Caroline: Stitching Together a New Career

“I had to resign from my position as a special education assistant … and I couldn’t return to that position after knee surgery. So, I decided to reinvent myself.”

After nearly 20 years working with special needs children, Caroline Heinrichs found herself at a turning point in her life. While recovering from knee replacement surgery, she realized her job wasn’t something she could do long term. As she began searching for a new path forward, she came across a program being offered at her local WorkBC Centre. What started as a search for work eventually launched a career driven by her passion for quilting. Today, through her business Good Earth Quilting, Caroline creates quilts that help families preserve meaningful stories, milestones and memories from clothing that might otherwise be tucked away or discarded.

Long before she started her business, Caroline had been sewing for most of her life. She first learned to quilt in Grade 8 after discovering one of her teachers was a quilter, and she stayed after school to learn how to make her first piece. She found this small project “exciting as a 14-year-old kid.”

Although it would be years before she returned to quilting, she never stopped sewing. Over the years, she created and sold handmade clothing, took on mending work when she needed extra income and developed a passion for extending the life of existing materials. Decades before the term “upcycling” became common, Caroline was transforming second-hand clothing into new garments and selling them in local shops.

The skills she built over those years would eventually become the foundation for the business she runs today.

While looking for work after recovering from surgery, Caroline spotted a sign outside a WorkBC Centre about a self-employment training program being offered. Curious, she attended the classes and workshops to learn more.

The program helped her turn an idea into a business plan. Through training on marketing, networking, finances, taxation and proposal writing, she gained the tools needed to build a business from the ground up. With support, she recognized teaching could still be a secondary way to make income.

“I was already comfortable with teaching,” Caroline said. “But I really wanted to know the difference between children and adults.” She didn’t just want to quilt — she wanted to teach.

Caroline spent about four months preparing her business proposal for teaching adults how to upcycle and for Good Earth Quilting. Out of roughly 12 participants who attended the workshops, she was one of only three selected to receive funding. She used that support to earn her adult instruction diploma — an investment she saw as a way to bolster her future regardless of where her business journey led.

Despite this, Good Earth Quilting wasn’t an overnight success. At the start, many people weren’t familiar with memory quilts, and upcycling wasn’t widely embraced. “It was like ‘Oh, she got all the stuff from the dump,’” Caroline said. “It’s the stigma that has taken a long time to overcome.” Business growth was slow, but Caroline stayed persistent by networking, attending events and talking to people about her work. Over time, she found her niche in memory quilts, a service that combined her creativity with helping people preserve meaningful moments and memories.

Memory quilts take different forms. “It can be a pillow. It can be a small portrait that you hang on the wall. It can be a whole bed size quilt,” Caroline mentioned. Memory quilts are “made from clothing that belonged to someone that was meaningful and loved by you.” To her, the work is both emotional and rewarding because every piece of clothing tells a story.

“I don’t just see it as clothing. It comes from a person,” she said. Memory quilts preserve memories and honor loved ones by giving their clothes a second life.

Through her work, Caroline hopes to help clients preserve meaningful memories and, in some cases, move through grief. Family members often bring in clothing that belonged to loved ones who have passed away, trusting her to transform those garments into keepsakes they can treasure for years to come.
She understands how difficult it can be to hand over those items. “It’s an honor to me to work with clothing that belonged to someone my client loves,” she expressed.

Now that the upcycling market is slowly getting the attention it deserves, Caroline hopes to expand the teaching side of Good Earth Quilting and share her knowledge of quilting and upcycling with others. “My overall goal was to combine the two, but so far, teaching has had different challenges,” Caroline explained. “But I’ve remained diligent and hopeful.” She wants to help people learn how to start their own creative businesses and generate income from reuse-based crafts.

“I do recommend everybody take the upcycling and reuse marketplace way more seriously than they ever have before,” she said. “The upcycling marketplace is huge and it’s wide, wide open.”

She has already begun connecting with people and organizations interested in hosting workshops for her.

For anyone thinking about pursuing a passion or starting a small business, Caroline’s advice is simple: do your research, be willing to learn and take the first step.

“You have to just start,” she said.

Interested in starting your own business? Explore the Self-Employment page for information on what it’s like managing your own career or find a WorkBC Centre near you to discover what programs are available in your area.