Discovering the Artistic Power of Yarn | Podcast Episode #64

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Have you ever considered yarn as an artistic medium?

For many of us, the yarn will guide the project, meaning only after we see and feel the yarn do we know what to make with it. For some though, the entire concept revolves around a yarn base (a blend of fibers) that inspires color, texture, and eventually a project. This is the approach taken by the team at KnitCrate when they plan for their monthly subscription boxes.

Special Guests

I’m joined by, Rob and Hannah, from KnitCrate, and let me just say – I learned so much from them! Rob is incredibly passionate about business and he speaks about how business is his artistic medium. Extremely interesting for a passionate entrepreneur! Hannah, tells us all a bit about fashion forecasting and the process that goes into planning the crates months in advance. Perfectly relatable to bloggers and shop owners who plan a seasonal catalog of items.

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Hi there and welcome to episode number 64 of the BHooked podcast. I appreciate your time and attention today more than you can ever know and I’m glad to be moving on with our topic of yarn.

Well, this week we’re taking a slightly different approach and rather than talking about yarn as the spark or the inspiration for the pattern, I’m joined by two people, Rob and Hannah from KnitCrate, and we’re going to talk about and explore how yarn can be used more so as the tool to facilitate a new idea.

I’m really excited about this. It was something that I hadn’t thought of really until we started speaking that I had that aha moment that it doesn’t always have to start with the yarn. Now, for me, that was a little bit different because as a designer, my projects are very much centered around the yarn. And most often, the yarn speaks for itself. It tells me in a roundabout way what it wants to become.

Well, that is not the approach that Hannah takes when she’s creating the monthly crates for their subscription service Knit Crate. Now, she actually uses forecasting techniques to decide what each one of the themes for the crate’s going to be. And she talks about that.

Rob talks a lot about the business and he’s very, very passionate about it. You can hear that bleeding through his voice with such a wonderful conversation. And I’m so glad to be able to peel back the curtains a little bit and let you hear and get a glimpse of the team behind this wonderful company.

Before we get started with that, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Yarnspirations, and offer you once again that coupon code. We can all save money, right? I know I go out of my way to save some dollars to cut some coupons.

And just for being a listener of the Be Hooked podcast, you can save 20% off the brands you love like Burnett, Peyton’s, Caron, and Lily Sugar and Cream. You can order that directly from Yarnspirations.com. You don’t have to worry about finding the colorway that you want. You can almost get—I guarantee you’re going to have it right there.

And just because you listened to the show, you can redeem a coupon code for 20% off your order of $40 or more. Now to do that, what you’ll need to do is go to Yarnspirations.com. You’ll fill up your cart with the yarn that your little heart desires and enter the coupon code BHOOKEDPOD. That’s B-H-O-O-K-E-D-P-O-D.

You’ll do that at checkout, but make sure you take advantage of that soon. That offer is not going to be around forever. Rob, Hannah, and I mention a few different resources throughout the duration of our conversation, and you can find links to everything we talk about over on the show notes page.

For this week’s episode, all you have to do is type in behookedcrochet.com/session064. You can find the resources right there on that page.

But I want to ask you, have you checked out the rest of the website? Now, if you’re listening to the podcast, you might be finding me here through audio because this is the type of content that you like to consume. Maybe you haven’t seen some of my video tutorials. Maybe you haven’t seen some of my patterns.

Well, if you have a few moments today, I do want to encourage you to go to BeHookedCrochet.com. I have hundreds, literally hundreds of posts. I know that sounds very overwhelming and I could see where that would be the case. But I have everything broken down by category.

So if you’re looking for a free crochet pattern, you’ll just go to the website or you can type in BeHookedCrochet.com/freecrochetpatterns. And you can search by season, by project type, by difficulty level. I have spent years developing these resources and I would love nothing more than for you to just take advantage of that and learn and grow from that.

All right, now let’s have a chat with Rob and Hannah from KnitCrate. Rob, Hannah, thank you so much for being here today. Welcome.

Hannah: 4:41
Thanks for having us.

Rob: 4:42
Thanks for having us.

Brittany: 4:43
Oh, it is an absolute pleasure. I have been an avid fan of KnitCrate for the past few months now. I received my first one in February and I shared a review on that because it’s one of those products that solved a problem for me that I didn’t realize I had.

And so I just had to share that with people because I know that a lot of times we feel like we just have too much inspiration and not enough time. And it just makes life so much easier when we don’t have to focus our attention on figuring out what to spend our time on or where to spend our time.

When it’s kind of decided for you, you know, we get this kit in the mail. It has the patterns, the yarn, everything we need. And all we have to do is put our creative energy into that thing. So I’m really excited to dive into the story of KnitCrate.

Rob, let’s start with you. Can you tell me how KnitCrate came about?

Rob: 5:41
Yeah, sure. So I actually didn’t start KnitCrate. It was started by a husband and wife team back in 2012. And I actually bought the business from them in June 2016. That was actually when I acquired the company.

I had previously worked at a subscription box in a different industry—cosmetics, actually. And we had done really well there. We had sold the company. I was a minority owner, one of their chief operating officers.

And after a couple of months, I was sitting around and took a hiatus after we sold the company and just kind of wound down a little bit. But I quickly had the itch to do something entrepreneurial again.

So I just started searching online, really, and found KnitCrate was up for sale. And it kind of piqued my interest. I wasn’t a knitter prior to buying KnitCrate. Didn’t really have much familiarity with it. But I saw a lot of interesting things in the industry.

