S5 E6: The Evolution of Knitty & Community with Amy Sadler

Send us a text

In this episode of The SweetGeorgia Show, Felicia Lo chats with Amy Sadler, editor of Knitty.com, the longest-running free knitting magazine online. They talk about how Knitty got started, Amy’s path through the knitting world, and how both the magazine and the community have evolved over the years. Together, they explore the changing landscape of online platforms, the role of Patreon and BlueSky in building community, and how designers can find support while navigating the pressures of creative work. 

This conversation offers thoughtful insights into the heart of the fibre arts community, along with advice, inspiration, and a look at the trends shaping knitting and crochet today. Please join us!

Takeaways

• Knitty was founded in 2002 and has become a staple in the knitting community.
• Amy Sadler's background in editing and proofreading shaped the quality of Knitty's content.
• The magazine started as a way to centralize independent knitting patterns.
• Knitty has launched the careers of many well-known designers in the knitting industry.
• The transition from print to online allowed for more detailed and accessible patterns.
• Community engagement has shifted from traditional forums to platforms like Patreon and Blue Sky.
• Amy emphasizes the importance of making patterns understandable for all knitters.
• The knitting community is diverse, including many neurodivergent individuals.
• Knitty remains free to readers, supported by patrons and advertising.
• There is a growing interest in returning to long-form content and blogs.
• Monetization strategies for creators include Patreon and YouTube views.
• Support from patrons can lead to feelings of guilt for creators.
• Good design and quality patterns are essential for success in the knitting industry.
• Trends in knitting are influenced by yarn availability and fashion.
• Cropped and oversized designs are currently popular in knitting.
• Crochet is gaining recognition and popularity among knitters.
• Resources like Knitty provide valuable information for knitters and designers.
• Innovation in design is crucial for standing out in a crowded market.
• Building connections and consistently producing good work can lead to greater visibility.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Wonderful.
Welcome to the show.
I am super excited for thisconversation today.
We are joined by Amy Sadler fromKnitty Today.
Thank you so much for being heretoday, Amy.
Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to be here.

(00:21):
I'm really excited for thisconversation.
So for any of our listeners who,just by way of introduction, and
I'm going to ask you toelaborate a little bit more
about this, but in case anyonehas not yet heard of Knitty,
you've been just joining sort ofthe knitting community now,
Knitty is the longest runningfree online knitting magazine on

(00:41):
the web.
It was founded back in 2002 byAmy Singer, who's now Amy Sadler
in Ontario, Canada.
And Knitty publishes patterns byindependent designers four times
a year and has been the sourceof many, many wildly popular and
also very viral knittingpatterns in the past.
And so I wanted to sort of heara little bit about you, like a

(01:04):
little bit about your backgroundwhen you started Knitty and how
it got started.
What inspired you to start thisonline knitting magazine and
sort of what the goal was aroundall of this.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15):
Well, I actually went to school for radio and
television production andcouldn't get a job in that.
And I was stuck proofreading,basically.
And I was good at it somehow,which I actually have ADHD.
And the fact that I was able toproofread successfully for 20
years and make a living at it isa miracle.
I don't know how.
I actually would creditestrogen.

(01:37):
But I was not really happy.
I was just doing something thatI was good at and getting paid
for it.
And at the last full-time job Ihad...
I started to think that editingwas what I really wanted to be
doing.
And so I'd always had multipletitles at all of the jobs.
I'd been proofreader.
I had been, well, I called itMac artist right when Macs first

(01:57):
came out in 1986.
And then I started editing thestuff that would come as well as
proofreading it, which was amiracle because in ad agencies,
you're not really allowed tostep out of your lane.
And my lane was proofreading,but they were okay that I was an
editor.
And then they actually sent meto George Brown to take an
editing course, so I officiallyhad some training.

(02:17):
And then within, I don't know, ayear, they laid off my whole
department, which was theproduction department.
It was kind of weird, but that'swhat happened.
We all got laid off.
And I had been laid off multipletimes before as a proofreader.
It was not really a very securejob, although when you're good
at it, you can usually get work.
But as a full-time proofreader,you're not really safe.

(02:38):
So I had this editingcertificate and I had this
interest in editing.
And I had said, I think, to mythen husband way earlier when I
was in my quilting phase at theend of the 90s, I think I want
to start a quilting magazine.
Well, that's a ridiculous thing.
An actual quilting magazinewould be really hard to make.
But I had gotten back intoknitting and then I thought, OK,
so I'm not laid off yet.

(03:00):
OK, I got to go back a littlebit.
I'm not laid off yet.
I've got this editingexperience.
I've got this knack forknitting.
messing with words and makingthem, you know, make more sense,
at least when I'm in writing,not always when I'm talking.
And I looked up one day in themiddle of summer and he walked
in and I said, I think I want tostart a knitting magazine online
because online became an option,you know, in the early 2000s.

