Dear Friends,
I wanted to write you an honest letter about this blog, what I am trying to achieve with it, and what I am getting out of it (financially and otherwise).
About This Blog
This blog, Knitkatpaddywhack (formerly The Knitted Kitten) was started by me, Kat, in 2011, as a “for fun” blog about knitting. Knitting is one of my great passions. From it has grown other passions of spinning yarn and designing knitting patterns. Another of my passions is writing, so writing about knitting was and is a lot of fun for me. Much has changed since 2011. I finished my first degree, went overseas a few times, moved state, finished my second degree, started work as a psychologist, got married, and had a baby. It was while I was staying at home with my baby daughter that I started to think about this blog (which I had been neglecting since my daughter was born), and what it means to me. When you have a whole, spectacular, tiny person who is learning from everything you’re doing, and to whom you are the most influential person on earth, you start to think about what you can show for your life, what you can be for her.
My Vision for This Blog
This blog is a place where I can be the fearless creative person I hope my daughter will be one day. I originally made this blog to share my knitting adventures, and largely, it will remain that way. Many of my posts will be personal or esoteric. You know, not the kind of thing you might find on a polished, “professional” blog. But, I love them. When I moved my posts over from The Knitted Kitten, I re-read them. I was endeared by 21, 22, 23-year-old Kat who wrote about random spinning groups she finds on Swedish mountaintops, or devoted a whole post and a half to memorialising her rabbit whose hair she had spun into yarn not that long before he died. This blog will still have that. I want this blog to be a conversation with the people who read it. I want you to share your random life events in the comments as well.
But I want to push this blog further, too. I see this blog as a place where I can make a collection of my own knitting patterns, some for sale, some for free. I would love to see my patterns in knitting magazines and books one day. This blog will also be a place of education, about sharing knitting techniques, ideas, and hacks. BUT, what I am not planning to do is reinvent the wheel. There are so many wonderful resources about knitting online and in libraries already, many of which have and still are helping me in my mostly self-taught knitting journey. I see no need to explain how to cast on because many many great bloggers have done that before me. What I will do is add my own knowledge, my own spin on things, and share tricks that I believe are little-known and worth sharing.
Financial Aspects
I have also decided to monetise this blog in ways other than selling patterns. This might include recommending affiliate products. This is where I recommend products to you which, if you buy them using links I have included, I will receive a commission from the companies who sell them to you (any post that contains affiliate links will clearly state that fact). I thought long and hard about whether and how to do this in a way which is in line with my ethical beliefs. I was concerned about becoming a person who tries to sell things to readers for no reason other than my own gain, and I didn’t want to be that person. Here is what I promise you:
- I will only recommend products to you that I believe are useful (I won’t try to get you to buy something simply for my gain). Think of me as a friend recommending products that I think you’ll like and will help you.
- I will endeavour to recommend products which I have personally used and love. At the very least, I will recommend products which are from trusted brands with good reviews, and ideally very similar to exact products I have used.
- I will not invent hype or make you feel like something is a “must-have” item. Almost nothing is a “must-have” item. If I love an item, I will tell you, but I won’t deliberately put you under unnecessary pressure to buy it.
So this is what Knitkatpaddywhack is about. It is about sharing knitting and life tid-bits, sharing creativity, and especially sharing knowledge, and I feel that the only way I can be comfortable making any amount of money from this blog is by being ethical about doing so. Thank you, friends, for visiting this blog, and supporting this blog as you have been. Even if this is the first time ever that you have visited Knitkatpaddywhack, thank you! It means a lot, really.
Peace,
Kat
