S10: Changing the craft landscape, with Sophie Sellu, founder of Grain & Knot
Conversations of Inspiration
Holly Tucker MBE
5.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2021
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After being made redundant and deciding to attend a wood carving course, Sophie bought an axe and a set of knives and set about carving her own future, by embracing a craft that she loved.
Embracing ‘slow’ is part of Sophie’s philosophy and she discusses the early days of honing her woodcarving skills, the joy of sharing the mental health benefits of crafting and her desire to build a soulful and sustainable brand.
Enjoying listening to these unfiltered chats? It's worth following Holly Tucker MBE and Holly & Co on Instagram, and subscribing to our weekly newsletter on our website, where Holly downloads her thoughts, and exclusively shares small business finds and topical, 'ungoogleable' business advice.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | From the very first days of Holly and Coe when it was just myself, Carrie and Gabby sitting in my bedroom dreaming up what Holly and Coe would become, we had a mood board. |
| 0:10.0 | We'd refer to it often and on it was none other than Sophie Salou, founder of Grain and Not. |
| 0:16.2 | She was in fact in our first brand film back in 2017. |
| 0:20.8 | So I think it's safe to say I've long been a fan. Sophie has such passion for her |
| 0:26.2 | wood carving and has found an incredible way of blending both ancient and modern |
| 0:31.2 | crafting techniques to create something completely magical and unique. |
| 0:35.9 | You can literally feel the love and care she's poured into each product. |
| 0:41.2 | It's safe to say that the idea of building and consuming slowly comes through loud and clear. |
| 0:47.0 | It was brilliant to chat to someone who believes in being thoughtful as much as myself whilst making a successful and |
| 0:55.0 | commercial business. I felt totally inspired and calm after talking to |
| 1:00.5 | Sophie and I hope you do too. Here is our conversation of inspiration. |
| 1:06.0 | Bow your head and let your eyelids close on down where we're going you won't welcome to conversations of inspiration. Back in 2006 I found it not on the high street from the kitchen table and since then I've gone on to launch Holly and co |
| 1:26.8 | I'm the UK ambassador of creative small businesses and I believe that having a business doing what you love is the key to a happy |
| 1:36.0 | fulfilled life. My dream is to help everybody start theirs. I'm here to offer |
| 1:42.0 | advice, inspiration, wisdom and encouragement and in my view |
| 1:46.7 | the best way to do this is by sharing stories. So I've reached out to my favorite small businesses, entrepreneurs and those who simply inspire me and ask them to share theirs with thanks to NatWest who have helped bring this free podcast to life. Here are my conversations of inspiration. |
| 2:07.6 | Sophie, we were just saying how crazy this is that you've been part of the Holy and Co journey since day one appearing on our first video when we launched and yet you and I have still not met in person. |
| 2:19.6 | How has that happened? I don't know how that's not happened yet. Well we slightly know how it's happened in the last year and |
| 2:25.5 | and certainly we've had more contact this year because well last year because you |
| 2:30.0 | won the Modern Crafter Awards at our very first independent awards in December and I'm still |
| 2:36.3 | so thrilled for you. |
| 2:38.3 | I know honestly it still hasn't really sunk in yet. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Holly Tucker MBE, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Holly Tucker MBE and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.