(03:20):
And I said, what should I callit?
And he said, a knitty.
And I went, oh, hang on, typedon the, you know, the search for
names and no one had takenknitty.com.
So I did.
And that was it.
And that was 2002 in June.
And the first issue came out inSeptember and then we all got
laid off in November.
But by then I realized that Ihad found my dream job because I

(03:43):
was good at it.
It was an interest I had alwayshad since I was little, this
whole knitting thing.
And people seemed to really likeit.
And keep in mind, we weretalking about the baby internet
when everybody was nice andthings were shiny and new.
So it was friendly and welcomingand supportive and, And it
wasn't until the next issue cameout that we got our first, oh my

(04:04):
God, you stole my idea for thecover pattern, which if you take
a look at the covered pattern,it's a V-neck vest with a stripe
on it.
And somehow we had stolen thatfrom, yeah, I know.
Anyway, that almost made me quitbecause I was very, very young
and very, I mean, young 40, butright now that feels very young.

(04:25):
And I just wasn't sure I couldtake, you know, being yelled at.
But we stuck it out.
And that was actually thanks toJillian Moreno, who was my
co-collab for so much of Nidhi'shistory.
And she's like, no, you can'tgive a cut to that.
That's just dumb.
So it passed like all kerfufflesdo.
And 22 years later, we're stillhere.

SPEAKER_02 (04:45):
It's incredible.
Like you mentioned JillianMoreno.
I wanted to say that Knitty,when it came out in 2002, so
2002, I started my knitting blogback in 2004.
And I remember Knitty was suchan important part of my knitting
experience.
I went there and I used some ofthose patterns for my first ever

(05:07):
sweaters that I knit.
I knit that cheesy love sweater,which I mentioned to you before.
And I knit it in exactly theyarns that were specified

SPEAKER_00 (05:15):
Of

SPEAKER_02 (05:19):
course, that's what we all did because we didn't
know how to swap.

(05:45):
In terms of starting that veryfirst issue, did the concept of
reaching out to independentdesigners, did all of that come
for the first issue?
How did that idea come together?
And how did you reach out tothese people?

SPEAKER_00 (05:59):
I had actually, I had started at the end of the
90s through some cable channelwe were watching.
I can't remember what, a tech TVor something on Canadian cable.
There was wired TV and there wasan interview with a guy who had
started Diaryland, which is likeLiveJournal, but prettier.
This is the 90s.
This is what we had, right?
It was very, very simple.

(06:20):
And I thought, I wasn't really,I didn't know how to code very
well then, although I hadstarted coding at the end of the
90s.
I had done websites and thingslike that.
I actually did Jane Silvery'swebsite, which was kind of cool.
I volunteered because, you know,she was like an amazing talent,
but no budget.
So I volunteered.
And I saw this diary place and Ithought, well, that looks like

(06:42):
fun and you could be anonymous.
So I went on anonymously and wasjust venting and I'd lost my
grandma.
So I was venting, you know, thatwas really hard and I had a
place to talk about it.
But I also started to findcommunity there online.
That was the first bit ofcommunity.
And in finding community, everynow and then someone would say,
oh, you knit too?
Because that wouldn't be thefirst thing I would say about
myself.
It would be one of here's thethings I'm into.
And this was one of them.

(07:04):
And I started looking around andI would find all of these
patterns.
There'd be one over here and oneover there and one down here and
one over there.
And they were wherever theywere.
And the only way to find themwas the web ring.
And if you are not familiar witha web ring, it is a tiny piece
of code you put on your blogpage, which is probably sitting
on WordPress or one of thoseother sites.

(07:27):
And if any single character wasmissing, the blog ring dies.
But if it works, click on it andit goes to some random person
who also has the code on theirpage.
And the knitters would find eachother that way.
And so there was this knittingblog ring and I saw the little
devil hat and a few other reallycute things that were honestly
the first viral patterns on theweb because before that it was

(07:49):
the knit list and it was all intext.
There were no pictures.
So this actually had a picture,a drawing of this little hat
with pointy ears and like alittle devil tail as the tie.
And people started talking aboutthat.
And then there's one over here.
And I thought, well, why aren'tthey all in one place?
And I had this web designingskill from doing Jane's website
and a few other bands and someother stuff that I did.

(08:09):
And I thought, well, at least Icould do is put them in one
place and make them look nice.
And then I started talking to myfriends about this and finding
out, oh, wait, tech editing.
I didn't know that was a thing.
Like I knew nothing, absolutelynothing.
I knew how to knit.
That was it.
And I was also slavish.
Like if you saw a pattern at ayarn shop and it was, you know,
20 stitches wide and you had tocast on this many stitches and

(08:33):
knit for this long until likethe simplest thing, I had to
have it written down for me.
I just had absolutely no mentalpermission to even try to
experiment.
So I was not some kind ofwonderful talent that did this.
I just had some skills and Ithought, well, I can make these
people get some more attentionby putting them all in one
place.

UNKNOWN (08:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (08:53):
So that's what I did.
I said I was going to do it.
I put the notice up on my blog.
And as I did this, I realized Icould no longer be anonymous.
Because you can't be anonymousif you're going to do this
thing.
You're asking people to send youtheir work.
We're all going to do it forfree.
So am I going to steal theirwork?
What am I going to do?
Am I going to make money offtheir stuff?
It was so early that advertisingwasn't even a thing.

