We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brianna Manaco a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brianna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’ve always considered myself a crafty gal, so learning a new, hands-on skill was something I’ve always enjoyed. Early 2020 I found a huge bag of embroidery floss that I’ve had for years that I once used to make bracelets as a kid. I decide it might be fun to give embroidery a try, so that’s what I did.

Learning any new skill can be very overwhelming, and hand embroidery was no different. My head was spinning when I started out, there was so much I didn’t know. I think the most essential part of learning a craft is to accept that you will never know it all. If you’ve decided you’re going to be a student for life, it takes the pressure off of you. Another piece of advice: JUST START. If you are anything like me, you might feel like you’ll never know enough about a craft to be able to start it. That could make you push it off forever. If you want to learn something new, you really do just have to dive in head first. For me, that looked like a few hours of minimal research on needles and embroidery hoops, then sitting down and starting stitching. The majority of my learning came from Youtube videos, sprinkled with a whole lot of trial and error over the past two years.

The confidence I gained from learning how to embroider eventually pushed me to learn how to sew. I’m only about a year into sewing, and to be honest, I feel like I’ll forever be learning new things when it comes to both of these skills. And that excites me!

Knowing what I know now, I’m sure there are ways I could have sped up my learning process, Carving out intentional, uninterrupted time to work on your craft is a big one. I’d also encourage others to lean on their community, whether thats in-person or online! It’s possible there are local classes or groups in your area, and you can find a ton of makers online who teach others to do what they do.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi, I’m Bri! I live in Montana with husband, doggo and pet bunny. I’d been wanting to start some sort of shop for years now so I could have a more creative outlet outside of my full time job. When I first made the move from the midwest to mountains, I spent a lot of my free time thrifting. This led me to start selling vintage finds. It was fun, but I knew I hadn’t found my niche just yet. I began teaching myself how to hand embroider in 2020, and it gave me the push I needed to try new things. I started practicing by making fun embroidery hoops for my friends as gifts. Eventually I received a request for a custom hoop of a portrait of a friend’s dog. I’m really thankful for that commission, because that’s why I began offering custom pet portraits. Once I started feeling more confident in my skills, I began embroidering on second hand clothing. This felt like the perfect way to combine my love for thrifting and embroidering. I became slightly obsessed with the concept of giving old garments a new life, which then sparked my interest in sewing.

About a year later, early 2021, I splurged and bought a sewing machine. Mind you, I knew absolutely nothing about sewing. In fact, I’d only sewed once in my life and that was because it was required in my 8th grade Family and Consumer Science class! It took me months to build up the courage to actually sit down and start sewing. I practiced the variety of stitches on scrap fabrics until I felt ready to take a crack at clothing.

Now my small business offers a variety of things, hence the name “Kluster Funk” being a play on words of something I’m sure we’ve all heard. I offer custom, hand embroidered and water color painted hoops. Most requests are for pet portraits, but I can do any subject matter! I also offer hand embroidered clothing and upcycled clothing – all made from recycled or unworn textiles. Each piece is also completely unique, which I really love. What drives me and my business is the concept of slow fashion. If you’ve never heard of this, simply put, it’s the opposite of fast fashion. Slow fashion is a thoughtful approach to style and clothing that considers the processes and resources required to produce clothing. The slow fashion community values our planet and the people making our clothes.

Being a small business, I hope for sales, but I also enjoy educating others about slow fashion and bringing awareness to our overconsumption habits. I believe this will help people to be more intentional with their relationship to their clothing. My goal is to create one-of-a-kind pieces that others will truly cherish and take care of!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think “pivoting” is an important part of life. Whether that be with your business or personal life, things will never stay the same. Luckily, pivoting allows us to grow! For me, I pivoted more times than I can count when trying to start my small business. In 2018, I wanted to only sell vintage clothes. I quickly realized that wasn’t enough of a hands-on, creative outlet for me. In 2019, I got into crocheting. I made a few ponchos and a dog sweater, but ended up giving them away as gifts. It wasn’t until I tried embroidering in 2020 that I felt like I was on to something. Sewing came about a year late, and now I feel like the possibilities are endless with what I can create.

If you have interest in something, I’d encourage you to give it a try. And then keep trying until you find what you want to do. When it’s the right path, you’ll feel it!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started my Instagram account, @shopklusterfunk, back in March 2019. For the year I found it extremely difficult to stick with. I think part of this was because I was only selling vintage at the time, and my heart wasn’t in it. I also put a lot of effort into everything being aesthetically pleasing on my feed, which was draining me and preventing me from posting.

Over the past year, I’ve really committed to showing up on social media and trying to grow my following – and I’ve seen growth! I definitely struggled with letting go of my perfectionism and showing up even when I didn’t want to. I’ve found Instagram reels are what gives me the most reach and new followers, but word of mouth is still huge when it comes to my sales. My biggest piece of advice when it comes to social media, show your face and be authentic! You are the person behind the business, and I promise people want to know you and your story. Once they do, they’ll better understand and believe in your product/service/etc.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @shopklusterfunk
• Other: Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/KlusterFunk