Making the jump of upgrading a passion or hobby into a fully-fledged full-time job can be a scary shift for anyone - but for Kathleen McVeigh and Dale Donaldson, the stakes of starting their business were even higher, thanks to an extra consideration.
The two founded Vermont-based sustainable quilted fashion brand Kitty Badhands, using vintage or dead stock materials to make ready-to-buy unique clothing items and offering a custom quilt coat-making service. They started the company as a couple, with no idea if their spark of inspiration would be worth the gamble of leaving their secure jobs or how the risk would change their romantic dynamic.
“Because of our personal relationship, it was a financial risk for neither of us to have a ‘safe’ job to fall back on, and a personal risk in that we didn’t know how we