(09:16):
People were more trusting, but Ialso knew I had to have some
kind of cred.
So here's my experience.
And actually I still have thepost that says, you know, here's
what I've done.
So I can tell you, I know how tocode websites and I'm a
proofreader and editor.
So I know how to make thingsmake sense and hopefully not
have too many typos.
And I put it up on the blog andthat was enough with that in the

(09:37):
blog ring to get people to sendstuff in for the first issue.
That was so new and so differentbecause this is three years
before Ravelry.
And all of those people who putout their patterns didn't have
any centralized place to getattention.
So at the beginning of theinternet, we were like the
biggest deal in town for quite awhile and it was really nice.

(10:00):
I have to say I did enjoy that.
I also came with a lot ofpressure because I had never had
any concept of being a businessowner of running any kind of
business like this.
I was an introvert.
I still am.
I'm less awkward and shy.
But all of those things werelike, I think this is a safe
place, but now I have to do allthese things.

(10:22):
And so there are people who Icommunicated with in the early
days who don't really have thebest opinion of me because I was
a mess.
I did the best I could, butemails didn't get answered.
I wasn't great about fixingmistakes on the website as
quickly as I should have.
I had all sorts of myself to getover.
And it's taken years.

(10:45):
And bit by bit, things havegotten better.
But especially the last 10years, I felt like really solid
about this job.
And one of the things I've lovedmost is because at first, when
everything came in, we tookwhatever we got.
Like if there's this onepattern, if you go back in the
first couple issues, you willsee a faux fur poncho.
Now, I love that that was ontrend at the time.

(11:07):
It was camouflage color.
It was a very tiny moment wherethat was cool.
Very short.
And that came in.
And there's some things in therewith pictures that are blurry.
And there's some things in therethat are not made that well.
We took everything becausethat's what there was.
And as time went on, we gotbetter and better things to the

(11:29):
point That people like IsoldeTeague and Stephen West and Romy
Hill and all these other peoplesent in their very first
patterns to me, to Nidhi.
And so we got to launch thesepeople who are legends in the
industry.
So that was kind of amazing.
And I never knew any of this wasgoing to happen.

(11:50):
It literally happened yesterday.
because I wanted to try a thingand then it was let's put on a
show and then oh people like theshow let's keep doing it oh I'm
unemployed all right I'm gonnakeep doing this I don't make any
money but maybe it'll turn intosomething and there you go so it
was a very swirly path

SPEAKER_02 (12:08):
But it's incredible because like you said, you
launched many people's careersthrough this.
Just being able to centralizeeverything in one place and get
people some attention absolutelycreated careers for people.
The other thing that I noticedthat you guys have done over the
years is that because of yourediting background and because

(12:28):
having to structure everythingin a way where everything's
consistent and all the patternscoming in, everything is done in
a really consistent way.
You very much sort of set the,the template and the standard
for how patterns should becommunicated to people.
You know, like this is, you haveyour section with your yarn
information and your needleinformation and then the notes

(12:50):
and then the pattern and theinstructions and the
step-by-step and very much.
I think a lot of people, havemodeled their pattern writing
after what is available onKnitty.

SPEAKER_00 (13:00):
It's a huge compliment.
And I got the initial stylesheet by looking at the print
magazines because at the time wehad a huge stack of print
magazines and they're almost allgone.
And I, just to make this clear,I started on the web because I
had had a 20 year history ofproofreading for print and So
things that went in your creditcard statements, brochures, all

(13:24):
these things that cost thousandsand thousands of dollars to
print.
And if you make a mistake, lotsof money to fix.
And then I saw the internet wasa place we could do it.
And if I made a mistake, I couldjust go fix it.
And people might not evennotice.
And as like the proofreading isactually a huge part of why
nitty is the way it is becauseof that.
Um, Then I went to all the printmagazines and I looked at the

(13:47):
way they were presenting it.
And the one thing that hadalways bugged me is like at the
time knitters, they for somereason used wraps per inch,
which is really a greatmeasurement if you're a spinner,
but not something that knitterswere using.
And you can't go to a yarn storeand look at a ball and go, oh,
this has that same number ofwraps per inch.
Like it really, for me, was anabsolutely useless measurement.

(14:09):
The other one was a measurementin pattern.
And I said, fine, like have yourgauge measurement and pattern,
but you have to have it in stockin that.
Cause that's, what's going to beon the ball band.
Like what are knitters going toneed to go buy a yarn?
So I, in some ways it was verymuch what I wanted.
And I try to be every person inmy head.
I wanted it to be asunderstandable as possible.

(14:32):
And I just learned how manyyears ago now, four years ago
that I have ADHD, which again, amiracle that I was able to do
this.
But because I have thischallenge, it's harder for me to
understand knitting patterns.
And so making themunderstandable for me makes it
easier for other people tounderstand them.

