If you missed Not Martha‘s fantastic guest blog series at Design*Sponge, her entire collection of interviews with crafty businesswomen is up — two weeks’ worth of daily posts!

I was so honored to be included, thank you so much, Megan. Everyone she talked to had such great advice and insights, and here’s the list with links so you can check them out whenever you have a chance, if you haven’t already… there are interviews with Daria of Glamscience, Cinnamon of Poise.cc, Amy of Kingpod, Alicia Paulson of Posie, Paola of MirrorMirror, Kristen of Schmancy, and Suzy of the Frock Shop.

Speaking of small business, I also spotted this fantastic post by Jennifer Perkins passing on some stellar advice today, and a very helpful list of craft business (specifically jewelry-making) articles and resources from Katie Hacker.

On another note, interviewee and all-around crafty superstar Amy Karol is having a book event at Bolt here in Portland on Thursday night! I can’t wait to get my copy of Bend-The-Rules Sewing signed and see all the book projects in person. Have you checked out the flickr group of more than 1300 reader-made pieces lately? It’s amazing!

If you go:

Bend-The-Rules Sewing book event with Amy Karol
Thursday, November 8 from 7-9 pm
Bolt, 2136 NE Alberta St, Portland

Last, I hope you’ll forgive a quick stint on the soapbox: today is the last day to turn in your ballots here in Oregon, by 8 pm or they won’t be counted. Please vote if you haven’t already! This election only has two ballot measures (plus some assorted local measures by city or county), but in my opinion they are so important. So if you like to get your political advice from a craft blog, here are my recommendations: Yes on 50 (children’s health care) and most of all, Yes on 49 (Oregon land use).

The reason I feel so passionately about these measures has a lot to do with how much I love Oregon, which is my home — I feel so lucky to live here. But it has even more to do with my native state, North Carolina. The fight over Measure 50 has been a contentious, expensive campaign, largely funded by the tobacco industry and RJ Reynolds in particular. The spending on Measures 49 and 50 has added up to $22 per vote in the last months, most of that cash coming directly from RJR, Phillip Morris and other tobacco companies. I grew up in a state where that industry and their money are king and to say I do not agree with their politics is putting it mildly. Please consider raising the tax on cigarettes simply to match Washington’s and help fund our children’s health care.

As for Measure 49, which protects and regulates how land can be developed, I cannot state the case strongly enough to vote yes. I grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was a small, lovely city in the 1970s and early 80s, surrounded by a loose network of smaller towns and farms. It’s now a huge sprawling intertwined series of mini and maxi-cities, one on top of the other, largely because the growth, development, and annexing there has been rapid and under-regulated. My grandmother’s house and garden and the small family-owned farms that surrounded it in once-rural Durham County are now industrial warehouses and business parks; the open land around Raleigh in every direction has become subdivisions, subdivisions, and more subdivisions.

And did I mention the severe and unrelenting water shortage the entire area is now facing due to over-development and the drought that has descended? Atlanta, which has made similar choices over the last twenty years, has the same problems. I love North Carolina and I will always be glad that I grew up there, but it has changed so much that it’s hardly recognizable.

I love Oregon: the food grown here is stellar, the wine industry is incredible, business is booming, the state is beautiful, and Portland’s transit and clean air are spectacular. It didn’t happen accidentally; let’s keep it this way.