It was very niche. It had a female customer base for the most part—very similar demographic to the cosmetics industry. And so I thought, hey, I think I could apply a lot of things I learned in my previous life and apply it to this subscription box company.

So I had flown out to Texas, which is where KnitCrate was headquartered at the time, and met with the owners and took a walkthrough, saw the product, jumped on Instagram, just took a deep dive into the industry, and I fell in love with it.

I thought it was super unique. It was a whole new world that I hadn’t really been exposed to before. And I thought, you know what, yeah, I’m going to take the plunge. A little crazy, too, because not knowing anything about knitting, and then you buy a knitting company.

But luckily, we hit the ground running. We moved the company over to Miami, Florida, which is where we’re based out of. Very quickly, I had reached out to Hannah and invited her to fly down to Miami and check out what we were doing and meet the team.

I had been lucky enough that I had some team members from my previous company join me at KnitCrate, which also helped a lot. And yeah, so we took KnitCrate at that time and we’ve been growing it since.

We’ve added a couple of new lines of subscription products that we thought would be a better fit for the customer. And we’ve been growing it ever since.

Brittany: 8:08
You said you weren’t a knitter at the time, which maybe implies that you knit now?

Rob: 8:13
Yeah, maybe I should asterisk that. I’m not a great knitter. I can knit you a swatch. I’ve got the knit stitch down, and I’ve started working on the purl stitch. But I’m getting there.

I’m also type A personality, so if my swatch is coming out crooked or the tension’s too much on one side and it’s not even, I undo it and I just start over. So I’ve been starting over. I feel like I’m watching the movie Groundhog Day, but in the knitting version of it, because I just start over and over again.

Brittany: 8:39
Oh, yeah. I totally get that. I’m the same way. I have to just remind myself, I guess, that it’s okay if it doesn’t look perfect.

But I commend you for starting because it’s not—well, I mean, we’ll just say it here—it’s not something that men typically do. I mean, that’s the completely incorrect stereotype about it.

Rob: 9:03
No, I totally agree. And I think it’s—I want to say an unfair stereotype—but more than unfair, I would say it’s an unfortunate stereotype.

Because I think there are so many benefits to picking up a craft like knitting or crochet that it’s just beneficial, right? Like if I’m having a stressed-out day, even the limited amount of knitting I can do—which is that swatch—you’re much more relaxed afterward.

Even though I’ve had to start over and I get frustrated because it didn’t come out right, the act of just sitting there knitting and trying to figure it out… As simple as it is, it’s just a little square that you created, but you created a square out of something that was wound up in a ball of yarn.

It’s something very therapeutic and very cool about that—to be able to create something that wasn’t there before.

Brittany: 9:50
Yeah, totally. And I totally agree about it being an unfortunate stereotype because men are just as creative as women are.

Sometimes we have different outlets for that, but I think that the commonality we share in this craft is that simple fact that we’re just creating something.

Rob: 10:09
Yeah, totally. And beyond that, just from a business perspective too, I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling knitting kits and crochet kits without having some base understanding or at least trying to put myself in the shoes of the customer—to understand what it is that they’re buying, what it is they’re using, why do they buy it, why are they using it, what are they experiencing when they’re receiving one of our kits.

I didn’t apply the same philosophy to makeup when I was in the makeup industry, but I did try it here and I think it’s to everyone’s benefit.

We actually started learning how to knit as a team here at the office. We have a newbies series of courses at KnitCrate that takes a customer month-to-month learning how to knit, and the skill sets build on themselves.

So we actually started doing that here as a team to learn how to knit. Because some of the team members that came with me weren’t knitters before.

Hannah, obviously, she’s our creative director and CMO—she’s an avid knitter and crocheter. Christy, who’s our project manager, was an avid crocheter before she joined us. But some of the other members of the team hadn’t really picked up a needle prior to coming in here.

So part of our rules is that you come in here, you need to take at least one or two months of the newbie series to learn the basics of knitting and crochet.

And then the other thing we do is that we have everyone sit through two weeks of customer service training. So whether you’re—myself, I did the customer service when I first bought the business at the beginning—or whether you’re director of marketing or you’re in accounting, it doesn’t matter what position you’re going to be at in KnitCrate, your first two weeks are doing customer service: answering customer service emails, helping pack the products, helping customers out when they have questions.

Because we need to have a deep understanding of what it is our customers want and what they need from us. And that to me is the only real good way to do that.

Brittany: 12:15
Well, that tells me exactly where your priorities are—your values and where they lie—and how the customer really is your priority and you’re crafting your team to kind of rally around that too.

So I love that. I think all great businesses solve a problem, but I think they also need to be very focused and understand exactly what that focus is and how they’re helping the people that they’re serving.

Now, Hannah, what is it that you do at KnitCrate?

Hannah: 12:47
Yeah, so I’ve kind of like a mix, a mishmash of titles at Knit Crate. Officially, I am the chief marketing officer for the company. But more of what I do is sort of a creative director role or I do a lot of like forward-facing customer interaction, especially on Ravelry, and a lot of the planning behind the scenes for the things that eventually become the boxes.

So for instance, one of my favorite jobs at Knit Crate is coming up with the themes for every month. Every month, the boxes have a visual theme that we ask our dyers and designers to kind of work around when they’re working on the project. And that way, all of the crates have a similar feel every month. It feels more planned and the design, visual process can really be seen on the customer end.

But that requires a lot of planning in advance, especially since for our house brands, we’re ordering the yarn as much as six months to a year in advance. So what I usually do for that is I sort of look at all kinds of different inspiration on Pinterest or websites that I follow. I keep an eye on what the trends are on Ravelry. And then I coordinate that all together into these themes and then announce the themes to our team.