(14:53):
And that's been great.
I just want to say I have thisteam of tech editors.
Kate Atherley has been leadingour team of tech editors for
more than a decade.
I've actually lost count of howlong she's been here, but it's a
long time.
And up to then, we've had otherpeople who were super dedicated.
We had Christy Porter.
We had Mandy Moore.
But then we realized we needed ateam because we were burning out
our tech editors.
So Kate leads Ashley and Rachel,who are different parts of the

(15:16):
world.
And the three of them work to astyle sheet.
And when the style sheet needsupdating, they will tell me and
I will put in a new requirement.
So they make sure thateverything is understandable, is
consistent, follows the samelanguage.
Like there is no do all of thesethings and then repeat on right
side.
We will write out the right sidebecause we have an endless

(15:36):
length of a page.
We're not constrained to printanymore.
So we can do all of those thingsnow.

SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
Yeah, actually that's one of the biggest things
is like, yeah, when I wasstarting to jump back into
knitting and I was readingknitty.com and then also going
to the library to get the VogueKnitting back issues.
Yeah, it's incredible.
And because the printing has tobe so tiny and the patterns are
super condensed, it wassometimes very tricky to get

(16:04):
like longer, more explanation onthe patterns.
And so I think it was aroundthat time that one of the
patterns came out.
I don't know if you rememberthis pattern.
It was called And it was ahoodie.

SPEAKER_00 (16:42):
community in knitting is huge.
And considering that both ADHDand autism, which overlap in a
great many places, One of thethings that makes it easier to
function in the regular world assomeone who has either one or
both of these conditions isstimming.
In other words, fiddling withyour hand, doing some kind of
movement, repetitive movement.

(17:03):
What is knitting?
What is crochet?
It's all that.
And so it's not surprising thatthere are so many of us in this
world.
And then to make explanations,not unnecessarily wordy, but
explanatory.
We don't need to abbreviate.
I don't want to explain 47 timeshow to do a three needle bind
off.
Here's where the link is.
This will show you how, but ifthere's something weird, or if

(17:25):
we're going to go here and thensay, now we're going to do the
shaping for the neck.
Why not say that in a line?
Like you'll say it, you know,briefer, but that is huge
because as someone who can'tvisualize so well, seeing that
goes, Oh, now it's why it'sdoing this.
Okay.
That makes sense.
That's helping a lot of people.
And that's one of the joys ofbeing on the web.
And honestly, it's, For theprint magazines we've lost, I

(17:48):
don't know how many willtransition to online, but I
would love to see them all joinus here because this is the
format.
This is the place to be.
And yeah, it's nice to go to thegrocery store and pick up a
knitting magazine, but I thinkit's even nicer to get it
whenever you need in yourpajamas at all hours.
And one of the joys that we haveis that our magazine is free to

(18:10):
readers.
And that started out becausenobody was making money.
So I'm not going to charge them.
Who am I going to pay?
How am I going to do it?
It's too hard.
It's too hard.
Free.
We're going to be free.
Then we started gettingadvertising when people kept
asking, could we advertise inyour magazine?
Because it was before the bigrecession in 2008.
And so people had money tospend.
And so I put advertising on andthen immediately diverted the

(18:33):
revenue to all the designers andthen figured out a structure to
the point that in 2006, I couldquit my day job, make a living
doing this and pay everybodyback.
better.
And as time has gone on, I'veonly increased the amount I pay
people.
So nobody who works for Nittiworks for free, but no one pays
for the patterns except for atthis point, it's our patrons.

(18:54):
It used to be advertising up to2015.
And then we transitioned becauseadvertising was not working
anymore.
And now our patrons give us apot of money.
And with that pot of money, wecan pay, basically, it's$300 US
for a sweater pattern, a smalleramount for a less complex
pattern.
We have fixed amounts that wehave negotiated with the tech

(19:14):
editors.
We have money for the server.
We have money for the sysadmin.
All of that happened because ofthe patrons.
But still, Knitty is free, whichmeans unlike a pattern you have
to buy and then sit there andlook at and go, oh, I'm never
going to knit this.
You can try it.
And if you don't like it, youdidn't lose anything.
And if you want to support us,you can support us.

SPEAKER_02 (19:34):
Yeah, absolutely.

(20:04):
Just like that over 20 plusyears, right?
Platforms change, communitymoves from one place to another
place, goes to Ravelry,wherever.
Where are you finding communitynowadays?
What is it like to try to bringtogether a very fragmented
community?

SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Well, we actually, the message board, there are
people who still talk about thatmessage board.
The reason we killed it isbecause it became a security
risk.
It actually took down the siteat one point because it was
hosted on the same server.
Anyone who runs servers isgasping right now because you
don't ever do that.
I didn't know enough.
They were running together.
And instead of putting it backonline somewhere else, we just

(20:42):
decided it was time to end it.
I actually kind of regret thatwe did that.
We should have been smart andmoved it somewhere else and left
it because that was our greatestmistake.
community resource.
Over time, we ended up, I didn'teven know, but one day I looked
up just to see what washappening on Facebook because
I'd opened a Facebook page forno reason.
And there were 125,000 followerson Facebook with no content.

