina Moore:
No, it’s totally okay.

Shari Butler:
[inaudible] few people, it just didn’t work out.

Carolina Moore:
Staffing is a whole nother challenge in running a quilting business. No one trained us how to be a boss. How do you be a boss? I don’t know. I still don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.

Shari Butler:
Well, my dad was an entrepreneur. He actually owned Preston [inaudible] Company and Preston in Idaho and watching him do his thing, I never knew as a kid how much work his job was, right? Now I’m seeing a glimpse of like, oh my, he had probably 30 employees over time, different ones, and it’s insane what he had to go through. I have a lot of respect for entrepreneurs that have their own company, but I also have a lot of respect for consumers who trust us in making these Binding Babies so that we can bring them joy and help their binding ease.

Carolina Moore:
Absolutely. Now, I know you took a little bit of time after you had Grayson to enjoy that motherhood, but it sounds like-

Shari Butler:
No, I was actually still painting. I mean, I took probably a month and a half off. I’ve had some help painting. My sister and a few other friends because I had severe preeclampsia. So with Grayson it was a little bit traumatic, but that’s why I just want to get things in place because we actually want to try again.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, that’s exciting. Grayson could be a big brother. That’d be cool.

Shari Butler:
We don’t want him to be the only kid.

Carolina Moore:
I don’t know. I have three siblings. I wouldn’t have minded if my parents… No, I love my brothers. It’s fine.

Shari Butler:
Oh, so you’re the only girl. Okay.

Carolina Moore:
I am the only girl. I have an older brother and two younger brothers. But yeah, I’m the only girl, but not the only child.

Shari Butler:
Yeah, we don’t want to be only child.

Carolina Moore:
I think it’s one of those people who are only children. Some of them are happy to be only children, but some of them wish they would’ve had siblings. Then some of us who have siblings, we’re happy to have siblings and sometimes it’s like, you know what? If it was just me, it might’ve been different. I mean, for sure it would’ve been different, but it might’ve been just fine.
So you are cranking out Binding Babies. Are you still working on pattern design or any of the other projects, or is it really focused on making these cute little faces?

Shari Butler:
I’m actually going to be stepping back into doing some pattern design. We’re actually, I’m partnering up with a few ladies and we’re doing a jelly roll day where we will have a Zoom call and if they buy their ticket, which is buying the five patterns, and we kind of go over the patterns with them, then we just have wicked talk and quilt with them as they’re working on that project. If they want to work on one of the quilts or if they want to work on a different project, that’s going to be fun.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. That sounds super-

Shari Butler:
[inaudible] jelly roll. The jelly roll bash, I think.

Carolina Moore:
Yes. We’ll make sure to link to that in the show notes as well because that sounds super fun. So you’re doing some pattern design. Do you have other plans, things coming up?

Shari Butler:
I do. I’m going to also work on some individual blocks and I’m working on a pineapple block that will have enamel pin. Also I’ve been doing some printed on demand t-shirts because I love to design, but I don’t want to stock the t-shirts, so those ship out separate, but I kind of wanted to create something just fun and do theme-based that way. So more [inaudible] on that and then we’re gearing up for the next little bit because we know that Christmas is coming up and people are going to want to get Christmas gifts.

Carolina Moore:
Yes. These makes, I mean obviously the first purpose or the first intent of a Binding Baby was as gifts. I mean, yes, to hold binding, but those first few were gifts. So clearly they make amazing gifts for quilty friends, for a family that quilts, for your guild friends or for a holiday swap within a guild. Those are all fun. Now, do you ever get requests to make custom faces, like someone who has green eyes and brown hair and maybe a dimple? Kind of like me?

Shari Butler:
We do actually do customs. I don’t want to do copyrighted stuff. So people have asked before if I would do Harry Potter or Disney, and I just don’t feel that that’s right until get a license for them. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So if it’s a custom about personal to them, then I go through that and if it works, then I will accept that order. Does that make sense?

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Shari Butler:
So yeah, green eyes, dimple, I’d have to think of how to do that. Never thought about doing a dimple there, but we’ll work on it.

Carolina Moore:
I’m lopsided. I have a single dimple on one side of my face.

Shari Butler:
We’re actually also thinking about doing some custom colors on our flower spindles as well.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, that’s fun. For people who have favorite colors or branding colors that they’re really connected to.

Shari Butler:
Yes. We also have the Ruler Roundup. Have I told you about that?

Carolina Moore:
You have not told me about the Ruler Roundup. Please do.