And then Christy, who’s on our team, does the actual box coordination. And she will send that theme board with like some notes to the designers and dyers who are working on each month. So that’s a big part of my job is that like upper tier visual planning.

Another part of my job is kind of all of the side projects that we have going on at KnitCrate all the time. We have a few that I can’t even talk about yet that we’ve been working on for a while and I do a lot of coordination with those. Rob and I get together and brainstorm a lot about ways that KnitCrate can change and grow and do new things.

We have special edition partner crates that come out. I do a lot of the planning on those partner crates. Things involving just like interaction with our partners, our working relationships, making new working relationships, finding designers. I do some of that. Christy does some of that. And Rob does some of that. So everybody just kind of comes together.

But I guess the best way to describe my job would be like the creative half of what Rob does. Yeah, would probably be the closest.

Rob: 15:20
Yeah it’s like I’m not I’m not totally uncreative come on no you’re really okay okay okay I’m kidding

Brittany: 15:26
Well it sounds like you do a lot of work and that sounds like a really fun job if I do say so myself but do you find yourself drawing your your inspiration for all that from your experience as a knitter and a crocheter

Hannah: 15:42
Yes and no I think that in our industry, as a knitter, as a crocheter, it’s really easy to kind of fall into the same patterns as everyone else, especially if there’s something really trendy going on. So I have a tendency to try and remove myself from the current inspiration because what I’m planning is like a year out or six months out or nine months out. And I have to guess at what customers are gonna be into a year from now.

So I use more of like a fashion forecasting method or a fashion forecasting background to determine what colors are most likely to come into season or based on the color palette of last year’s fashion lines, I’ll look at what I think is going to be similar but different for next year. Knitting and crochet are usually a little behind the fashion industry and they also have some color palettes that just like stay around. They’re always going to be popular. Jewel tones are always going to be great.

So I just try to think about different ways to incorporate both the fashion and then the current trend and trends that are likely to happen. Things that are exciting and inspirational to me. For instance, this month’s theme is contemporary for the May boxes. And it’s very much based on sort of a minimalist but high color theme of architecture and tile and interiors. Matte paint.

I’ve been seeing a lot of this on Pinterest and in magazines. The minimalist movement is really big right now. But I think there’s two sides of minimalism. And one side is these very stark, all-white, Scandinavian-inspired interiors. And then I have found this other side that’s really saturated, rich color in very minimal, low-decor… spaces. And so I wanted to kind of capture that.

And I see it in like stationery, these odd color pairings — blush that’s like a little too moody, like a blush pink that’s a little dirty mixed with a really rich blue-green or kind of a matte finish blue next to a driftwood-finished blue furniture piece. So those are the kind of things that we wanted to capture with this month’s theme.

But usually I don’t draw a lot of inspiration from knitting or crochet because I think that our inspiration for our craft has to come from elsewhere to make it feel fresh.

Brittany: 18:27
Oh, yeah. That’s so true. I’m so glad that you pointed that out because that is one really big struggle for a lot of people, especially makers, people who might be selling on Etsy, is just finding their own identity but also being comfortable with it and staying true to that.

I think it’s almost a requirement if you’re doing– anything whether it be a blogger or selling your goods I think it’s always a bad idea to follow the trends of what other people are doing and it’s really interesting to see that you’re doing that as well and just to see and hear how much planning goes into that I mean it’s something that we probably wouldn’t even realize

Hannah: 19:10
Yeah definitely and that’s um and it’s not without its challenges to plan that far ahead. I always have these moments every month when we first release the colors for the yarns. And they’ve been planned for six months or nine months or a year. And so they’re finally out in the world.

And I get to design all the colorways for membership and membership socks. So those are as if, I mean, I’m not dyeing them, but it’s as if I had dyed them because I’m sending those color inspirations to the mill and saying this is exactly what I want it to look like when it’s finished and picking out Pantone colors for them to match and all kinds of stuff like that.

So when we get it back, it’s like a little… a little artistic project that I get to see for the first time in real living color. And the members are seeing it for the first time too. And so the interaction between how people receive it and how I envisioned it is always really interesting to me. Sometimes we have a color and I’m like, oh, this color reminds me of, you know, it’s like a blue with tones of green. And then people get it and they’ll be like, it’s green. It’s totally green. That’s not what I thought when I made that yarn.

Brittany: 20:24
Yeah, it’s cool. So it sounds like the yarn is maybe not the spark of inspiration. I know for me as a designer, a lot of times the idea for a project comes only after I’ve seen and felt that yarn. But it sounds like maybe it’s more of just a tool kind of for the overlying message that you’re trying to accomplish. So that’s cool.

So our theme for the month of May here on the podcast is we’re talking about yarn and different ways to maybe think about it. And this is such a unique approach. Rob, if I asked you how yarn has changed your life, how would you respond to that?

Rob: 21:10
Yeah, Hannah and I were actually joking the other day. So as a quick, I guess, backstory before I answer that question, I just want to add also like, you know, it’s not just the colorways that we’re working on and then Hannah’s like, you know, kind of creatively directing where we’re going with the Pantones and the colors and who we’re working with and what the design is going to look like. You know, we also put a lot of work into what the blends of the actual yarn bases are going to be.

And so Hannah is also helping project out, you know, hey, I think this base and blend it with this base is going to be very popular and like customers are going to really like this. And, you know, we’re projecting that out also nine to 12 months out before we release that yarn. So like particularly with KnitCrate membership, you know, the bases that are coming as part of those subscriptions and sock membership as well, those are custom bases that we’re coming up with in house. They’re not something you’re going to find anywhere else.