(21:07):
So that was there.
And we had a whole bunch onTwitter.
And when you have to leave aplace because a toxic man buys
the platform, that's hard.
But I walked away from 37,000followers there.
That's where I had, I found themost engaged community, but that
was up to about when did Muskbuy about three years ago, four
years ago.
It's been, we've been out ofthere ever since we left.

(21:28):
I left personally, it leftInstagram last year because of
what's been going on.
I don't like what's happeningwith meta.
And although I do put someenergy into the Instagram and
Facebook platforms, that's notmy main means of communication
anymore.

UNKNOWN (21:43):
Um,

SPEAKER_00 (21:43):
There are two platforms that I use
specifically, and number one isPatreon.
Now, Patreon, we started in2015, and I saw it because a
musician I admired had startedand written a book about how to
make a living from the artyou've created and the community
you've built and in anon-traditional way and up to

(22:06):
about 2015 we had been trainedas internet consumers that
everything was free because adspaid for it all and it was true
to a point but in 2008 thatstarted to change to the point
that ads weren't paying foranything anymore up to 2008 we
were making a significant amountof money from google ads that we

(22:27):
no longer make um So ifadvertising is no longer
working, then what else can youdo?
Well, you can use this model ofhaving the people who love your
work support you directly.
That has taken some education.
In 2015, I had to say it's kindof like an ongoing Kickstarter.
So every month or every quarter,your patrons give you a certain

(22:48):
amount of money based on what itis they value.
And they don't get necessarily atangible thing in exchange.
What they get is thesatisfaction of supporting the
thing they love and seeing itcontinue.
Thankfully in the, what has itbeen now?
It's been 10 years since, oh myGod, it's been 10 years since I
joined Patreon.
People understand that now,whether they want to support it,

(23:10):
not everybody does.
Not everybody feels it's okay.
Um, But there are enough people,and this is the beauty, there
are enough people who arewilling to put in whatever
amount it is.
It starts at$3.50 an issue, sofour times a year, and it goes
up from there.
And they're willing to do thatknowing that they are helping
pay for people who can't affordto or don't want to.

(23:31):
That's huge.
I spend a lot of energy therebecause those are the people,
they're basically my bosses.
They're wonderful bosses.
They don't check if I'm in at 9a.m.
As long as the magazine comesout, they're happy.
And so that's where a lot ofstuff goes.
I can have lives there.
I can chat with them.
I also have people who followand don't pay, and they get a
tiny little taste of what theymight be missing.

(23:55):
The other place I go that iscompletely open to everyone is
Blue Sky.
And what happened was whenTwitter was going, everyone was
looking for an alternative thatwas not owned by a billionaire.
had better protections so thatpeople weren't being abused for
being in any way different,whether it's a different race or

(24:15):
a different sexuality orwhatever it is.
And I wanted to find a place andwe tried Mastodon and it was
just too high a learning curvefor most people.
But the concept of the protocolsbehind Mastodon, which is a
decentralized place where peoplecan post stuff and anyone who
subscribes to the server youpost on can pick that up Blue

(24:36):
Sky took that concept, createdtheir own protocol.
And now we have a place.
And they opened up beta and thentook off beta and everyone could
come in.
And as soon as that happened,and the election happened this
last year, and then thepresident took over and things
started to change reallyquickly.
People started to go, holy crap,I need to be away from Honestly,

(24:58):
meta, that was the first thing,if they weren't off Twitter
already.
And I saw so many people whowere knitters joining me on Blue
Sky, and all of a sudden, thefollowers went up hugely.
One of the coolest things aboutBlue Sky, and the reason I'm a
bit of an evangelist for it, isthat there is no algorithm.
What there is, is you curatingyour own feed.

(25:19):
And so you are not force-fedanything.
Just because you click like onsomething doesn't mean you're
getting more of that.
That's what happens when there'san algorithm.
There is one place, the Discovertab, where that happens.
Otherwise, if I have a tabthat's all about knitting and
crochet, it follows the littleknitting ball icon.
And anyone who puts that in apost, I will see that there.
It's like a miracle.

(25:40):
It is not private, and peoplewho want private interaction,
and some do, I actually alwaysfind that a bit odd, people who
are on social media but don'twant just anybody to see their
stuff, That you can do inFacebook.
You can't do that in blue sky.
If you're there, you're open.
For me, I'm there to be open.
So I'm fine.
And we have chats.
I meet new people.
I meet locals, which is awesomebecause it's kind of hard to

(26:03):
meet people when you're my age.
And the engagement is good.
Like the discussions are good.
It's not just buzzwords.
It's actually people talking toeach other.
And so it's never going to belike it was in the early 2000s.
We're never going to have thejoy of the new discovery, the
overwhelmingly positive world.
You know, we have this.
It's like everyone is ismentally recovering from what

(26:28):
happened on Twitter and toTwitter, because I think so many
of us that knitters were reallythere and we really loved it.
And then when it went, somepeople stayed anyway and just
looked to see that theirfavorite creators and some
people couldn't take it like meand we left.
To have some kind of engagementnow in a place that feels
welcoming and safe andsupportive and you can customize