Shari Butler:
So my sister and brother-in-law came up with this idea and they created our design of the Ruler Roundups. So they have slots for your rulers that are domestic. So we tried doing them for a long arm. It just didn’t really sell as well. We do have a few that we can sell on the website that are still left, but they will hold the domestic rulers and then on the flat bottom part. Then the top part, you can actually hold your large rulers that will overhang a little bit. So it’s been hugely popular and I don’t think it gets as much shine as a Binding Babies. I like to let people know that we have a solid storage area for you to have a Ruler Roundup on your desk or cutting table.

Carolina Moore:
And they come in all kinds of fun colors.

Shari Butler:
They do. We have three colors right now, but we’ve thought about, I don’t know if we’ll offer custom on that yet. That’s something I have to talk to my husband about, but you get two of them. You can even put them as bookends, and then you have your books or patterns and you can store as a project based as well.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, that’s so smart.

Shari Butler:
People have asked us about if we are going to have anything for other type of storage, and we’re actually thinking about it. I don’t think that’ll be this year.

Carolina Moore:
Yes, the months are flying fast on the calendar this year, for sure.

Shari Butler:
Yes. We have to think of what we could add that could go with the Ruler Roundup, but we’re not there to apply anything to that yet. So I just wanted to shout out the Ruler Roundups and shout out to my sister and brother-in-law because they are so creative.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah, I love that this puts the rulers right there on your table. It doesn’t take a lot of space, so you can have it right there by your cutting mat. So I’m assuming that a lot of people are like this, that you cut some things with a ruler and then you set it down and then you move some fabric and then you move… Stack up quilt blocks and then you need to go cut again and where is my ruler?

Shari Butler:
Correct. I mean, it just helps with that. It’s steady enough. It’s not flimsy, it doesn’t tip over, so why not? People ask about the size. They think it’s big, but really it’s not. The size dimensions are on the website, but it doesn’t really take a large footprint.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah, it says five and a half wide by six inches tall by 11 and three quarters in length with seven slots for rulers.

Shari Butler:
Thank you.

Carolina Moore:
I just happen to have magical things at my fingertips, right?

Shari Butler:
I actually, oh, yes. I actually put other rulers in between the slots, and so I maximize it when I’m using it.

Carolina Moore:
That makes total sense.

Shari Butler:
So I maximize my space as much as I can.

Carolina Moore:
Well, we all have our favorite rulers, like a square up ruler and a quick trim ruler, and I mean a box bag template, right? These are the ones that we want to have handy all the time.

Shari Butler:
Yes. I also like the block lock because when you’re doing half square triangles, you make them so simple.

Carolina Moore:
Yes. To be able to find those so they’re not buried on the pegs on a pegboard.

Shari Butler:
Correct.

Carolina Moore:
Well, I’ll make sure that we have links to all of these things in the show notes, which will be at ilovenotions.com. Is there anything else that we want to be sure to mention before we close out the show for today?

Shari Butler:
I just want everyone to know that I just want to bring Joy into your life, if I can. Anything I create, I just want to spark joy because when I was in that dark place, I don’t want people to be there. I want them to find that joy in their craft and in their life and their home, because that’s where the center is. When you have kids in your quilting room and the Binding Baby, [inaudible] they’re not toys. We have disclaim that they’re not toys, but they are so fun for the kids just to kind of play with the fabric and that texture. It helps them to learn and grow. Grayson loves doing that. I let him do that. He’ll come and stack my jelly rolls over and over on my shelf because, and it teaches them that texture, that creativity. When I quilt, I let him in the room because I want him to see how things work.

Carolina Moore:
Yes, I love that. Well, where can everyone find you online?

Shari Butler:
So they can find me at my website. It’s www.doohikeydesigns.com. They can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, which I feel like they made that for quilters.

Carolina Moore:
Right. That’s the new Twitter. The new Twitter is called Threads, yes.

Shari Butler:
Correct. That’s at Doo Hikey Designs, D-O-O-H-I-K-E-Y D-E-S-I-G-N-S. Just make sure it doesn’t auto correct the C in there. I know we made it… So it’s like do high-key. Then I’m also on YouTube. I will be redoing a new tutorial on that because that’s from Quilt Market years ago. So I’ll try to send you a link soon.

Carolina Moore:
Absolutely. We’ll get that added into the show notes as well. Well, Shari, it’s been so fun hanging out with you today. Thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast.

Shari Butler:
Well, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. I just love you. I really do.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, right back at you.
Friends. That’s our episode for today. I hope you loved it as much as I loved having this conversation, remember that you can find all the details that we talked about in the show notes, and those are all at ilovenotions.com. Make sure to leave this podcast a review in your favorite podcasting app. Leaving it a review will help the podcast algorithm show this podcast to other people who love notions just as much as we do. Friends, that’s all I have for you today, but I will see you right here real soon. Bye for now.