And, you know, so that’s been a big part of the creative process as well. Yeah. And then, you know, and something else that, you know, cause yes, our KnitCrate customers on the subscription side and on the retail side, those are our customers, but sort of dyers and the designers we work with in a way, right?

So we also try to think of the designers and dyers as if they are our customers as well. And how can we make their life easier? And how can we make their life better? And how do we make it easier for them to want to work with us? And that’s led to the development of a couple of different parts of our business, right?

So we launched Dyer Supplier in late 2017. And it was a way to get cost-effective wholesale pricing on undyed yarns for our dyers. You know, there’s not too many options available for them in the States. And we figured, hey, we’re already working with mills in South America, working with mills in Europe. Why not use our buying power that we’ve built up by having relationships with them on the KnitCrate side and use that to be able to get good pricing on undyed yarn and provide that as a service to our dyers?

And that’s basically how Dyer Supplier was born. We saw our dyers had a need for more optionality and better pricing on undyed yarns. And so we decided, hey, why not try to do that? And we’ve come up with different programs. Like some dyers may not have the cash available to buy all that yarn up front, right? So we actually, we’ve had a program where we lend them the yarn. We send them the yarn where they don’t pay for it until the end of the collaboration month, right? Or during the month of collaboration, which may be six months out or nine months out. And that’s obviously depending on availability of the yarn. But when we’ve had it available, we’ve done that already probably a dozen times in the past seven or eight months.

Brittany: 23:59
Wow.

Rob: 24:00
And that’s a big help to the dyer. And it gives someone a shot that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford partnering with us in that way. And, you know, just to give an idea, it’s like a $15,000, $20,000 ticket that they would have had to pay up front that now they didn’t have to. So, you know, those are just things that we’re also working on. Yeah.

But I think on the… Just from being able to see the— and then I’m gonna swing that back into answering your question now, which is it’s launched different programs. We did Dyer Supplier, we’ve launched designer programs also. So our pricing is very transparent. We have it on the homepage of our website—how we work with designers, how we pay them, how we compensate them. Same thing with the dyers.

And it ended up leading us to launch Niquate Marketplace, where dyers and designers could upload their own products for sale within the KnitCrate website. Similar to you would do with Amazon or Etsy, right? So you have your own shop on the KnitCrate website and you could upload your own patterns and yarn for sale. And it shows up as an item as any other KnitCrate item would on our shop’s website.

But through all those features, you know, especially on the undyed yarn. I don’t know why, to me, I have an affinity for the undyed yarn. I think it’s because I get to see what, like I could really see visibly and tangibly what the differences are with the different bases. And, you know, oh, you could tell this one has a little bit more silk and this one has a little bit of cashmere. And just by touching it, you’re just like, oh my God, it’s like a cloud.

And, you know, for whatever reason, I told Hannah the other day, I’m like, look, you know, you got to be careful with what yarn you suggest to me to buy for Dyer Supplier, because if it’s a good yarn and I touch it, I know I’m going to say yes. Like, even if I don’t have the cash available, I’m going to buy it. And she’s like, Rob, that’s—Hannah, sorry, you told me what that’s called. You’re like, Rob, you have this.

Hannah: 25:51
I said, uh, Rob has SABLE. Now he’s got stash acquisition beyond life expectancy, but he’s got it in terms of the business. So he’ll just like—if I say to him, oh, this camel and silk and merino blend is so delicious, and I just found a source for us where we can get 600 skeins—he’ll be like, do it. Let’s buy it. We have to have it.

Rob: 26:20
Yeah, it’s dangerous. So I’m like—I even told—I called Hannah, I’m like, Hannah, you need to stop calling me with these for like three months, please.

Hannah: 26:27
Don’t tell me about anything good.

Rob: 26:30
So send me a sample. And then I touch it. I’m like, oh my God, I can’t—I can’t say no to this. This is amazing. I have to say yes. So I’ve gotten the bug that way.

Brittany: 26:40
The struggle is real in terms of knowing when to not buy the yarn. I think it’s probably a struggle that we can all relate to, but it sounds like to me that yarn has really challenged your creativity in an entrepreneurial sort of way. Maybe not necessarily has inspired projects, although I think that you will get to that point. It’s inspiring… and kind of leading your business?

Rob: 27:11
Yeah, I think so. And I think it’s inspired a different way, right? In the sense that to me, look, for a knitter, what you’re working on, you know, that’s your art and that’s your craft. For a dyer, you know, finding the right base and how it soaks up your dye and the different dyeing techniques that you’re using and what your finished product is going to look like, that’s your artwork, right?

You know, for me, like, business is my craft and that’s my artwork. And making sure that the final piece of that business looks as best as possible and that the process that we took to make it look as best as possible is the right one—that’s what I love and that’s what I’m in love with and that’s my craft.

And being able to work on a craft business, it has a lot of analogies to how I want to think about the business and how I think more people in the business world should think about business. I think—yeah, go ahead.

Hannah: 28:07
Sorry, Rob. I think that what’s really cool about watching Rob kind of get familiar with yarn is that he comes from an industry where a lot of times you’re dependent on these large companies telling you how their product needs to be presented, sending you product that’s already been designed fully.

And in this industry, he’s getting to basically supply the base material, like the media in a sense, for these artists to turn into amazing things. And it’s really cool to get to watch something that—you know, we’re producing, in a sense, a very high-quality art supply. And then we have these artists buying it from all over the world and turning it into something that then becomes a high-quality art supply for a knitter or a crocheter. It’s like getting to have full control over this really exciting, variable thing.

