How I Make Money On My Crochet Blog
Good day Crafties! Today's blog involves a little story time. I've been at the whole crochet biz thing since 2016 and since then, this venture has twisted and evolved into something pretty cool. Of course, I'm still learning and figuring things out, but I wanted to share my adventure regardless and perhaps offer a little inspiration.
When I first moved online with my crocheting, I didn't do so with the idea of making a living off of it. In October of 2018, I had a few motivators behind starting a channel and Ko-fi blog. For one, I was in community college at the time and well on my way to graduating. I'd been crocheting since about 2013 and because I wasn't being challenged on the campus I was on that fall, I decided to shoot for the stars by hoping on YouTube.
At the time, I believed that I'd found a niche because I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me, creating crochet tutorials on the internet. It wasn't really a bad thing in my mind, I just thought that I could inspire others (perhaps around my age) and share my designs with the world first and foremost. By the next month, I decided that I loved this new hobby and I sought to launch my own website. Little did I realize at the time, having your own website is expensive. It was a reality check for me in that sense and because I've been footing my own bill for college this entire time, I had no choice but to keep putting it off until 2021. It was in 2019 that I realized that I wanted to work toward monetizing my content. I finally achieved that in late 2020 which led to the launch of this site and other developments in the following year.
Over the span of 4 years, I continued to work at my content, release patterns, and save until I've landed where I am today. After launching my website on February 14th, 2021, it became my goal to get this thing to sustain itself in the long run ($375/yr). Initially, I sought to do that with the sale of my handmade items, which I quickly learned was exhausting. Not because I don't love to make items but, because marketing said items had been a nightmare and a half for me. I'd spent two summers in a row and countless hours knitting and crocheting inventory for it to not really move.
Later in 2021, I decided to shift my focus to pattern writing moreso than item making because it saves my wrists and patterns are infinitely more easy to stock on both this website and Etsy. I also began to change my pattern release strategies in a way that would optimize the revenue of the site in hopes to help it sustain itself.
So, what supports the content?
Paid Patterns
It's no secret that I design crochet and knit patterns. It's something that I earnestly enjoy doing and it allows me to share my creativity with the Crafty community. Free patterns are a dime a dozen but, I feel that releasing some of my designs for free, supports my little catchphrase of "Happy Making".
From the beginning, I realized that patterning was a touch market to flourish in so, I thought that I could get my brand out there by releasing a number of them for free. However, that wasn't helping me with the tuition, so I experimented with selling my patterns on Etsy and Ravelry (when I was on it) for $1 because I felt bad for charging for my own work. A really helpful lady in a crochet Facebook group told me that I should up my prices because people will pay for what they want. Reluctantly, I realized that she was right.
At the time, I was pretty unknown but, it seemed odd to me that I couldn't sell my patterns at the $1 price so, I threw caution to the wind and started pricing according to the market...on Etsy lol. I also started communicating the message that the pattern sales promote more content... because they do. It's not that I make hundreds or thousands of dollars in pattern sales but, when I make them it helps me to pay home bills, my internet, the Folgers, and keep ink in my printer from time to time.
It wasn't really hard to get into pattern writing either. I'd been writing out my instructions and before ever thought about starting a channel, I discovered the Craft Yarn Council which is kinda the authority on knit and crochet standards and all that ( did a few lesson plans for school once using some of the resources the offer 😅), and made myself familiar with crochet abbreviations and lingo. At some point, I just started typing up my ideas and making sure others could understand them. As I continued my craft journey, I learned to read and write better patterns by following those of others.