(26:48):
it to what you need, that to meis, I never thought we'd see
that again.
I thought it was done for good.
It's like early Twitter was.
So that's where I find the mostcommunity.
I know that for others, somepeople still are on threads.
That's a meta product.
So I've chosen not to be part ofit.
And I have seen reallyinteresting discussions there.
And I'm sorry that they have notmoved over as much to Blue Sky

(27:11):
as they did on threads.
That's not something I cancontrol, but I stay where I'm
comfortable and that's where I'mcomfortable.
So the other thing that's kindof interesting is there has been
a discussion about a return toblogs.
Because in the early 2000s,that's what it was.
Everybody had a blog.
We all had a page that was ourpage that we controlled.

(27:32):
We could say what we wanted.
And if somebody wanted to seeit, they had to go to it.
There were basically, what dothey call them, like newsreaders
that you would put on the codeand it would automatically tell
you, Amy's posted something newtoday.
And that's how we spent our day.
Who posted new today?
We would sit there waiting forsomeone to post.
But it wasn't short form.
It was long form content.

(27:53):
It wasn't 144 characters, 200and whatever.
And I just got this thing todayfrom Patreon.
It's interesting.
They sent us, literally just gotit from the mailbox.
And in here, there's an articlesaying that although most people
end up consuming short formcontent, what they would rather
engage with is long formcontent, which is like what you

(28:17):
do on a blog.
And so that's what people want.
And although we will not get thekind of volume we got in the
days, the good days of socialmedia.
I think what we're getting isgood quality conversations.
And so that's what I'm trying tocultivate on Patreon and on Blue
Sky.

SPEAKER_02 (28:35):
It's fantastic that there are options for people for
whatever priorities you have andwhichever values you have.
And there's so many differentplatforms to go to.
I think this return to blogsidea is also really interesting.
The fact that people want toengage with long form content.
I know that our community, a lotof the conversation originally

(28:55):
started on my blog when we hadthis blog.
All of the comments, that'swhere the community was.
They were in the comments of theblog.
And then after like a number ofyears, there was a time where
people stopped commenting onblogs altogether.
And then our blog had to evolveand change and our websites
completely changed as well nowinto more like a magazine kind
of site or like a, like a mediasite, um, that has tutorials and

(29:19):
helpful content and, you know,valuable stuff.
Um, but all of the comments havemoved to YouTube videos.
So

SPEAKER_00 (29:25):
on our YouTube channel.
Yeah.
And you guys are great with thetech you guys share.

SPEAKER_02 (29:30):
Well, we making like long form video content and
that's where all of the commentsare like the, where they were on
the blog.
They've just kind of moved overhere and they're leaving the
same kind of, um, comments.
So I find it really, reallyinteresting where everybody's
moving to.
So I just continue to try tofollow and see, uh, where
everybody's at because this is,it's exactly this.
It's like, um, I'm a knitter.

(29:50):
I'd like to meet other knitters.
Where are the knitters hangingout?

SPEAKER_00 (29:54):
I don't know.
Where, where is everybody?
Exactly.
Um, some of my favorite contentto consume right now is through
YouTube.
Um, I have this, this woman,Chris atomic starting KR is
atomic she is a narrow border inengland she's cool as hell she
is a knitter she lives the dreamon this boat with her her
boyfriend and they have the mostbeautiful pastoral scenes of

(30:16):
british countryside i adore itand this is starting to happen
for me i now am a patron of hersbecause she's monetizing that
content and extra stuff that isnot shared on YouTube on her
Patreon.
So although there are otherplaces where you can get
content, like longer formcontent, what's that called?

(30:37):
Substack is one.
That's all written.
I've seen a lot of people comingup with substacks and you can
support that financially.
There are ways, I don't thinkthere are secret ways on YouTube
necessarily, but just the viewsthemselves can end up being
monetized if you get enough ofan audience.
There is one YouTuber I waswatching for a while who's in

(30:57):
Korea who camps with theseinflatable tents.
And She's gorgeous and has agreat figure, and I'm sure that
doesn't hurt.
But the camps are fascinating,and just watching her set up an
entire home, having this, hertiny dog, and then taking it
down a day later, she's makinghundreds of thousands of dollars
a month just by viewers.

SPEAKER_02 (31:17):
Now I have

SPEAKER_00 (31:18):
to check out that camping channel.
But like anything else, thattook her a while to build up
that kind of skill to make goodcontent and to get an audience
that's large enough to watch it.
When it comes to knitting, Idon't know that we're going to
be making so much money off ofvideo content unless we are
providing stuff that is beyondthe easy, like how to do a

(31:41):
pattern where you really want tosee someone's hands doing the
hard part.
There are some patterns that arekind of tricky and it would be
great to see that laid out.
I know there are also contentcreators like knitting content
creators who are doing that andmaking nothing.

SPEAKER_01 (31:58):
are

SPEAKER_00 (31:58):
making not enough to survive, which means they're
being subsidized by somethingelse.