Rob: 29:05
Yeah, totally. Yeah, no, no, and I completely agree. But, you know, it’s also… just the idea of being able to create something new in the industry. You know, for example, we launched Stash Show a couple of months ago as well. And it’s a mobile app where, you know, users and customers can swap or trade yarn and swap their stash with one another directly on the app. Or they can sell it if they want to.

So it’s similar to—it looks like an OfferUp or a LetGo, but for the knitting and crochet industry.

Brittany: 29:35
How cool. Is it available on Apple and Android?

Rob: 29:42
Yeah, yeah, it’s available on both. It’s available on the web as well. And we just launched it recently in beta to get customer feedback. And so we’ve actually had a ton of responses from customers, and we’re taking those responses and then basically having them help us build and create the app that they would want.

So they’re letting us know, like, hey, I want to be able to favorite this yarn, so I want the ability to say that. So we’re actually implementing a favoriting mechanism within the app now. Or they’re like, hey, I would like to be able to transact directly on the app. So we’re like, we’re working on that as well.

So I think my analogy for me personally—yes, our business and what we’re selling to the customers is something that they’re using in the raw materials to put everything together and create something. I’m trying to take that same philosophy and apply it to the business, where we’re taking raw ideas or raw materials and then blending them together to try to create new things for the industry—whether it’s Dyer Supplier, whether it’s Stash Show.

And to me, seeing that come together… six months ago, there wasn’t an app in the universe where customers could swap and trade yarn directly with one another. Six months later, there is. And we did that as a team here. And that part of that creator life, of taking that approach of I’m going to create something from nothing, you know, with my team here and having my customers be a part of that and help me build something new.

And I think that’s what’s been the most useful to me—is that we’re dealing with a customer base that’s used to creating and crafting new things all the time. And they’re a very creative customer base. And I’ve been able to speak with them and leverage that experience and have them help create KnitCrate and create the Stash Show and create Dyer Supplier and have their input. And like every step of the way, they have a hand in helping create these new things that we’re launching every couple of months. And there’s more things coming down the road, but I can’t say them yet.

Brittany: 31:33
Well, we’ll have to stay tuned for those because I’m curious now. You guys are solving so many more problems than even I realized, which just—it kind of blows my mind. So it’s really awesome to hear that not only are you serving your customer, the people who are subscribing to your membership, but you’re doing so much more for the makers in the community that I had no idea.

We do have a significant amount of people in the audience who are designers and who maybe publish their designs online or in magazines. How does somebody like that get involved with you? Is there a process that they have to go through if they have a design or maybe they just want to work with you? What would you suggest for them they do first?

Hannah: 32:16
Well, so on our website up in the top right-hand corner, there’s a link and it says Indie Dyer Programs. And they can click that. We kind of outline all the different ways that KnitCrate works with designers. There’s one for dyers as well in that same corner. And then once you read through that and determine what kind of arrangement that you’d be interested in doing, all that we ask is for them to just send us an email through the contact us link on the site.

Usually we have some way that we can work with almost any designer. For the boxes, what we do is have… we’ve got the yarns planned kind of far in advance. We’re already planning in late 2019 at this point with the yarns and designers. But sometimes we have a special need for someone like a sock designer or we’re looking for someone who’s really good at hats or something like that.

So Christy is sort of the contact on our team who handles designer coordination. And what she would do is she would get the email and she would say, OK, so your portfolio is great and we’re interested in working with you. And here’s the months that we have coming up that are available—what works in your schedule.

The way that it’s typically done is that we send the yarn to the designer and they kind of create something with that. We don’t like to restrict people too heavily on what we need or what we want because the idea behind the box—especially the artisan crates, the artisan sock crate, or sock artisan crate and the artisan crate—are both about showcasing. They’re about showcasing the work of a dyer and the work of a designer together.

So we want people to feel like when they open that up, they’re seeing the voice of that designer and that dyer, not the voice of KnitCrate projected over top of those folks’ work. And the same sort of thing for the membership crate. Yes, we design the yarn scratch—you know, scratch to finish—but we also want the designers to feel like they got to know the yarn and communicate with it and have a relationship with it.

So we just try to get people yarn kind of far in advance, and then they get to work with it, turn it in, get paid—but really it’s like any other knitting-related commission. They get the yarn, and then they decide what they’re going to make with it.

Brittany: 34:38
How much time do you think it takes maybe from start to finish? Is somebody going to feel maybe rushed at all, or is it you have the yarn in your hand, and you get to work with it for several months and make it become what you want it to?

Hannah: 34:53
I think our general timeline is about three months, which is pretty standard for the industry average. But in some cases, we’re able to give six months or longer. Depends on when our mill delivers the yarn for membership, usually. Sometimes we get things really, really early. Like we had September’s yarn in January. So the September designers were able to start really, really early. Or… Other times we’ll get it three months out. But usually it’s about three months.

For the dyers who are featured in Artisan Crate, it can vary wildly. It depends on when we book them. If we found someone, this year we’re way ahead. So we’ve already got the first five months of 2019 planned. So those dyers have been able to go ahead and send us samples for the designers to use. And those designers, in some cases, are already working on projects that will be released in 2019.

So we’re really good about giving people enough time, being really flexible with timelines. If a designer approached us and they were like, I really need nine months for my process. And we were like, well, we really want to work with you. But the soonest that we have that we can give you nine months out is like 2020. Then that’s what we would do.

