Jennifer Sanderson on Building Pigskins and Pigtails

I sat down with Jennifer Sanderson, the person behind Pigskins and Pigtails, for the podcast, and I wanted to write up what stuck with me, because her path into this industry doesn’t look like most of the stories I hear.

Jennifer didn’t start out trying to build a print shop. She started with a blog in 2010, purely as a creative outlet. The name Pigskins and Pigtails comes straight out of her life at the time — she was a football coach’s wife in Texas, where Friday Night Lights is not an exaggeration, it’s just Friday. The “pigskins” were the footballs. The “pigtails” were her daughters, who she’d dress up in custom shirts for game days. That’s the whole origin. A blog about a mom making shirts for her kids to wear to football games.

From vinyl to screen printing

Like a lot of people who end up here, Jennifer started with vinyl cutting to make those custom shirts. It worked, but she never liked the feel of vinyl on fabric, and she kept thinking there had to be a better way to do it. That search led her to screen printing.

She had no prior experience. She picked up a screen from a craft store and used her vinyl cutter to create the stencil, and it worked well enough that she posted the method to YouTube. The response surprised her — that one video was the thing that opened the door to teaching other people how to do what she’d just figured out for herself.

I bring this up because I think people assume you need to apprentice somewhere or take a class before you’re allowed to teach anyone anything. Jennifer’s path was the opposite. She solved her own problem, showed her work, and the teaching came from people asking her how she did it.

Teaching the crafting and screen printing community

That one video turned into an ongoing project of teaching, and Jennifer has kept at it since — tutorials and tips aimed at people with limited space and limited equipment, which is most people starting out. What comes through in her videos, and in our conversation, is that she’s good at making the process feel less intimidating to someone who has never touched a screen before.

One part of our conversation worth mentioning specifically: Jennifer has worked with Ryonet on a lightweight screen printing press built for people who want to print at home without committing to a large, permanent setup. It’s portable and built to handle multi-color work, which is a real gap for people who don’t have room for a full manual press station.

Find your audience before you build the product

The part of the conversation I keep coming back to is Jennifer’s approach to building a business around something you already love doing. Her advice was to find your audience before you build your products around them — figure out who you’re actually talking to, and let that shape what you make, rather than building something first and going looking for buyers after.

That’s a harder discipline than it sounds like. It means resisting the urge to make what you think is impressive and instead paying attention to what the people already following you actually want. Jennifer built Pigskins and Pigtails that way — she kept things simple, stayed close to what she genuinely enjoyed making, and paid attention to her audience as it grew.

What this means if you’re starting from a similar place

If your entry point into screen printing looks more like Jennifer’s than mine — you didn’t come up through a shop, you came to it because you wanted to make something for your own kids or your own hobby — that’s not a disadvantage. It’s arguably a better starting position than mine was, because you already know who you’re making things for. You don’t have to go find your audience. You already have one; you just have to notice it.

Jennifer also co-runs the Screen Print Collective alongside me, which is a community built for exactly this kind of person — someone figuring out how to turn a craft or a passion project into something more structured, without losing what made it enjoyable in the first place. It’s currently waitlist only, but if that sounds like where you are, it’s worth getting on the list at https://screenprintcollective.com.

Why I wanted her on the podcast

I run a one-press shop out of my own basement, so when I talk to other printers, I’m usually most interested in the ones who started with almost nothing and figured it out anyway. Jennifer’s story fits that pattern better than most guests I’ve had on. She didn’t come from an apparel background, a design background, or a manufacturing background. She came from a blog about football and her kids, and she followed the thread from there one step at a time — vinyl, then screen printing, then teaching, then a product collaboration.

I think that sequence matters more than it looks like it does. Nothing about it required a business plan up front. It required trying the next thing that made sense, watching what people responded to, and adjusting. That’s a very different model than the one most people assume they need — write the business plan, secure the funding, launch the brand. Jennifer’s version looks more like: make a shirt for a football game, post it, notice people care, make another one.

The part I’d tell you to actually sit with

If you take one thing from this conversation, don’t make it the press collaboration or the growth of her following. Make it the audience point. It’s the part of the conversation that applies no matter what stage you’re at, whether you’re making shirts for your kid’s team or running a shop with real overhead.

Most people building a print business start by asking what they should make. Jennifer’s approach flips that. She’d tell you to figure out who’s already paying attention to you, and let that shape the product. If you’re stuck deciding what to print, what to charge, or what your niche is supposed to be, that’s usually a sign you’re solving the problem in the wrong order.

Listen to the full conversation

I’ve only pulled out a few pieces here. The full episode covers more of Jennifer’s story, including how the Pigskins and Pigtails brand grew past the original blog. You can listen at https://podcast.startupscreenprinting.com/ or watch it at https://youtu.be/qn9n3sPqVdE.

You can also follow Jennifer directly — she’s @pigskinsandpigtails on both Instagram and TikTok, and Pigskins and Pigtails on YouTube.

If there’s one thing to take from her story, it’s this: she didn’t wait until she felt like an expert to post that first video. She just showed what she’d figured out. If you’ve been sitting on a method, a technique, or a shirt design you’re proud of and haven’t shared it because you don’t feel qualified yet, that’s the only qualification anyone in this industry actually started with.