Blast O' Joy: Interview with a Successful Dreamer

Sally Faith Coombs, 35, is a milliner who didn't start out that way. After spending several years cleaning houses, she got a Continuing Ed degree at Wellesley College in psychology and women's studies. Sally left Wellesley convinced her purpose was to empower women to move past the media's stereotypes about beauty and body image. Yet, it was while researching a possible documentary on the subject that she discovered making hats. Then Sally stumbled on an interesting truth: by making hats, she could use her creativity to fulfill her purpose -- that women don't have to be a perfect size 8 to feel beautiful in a great hat.

Not long after that, Sally started Maggie Mae Designs and began selling the hats, one at a time, to craft galleries. Now, several years later, her hats have been featured in Victoria Magazine and on Oxygen TV. This is how she's made it work.

How did you get started?
The name of the business hit me before I'd ever made a hat ... one night, I woke up at 2 AM and I saw the name, Maggie Mae Designs. My cat, Maggie Mae, was sitting on the bed with me.

Sometimes cats have this smug look on their face. She looked smug. I wasn't designing anything at that time, except a way to get out of cleaning toilets.

Then, a little later, my mother handed me this knitting pattern for a felted hat, which I took to humor her. So I knitted up this hat -- it was huge sack of woolen matter. I put it in my washer and let it boil, and in about fifteen minutes, it shrank into this really cool hat. I started rummaging through all the stuff I've collected all my life, and I started attaching things to my hat. And before I knew it, I'd made three or four of them and I was hooked.

How have you worked the money thing?
My boyfriend is a painter, and throughout the year our expenses are minimal. We live above my mom's house, our rent is really low and we clean houses for cash. As Tom puts it, it's life "on a shoestring but the shoestring broke a long time ago."

I often have the thought -- what was I thinking when I did this? I know nothing about business, or the world of retail. I don't even know how we do what we do. A hat order will come in... one... and will just pay for the bean and rice soup. We really do live very simply.

Yet, there is something magical about that work. The thing that keeps me going is the joy of it. When someone tells me what a hat I made meant to them... those are the moments I'm doing it for.
Also, I get to be part of an educational process, letting women know there are other options beside feeling you have to be a size four. I just encourage them to play, and they do! When I'm not sitting there groaning about rent and food, if I can just keep playing with the hats and all the reasons why I'm doing it, then I can keep going.

Tags: Creativity, creative careers, career change, living your dreams, millinery