If a dyer comes to us and they’re like, oh, I need this amount of time for the quantity of yarn that you require, then we would try to figure out what month is going to work for them with that quantity. So we don’t like to rush people. Tight timelines equal a product that’s rushed, and we don’t like giving out a product that’s rushed. We want the best quality to go out to our customers.

Brittany: 36:37
Yeah, that’s 100% true. I can definitely relate to that because I’ve been under tight deadlines and I’ve been under deadlines that were a little bit more flexible and the end result is always better when you have the proper time to plan and execute. So when the designer gets a hold of the yarn, are they just using the base maybe before it’s dyed or is that –

Hannah: 37:03
No, they’re getting like the actual dyed yarn that will go in the box.

Brittany: 37:07
Okay, that’s cool. So it sounds like maybe the dyer is the first step. So you kind of plan that out first and then you start planning the design.

Hannah: 37:17
Yes, absolutely. For us, the yarn is the media. That’s the paint or the pencils that the designers are using. And I think a lot of designers, that works for their process. Most designers that I’ve talked to kind of find the yarn first and then the yarn tells them what it wants to be.

We have worked with some designers in the past who are kind of the opposite. They have an opposite workflow where they prefer to have an idea and then they find the yarn that fits what they’ve got. And in those cases, if a designer were to come to us and say, I have this new idea, it’s not been released. I need a worsted weight. I’m looking for something that’s heavy wool content or, or I want something with silk in it, we might hold on to that and wait until we see a month come up that fits them.

Brittany: 38:09
Yeah, that makes sense.

Hannah: 38:11
That’s rarer, though, for us.

Brittany: 38:13
Yeah, yeah. Rob, can you tell us about the different options that are available, like the different crates that people can either be a designer or a dyer for or that a customer could maybe sign up for?

Rob: 38:26
Yeah, yeah, totally. So I’ll start with our legacy crate. The artisan crate and the sock artisan crate are the two crates that were originally the nexus of KnitCrate. It’s how the company launched working with independent dyers and independent designers.

Those crates, they are what they sound like. We work with independent dyer, go back and forth in helping come up with the colorways that we want and what’s going to go in that box. And we partner with an independent designer to, as Hannah just described, and come up with what those projects are going to look like for the crates.

Those are a little pricier in the price scale of the products that we offer simply because obviously we need to pay our dyers and designers a fair price. Compensation for their artwork and the labor they’ve put into it. And our customers totally understand that. And I think most of the customers, if they’re subscribing to those crates, they want to support the indie community. They want to meet new independent dyers and designers, which these subscriptions are a great way to do that.

Some of our customers live in an area where they don’t have a local yarn shop or they don’t have one very, very nearby. So the artisan crate and the sock artisan crate are great ways to meet new dyers and designers that you would have never come across otherwise.

You know, and we also have one of the benefits of being a subscriber to KnitCrate is that you get a section of the website called Member Central where you get 25% off everything that’s in there. And so we have a part of the month called Double Down Weekend where customers can actually double down on the yarn they received in the crate.

We typically give them a 25% off coupon code. Plus, they already have 25% off on Member Central, so they’re able to buy a lot more of that yarn from that dyer if they really, really liked it. So, yeah, it’s a great way to stash up on yarn from a particular dyer that you like.

And then we also have the KnitCrate memberships and the SockCrate membership, which we launched a little more recently. And the reason we launched those is we wanted to offer the community something at a better price point. $39.99, $28.99, that’s not always in everyone’s budget, particularly on a monthly basis. So we decided to come out with something that was more economical.

I think our KnitCrate membership’s at $24.99 a month right now. That’s a great deal if you think about it. You get two premium hand-dyed skeins. Each one would retail for $24 in the shop. So you’re getting $48 worth of yarn plus two patterns, one knitting pattern and one crochet pattern. That’s like a $10 retail. So you’re already almost at $60 and you’re only paying $24.99. Plus it’s free shipping domestically and internationally.

So that’s a great intro box. I want to say that… a great gateway to hand-dyed yarns. And we launched that one with two things in mind. One, our international customers, you know, the exchange rate with the US dollar was very expensive. So they needed something more economical, free shipping that would allow them to access these yarns.

And also, as a bridge for anyone who’s not familiar with hand-dyed yarns, right? So if we have a lot of members in our community that still are buying yarn at the big box retailers. They’re buying synthetics and acrylics. They may not be familiar with premium animal fiber, plant fiber, hand-dyed yarns, right?

And if you’re someone who’s been used to buying yarn at Jo-Ann Fabrics or Michaels, and obviously there’s great craft around acrylic and synthetic yarns, but if you’ve been used to paying $3 to $5 per ball of yarn or skein of yarn, and all of a sudden you’re being faced with a skein that retails for $24.99, $28 in some cases, you know, that’s a hard leap for a lot of people.

So, yeah. And so that’s, that’s where we launched, you know, KnitCrate membership and, you know, we had them in mind also where I look, this is a good way for someone to try out premium yarn at a cost-effective rate and kind of be a bridge to, to the dark side, so to speak, dark side to the premium yarn.

And our philosophy and our theory is that, you know, once you get a premium skein in your hand, once you have, you know, a cashmere wool silk blend and you feel that difference, I don’t think there’s any going back at that point, right?

Brittany: 42:59
It’s tough.

Rob: 43:00
Yeah, it’s tough, right? And so if we provide that and we provide that bridge for that person to cross over and try out this yarn that we’re offering and then have a place where they could come back and continue to buy it at relatively good price. And I think that’s a great service for the whole community, right?