SPEAKER_02 (32:04):
So the Patreon model, I think, is actually
really, really interesting.
And I mean, we used Patreon fora short amount of time in 2017
when I was starting the Schoolof Sweet Georgia because it was
meant to be sort of like a kindof like a test to see if anybody
wanted what we wanted to make.
And so it was just kind of likean experiment.

(32:25):
But the whole model, I think, isreally interesting.
And especially since I just gotback from a trip to Japan.
And in Japan, I just noticedthat there's just this massive
attention to detail and qualityand craftsmanship.
And when I look at it, I'm like,that would have taken so much
time already.
Like, how can you afford to dothat?

(32:48):
How can you even afford to spendthe time to put in all of that
extra care and all that extraattention?
And so I feel like the Patreonmodel sort of allows for that
because you're able to be thatperson who's creating something
that you're super passionateabout.
You can go into detail.
You can make it really great.
And you are supported by peoplewho are, like, helping you do

(33:10):
this thing that otherwise therewould be no way for you to do
this thing.
So...
I think that model is actuallyfantastic for anybody who's
thinking about doing creativework.

SPEAKER_00 (33:22):
It's great.
The challenge, I mean, Iactually follow some channels on
YouTube that show Japanesecreators making tabby sandals.
And I watched the number ofsteps this artisan put into
creating every little detail.
And I don't know how he doesn'tcharge$1,000 a pair for the
amount of time.
Yeah, they should.
They should.
Maybe they do, and I just don'tknow.

(33:45):
When it comes to what we'redoing, the challenge here is
part of it is getting overyourself because if you are
having people support you,whether you want it or not, you
are going to have innate guilt.
People are paying me money.
Am I giving them enough?
And what I have found is, Imean, we have little levels of
rewards.
We created something calledKnitty Plus, which is a way to

(34:07):
view a pattern without all ofthe extraneous text that does
not apply to the size you'reknitting showing up.
So it takes a pattern that'sthis long and condenses it.
And for people who have ADHD andissues following stuff, all of a
sudden now it's condensed to thesmallest amount of text without
getting rid of anythingimportant.
People who subscribe at amedium...

(34:28):
medium level on our list, theyget that.
And people at a lower list getto use it, but none of the
changes they make are saved, sothey have to print it out.
We try to give them things likethat.
When I try to give them morethan that, they don't get
excited.
They just want me to keep makingKnitty.
And that's pretty awesome.
The fact that I've got about3,000 people who are able to

(34:50):
financially support Knitty atwhatever level is great.
And people leave every issue.
Every time I send out a bill, Iwill notice a drop of several
hundred dollars because peoplejust, they're done.
They can't do it anymore forwhatever reason.
But then new people come in.
And the part about new peoplecoming in is you have to ask.

(35:11):
You've got to say, we need morepatrons.
You cannot sit there and justhope people will find you.
It's like word of mouth onlygoes so far.

SPEAKER_01 (35:19):
And

SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
so it takes a lot of skill for people like me who are
introverts and also Canadian anddon't want to bother people.
I don't want to ask.
I don't want to disturb.
I just want to do a nice job andnot offend anybody.
Unfortunately, my politics havegotten in the way and I can't
not say things anymore aboutthose.
I didn't for years.
But other than I've tried reallyhard not to be inoffensive.

(35:43):
When you ask people who lovewhat you do to support you, And
a good chunk of people do.
It is immensely validating.
But you have to just continuallythank them, give them what they
asked for, and then try to getnew folk.
And so it's a process that isnot for the timid.
You have to be brave.

SPEAKER_02 (36:05):
Absolutely.
I mean, it is awesome.
hard to do the ask I'm Canadianas well I know exactly the
sentiment that you're sayinglike I just want to do a good
job and then hopefully peoplewill notice that feeling
absolutely um Like we talkedabout at the start, I mean, you
have helped launch a lot ofthese careers for designers and
things like that.
I remember attending a lecturethat you gave years ago and it

(36:28):
was called like how to make amonkey.
And it was the whole thing thatlike Cookie A, who is a knitwear
designer at the time, shedesigned a lot of sock patterns.
She designed a sock patterncalled monkey, monkey sock,
right?
And this like became superviral, took off like crazy.
And you were giving advice topeople on what they could do to
make a design submission thatwould sort of pop off with that

(36:51):
kind of virality right um whatkind of sort of guidance or
feedback or suggestions do youhave for people who are trying
to carve out a path as like anindependent knitwear or crochet
designer nowadays like in thistime what advice would you give
to somebody who wants to do thisor start this or continue this

SPEAKER_00 (37:11):
things have changed so much from when I started,
from when we were the biggestthing to when we were the
little, you know, the oldbiggest thing to where we are
now, which is sort of like thegrandma.
So you'd like to hope thatthere's this crone wisdom.
And what I have seen is a coupleof different paths.
I have seen beautifullyattractive designers who take