And not just for KnitCrate, but that helps local yarn shops as well. Getting someone who wasn’t buying at local yarn shops before, getting them to try out premium hand-dyed skeins through KnitCrate — that opens a whole new world of customers for local yarn shops.

That’s someone who the next time they walk by a local yarn shop will probably wanna stop by there, walk inside and see what they have in inventory. And that’s part of the philosophy of why we launched KnitCrate membership. We wanted something that was gonna be more inclusive to the community at large and provide a bridge to attract more people to what we’re doing and to introduce them to the independent dyers and the independent designers.

Brittany: 43:59
It’s true, it really is difficult to go back. And I will say that I have been a little bit spoiled because like I was saying at the beginning, I don’t feel like I have to devote my resources, my time and attention into whether or not it’s gonna work out. I just know that I can put my creative energy into making that thing.

So for me, when I receive my crate each month, I’ve kind of reserved that as just a special project for me because I know that I get to work with those acrylic, synthetic, great yarns. I mean, if we’re being honest, they’re all great yarns, great economic. There’s a project for every, like there’s a great project for every type of yarn.

So for me, the special part of it is that it’s different. It’s different for me because I don’t work with these on an everyday basis. I am a little bit stingy with where I spend my money, so I might not necessarily be the person that would buy enough yarn to make a sweater at $25 or $30 a hank.

So I feel like I’m a great customer in that sense because you’re really solving problems. Oh, thanks. That’s awesome. You guys don’t necessarily disclose what colorway you’re getting. I mean, you know the varieties, but you don’t know what’s going to be in your crate. And for me, it’s like a kid on Christmas morning because I don’t know.

And it’s funny. Last month’s crate in April, I received the Red Rock colorway. And it’s funny because I don’t typically… Like, red isn’t my color. That’s not a color that I normally would choose on my own. And I received that one in the crate and it was just so pretty. I actually started knitting the pattern.

It’s funny too. I find myself knitting the patterns rather than crocheting them when they come in my crate. And I absolutely love the pattern and the color and the way that it’s working up. And for me, it’s maybe opened up a new perspective for me that maybe I read a little bit more than I thought I did. So I think that’s really cool, too, of not knowing exactly what you’re getting.

Rob: 46:40
I mean, that’s a great point. And I think it’s part of the spirit of what, you know, Nick creates offering, right? Like the subscription should be a discovery box, and it should be pushing you out of your comfort zone sometimes, right? Not every time, because sometimes you just want things that you know you’re going to like. But every once in a while, it’s okay for you to get something that you’re like, “I don’t know if I’m going to like this.”

Because it’s happened to more customers than you think, right? So that same experience that you’re describing, where you’re like, “Man, I’m not really a big fan of red, but whatever, let me knit something up with this and let’s see what happens,” and then at the end of it, you’re like, “Wow, I really do like this, and I didn’t think I would.” We’ve had that experience.

A good number of customers write in and be like, “Man, thanks so much because I never thought I was, you know, whatever, a green person.” And after I knit this up, you know, “This green shirt is gorgeous and it’s beautiful.” So that’s part of the surprise element of getting a KnitCrate box every month — it’s part of the allure of it, and it’s part of the fun.

We’ve had customers write in, they’re like, “Hey, why don’t you let us choose the colors,” or, “Let us choose the color families that we want.” And we understand why you would want that, but we steer away from it because we think it will take away from that surprise element of a subscription box.

And if the purpose is to introduce you to new independent dyers and designers and new bases and blends that you otherwise wouldn’t have tried out — why is the colorway any different? Why is there an exception for the color you’re receiving? That should be part of the surprise element too. And every once in a while, getting pushed out of your comfort zone is a good thing.

And for those who don’t and receive something they don’t like — they’re like, “I’m never going to knit with this” — that’s why we launched the Stasho. It’s part of the reason. Now you have a place to go and swap that yarn with somebody else.

It adds to the community aspect of KnitCrate, right? Like now you’re talking one-on-one with other customers, talking to them about what you’ve received, trading with them, swapping, adding more to your stash of things that you know you wanted. That’s part of the surprise of KnitCrate — it’s definitely a discovery box. And we hope to keep it that way. I think most of our customers really enjoy that aspect of it.

Brittany: 49:02
Yeah, when you’re stagnant and when you’re doing something that you’ve always done, you’re never going to get to the point where you’re really growing or that you feel like you’re growing. So I think that’s definitely a great service. Even though people might think that they want to choose, I would venture to guess that it’s probably more exciting to maybe relinquish a little bit of that power.

Rob: 49:28
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I’ve seen it in different subscription boxes across different industries as well. You take away that surprise element of what you’re receiving, and it’s not as fun anymore to get that package in the mail. It’s just not.

When you know exactly what you’re getting, yeah, you’re excited because you’ve been waiting for it. But the element of, “Wow, I don’t know what’s in this box,” and that little anticipation — the butterflies in the stomach right before you open a package — it’s like Christmas morning.

And that’s what we’re trying to replicate too. That feeling you have on Christmas morning when you’re going to unwrap a gift or a birthday gift that someone’s given you and you’re like, “Oh wow, this is exciting.” The funnest part of the gifts is usually the unwrapping of the gifts. Once you see it, you’re like, “Okay, great, thanks.” But it’s that opening and the idea of, “Wow, I don’t know what’s in this,” and that mystery.

Yeah, we don’t want to take that away from KnitCrate or from any of our customers. So that’s why we’re kind of sticking to our guns on that one and continuing to do it that way.

Brittany: 50:32
Yeah, I love it. Well, I definitely love that aspect of it. And that really is what I look forward to. I even took it a step further this month — before, I would go onto your Instagram and look at a preview of what was coming. Well, this time I took it a step further. And aside from what Hannah shared a little bit ago, I know nothing. I don’t know the colorways, I don’t know the patterns.

Rob: 50:56
Hannah, you messed up.

Brittany: 50:57
No! Well, I tuned out a little bit. Just a little bit there, so as to not spoil the surprise. But I’m excited to receive it and see what it is and just take that surprise to the next level. I may end up doing it every single month — just kind of tuning out a little bit so I’m completely surprised. Very cool.

I do want to circle back around really quick, Hannah, as we wrap things up here. What is it about premium hand-dyed animal fiber yarn that has the power to really open up our creativity? Why should somebody try it if they’ve never tried it before?

Hannah: 51:43
Oh man, that’s a really good question. So for me personally, working with natural fibers — with wool particularly — is sort of a spiritual experience for me. You’re asking someone who’s a monk devoted to natural fibers.

Yeah, so I think there’s this sense of history and connectivity that comes from working with a fiber that’s created by a living creature or by a living plant. That thing grew. It didn’t just exist — it had to absorb life, sunlight, and environment. It had to eat food and, in the case of animals, be taken care of by human hands and people all around the world.

During that sort of growth period, I think there’s a lot of energy and goodness and warmth that gets put into those fibers. And then when they get turned into yarns, they go through this process where they go to a mill and they’re touched by more people. And those people are putting themselves into their work.

The thing about people who produce natural fibers is it requires a lot of knowledge. The men and women who are running mills and farms — they have spent usually their whole lives, and sometimes multiple generations have been involved with developing the technologies they use and the machinery and how the machines work.

I have yet to walk into a fiber mill where someone isn’t like, “Oh, the carder — it’s called Bertha, and it’s been around for 200 years, and she can be a little wonky if she’s working on this kind of fiber, so we only use her for this thing.” It just seems like with natural fibers, there’s more of a sense of community, but also history and connectivity with it.

So when you pick up a skein of yarn that’s already undergone the growing process, the scouring, the milling, the creation into yarn — and then you get it, and it’s already been dyed — the dye process adds this whole artistic layer to it. Or even if you get it undyed and just knit or crochet with the undyed fiber, it’s almost as if the whole time you’re releasing that same energy into your space and into yourself and your creative process.

I think that I’ve worked with many synthetic yarns as well. I actually have worked for companies that produce synthetic yarns. And while I think synthetic yarns have this technologically advanced hook — they’re all about how to improve on the fiber, how to make it sleeker or shinier or have a softer hand or not pill, how to make the color more vibrant — that’s like the tech, modernity half of society.

Then you’ve got this whole eco-processing, crunchy, granola, soft, familiar, comfortable family side of the fiber industry. And that’s what natural fiber is to me. Neither of those things is bad. Sometimes I want the sleekest new phone, but other times I want to curl up with a book that has all the pages dog-eared.

So for me, both of those things are the two sides. I tend to lean more toward the natural fiber side because my life is so connected — and I think a lot of us lead these really connected lives where we have technology everywhere — so getting connected to something a little softer, a little more earthy, that took a longer time to produce, can be really cathartic and meditative and comfortable.

Brittany: 56:01
Man, that’s such a beautiful way to put it. I don’t even have anything to say, like to follow.

Rob: 56:09
It’s like poetry.

Brittany: 56:09
Right, right. It is. I don’t want to disrupt the moment there. This has been such a pleasure. It really has. My eyes have been opened to so many other facets that I had no idea KnitCrate was involved in or is doing.

And I appreciate that so much because I’m always looking for somebody — a company — to support because I feel like they have similar roots and a similar purpose to my own. And so I love what you’re doing. I think it’s great. And it’s definitely a product that I would recommend for people because of all of those things.

And I definitely don’t take my recommendations lightly. I know that it’s been a big process to earn the trust of people, and that’s a responsibility that I hold very close to me. So thank you for coming on the show — both of you — and sharing all of these things with us and just reaffirming my genuine enthusiasm for KnitCrate.

Rob: 57:20
Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.

Brittany: 57:23
All right, I hope you enjoyed that chat with Rob and Hannah from KnitCrate. Thank you to you both for all of your time, wisdom, and inspiration here today. It was a real pleasure.

I hope you enjoyed the show as well. If you did and you haven’t done so already, go ahead and subscribe to the show. It takes just a minute — you can pull the device out of your pocket, hit the subscribe button. When you do that, not only does it really help the show to be found in iTunes and on other podcast players, but it also really helps motivate me on a level I can’t even explain.

Seeing those ratings and reviews — it just really fuels my fire and keeps me going week after week. So thank you for that. I had so much fun putting together today’s episode.

And before we wrap things up, I want to say a big thank you once again to my sponsor, Yarnspirations. Yarnspirations is one of my favorite resources to tap into online — where I can not only order the yarn and the supplies I need and know I’m getting it right from the source, but it’s also a great place for me to be inspired.

Looking at different patterns — many of which are free — you can search based on the yarn you have in your stash or find completely new project inspiration and order your supplies right there. It’s incredibly convenient. They have some video tutorials as well, and I highly recommend that you check them out if you haven’t done so already.

And once again, don’t forget — please — about that coupon code. You definitely want to make sure you take advantage of that. If you plan to order some yarn in the next couple of weeks, be sure to enter the coupon code BHOOKEDPOD at checkout. That’s B-H-O-O-K-E-D-P-O-D.

Thank you guys so much. It’s been a blast. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and I will see you next week. Bye-bye.