(37:35):
advantage of the fact that theyare gorgeous to look at and make
pretty knitwear and model theirown work.
And they get a cult of fans wholove them for how they look,
love them for how the knitwearlooks on them.
And then when they make itthemselves, it works.
So part of it is the luck ofnature.
Part of it is actually havingthe chops to design a good

(37:56):
pattern.
And not all of the big viralpatterns are good.
There is one I will just hint atthat I think is hugely popular
because it's always on the frontpage of Ravelry.
And It doesn't really look goodon anybody, although it is a
really interesting pattern.
It's not designed to be, youknow, to take the way the body

(38:21):
is built.
And it just sort of, you canmake these neat things happen
and it looks pretty in the yarn,but on the bodies, it looks kind
of, and it's there for technicalreasons I won't go into because
I don't really want to point itout.
But just because you're populardoesn't mean you're good.
If you are good, If you makegood patterns that are sized
well, that understand thatbigger bodies are not bigger the

(38:42):
same ways everywhere, that justmathematically sizing up an arm
to the same proportions that yousize up a torso is not going to
give you a good fitting sweaterfor most people.
If you can make a good,well-written, easy to understand
pattern and photograph it well,that is the number one thing.
I know a lot of designers dothis and it has worked for some.

(39:05):
that when they release acollection, they will release
the entire collection and makeit free for a period of time,
which means, of course, it'sgoing to take over the entire
front page of Ravelry for thetime it's free.
That's great.
That makes you no money.
That's not something everyonecan do.
So I will always send people tothe place where their skill is

(39:28):
showing and If you can get acouple people to say, I've loved
this pattern, it's great.
Word of mouth will help youthere.
One of the things Nidhi can donow in this changing place, our
role has changed so much.
When Ravelry is hundreds ofthousands of patterns, how are

(39:49):
you as a new designer going toget your one pattern to stand
out?
Sometimes Nidhi can make thatdifference.
We are not the only magazine.
There are other magazines.
There's not as many, but theyare still out there.
If your work is good enough toget into Lanya or any of the
other still printing magazines,for some reason in Scandinavia,
the print magazines thankfullyare still thriving.
It's the only place that I knowof.

(40:11):
Otherwise, it's sort of tabloidknitting magazines in England.
Any place you can get publishedwill bring attention to you.
I think...
It comes back to how we made ourreputation is do good work,
consistently do good work andreach out to the people who like
your stuff and whose stuff youlike and build connections.

(40:33):
And by doing that, you start toget seen by more people.
But there's like no magicrecipe.
I just think it always comesdown to.
Good work.
And for Knitty, my specificapproach is, and if you look at
our archives, look at our sockarchives.
We have some of the mostridiculous ways to build a sock
in our archives for free.
Sideways, flat, top down, backdown, up in the middle,

(40:55):
afterthought heel, heel first,everything you could possibly
imagine.
Do it.
Spiral around the foot.
I'm not making it up.
It is in there.
There are so many different waysto create a sock.
Think about sweaters that way.
Think about wraps that way.
Like another triangular wrap isreally boring.
Another wrap that is shaped thesame way as find your fate is
really boring.
That's been done.

(41:15):
What else can you do?
Innovation is what getsattention and good innovation.
Like when you do this, like findyour fate was brilliant.
It was of the time.
It was perfect.
Everybody wanted to see it.
What people may not remember isthat happened before.
And it was called Charlotte'sWeb.
Charlotte's Web took five skeinsof Koigu and every time you
wanted to switch a skein, youalternated for a few rounds and

(41:38):
then you alternated for the nextone.
And it was the first time we hadseen that because we all came
from grandmas and moms who wouldknit with one plain, solid, flat
colored yarn and never had thesebeautiful, you know,
self-striping or automatic colorchanging yarns.
So that happened in the early2000s.
But Find Your Fade made itrelevant now.

(41:59):
So what else can you do that isrelevant now?
A lot of it is research andskill.

SPEAKER_02 (42:05):
And it's going to become much more challenging
because, you know, like yousaid, with hundreds of thousands
of, you know, patterns out therepublished on Ravelry, it does
feel a little bit like, haseverything been done?
Like what else can we innovate?
What else can we try?
What else can we make seem freshand new?
So yeah, absolutely.
I can see that it is achallenging sort of landscape
for people wanting to join nowand everything like that.

(42:28):
In terms of like, trends andknitting trends and crochet
trends.
When you are doing thateditorial selection for Knitty
Now, what are you sort oflooking at?
What do you think knitters arelooking for nowadays?

SPEAKER_00 (42:40):
It keeps changing.
Part of it changes based on whatyarns are showing up at the
trade show, if you happen to belucky enough to get there.
And that comes out, used to betwice a year in January and
June.
Now it's once a year for NorthAmericans in May.
But the yarns still come outtwice a year in January.
And then I guess the fall onescome around summertime

(43:01):
somewhere, depending on whichcompany.
And you will start to see trendsthere, which are originated in
Italy and in China and otherplaces where the yarns are being
created in the first place.
So some companies will be goingto Italy to Pitti Filati, for
example, and that's likeFebruary, to choose the yarns
they're going to offer for thefall in June.

(43:22):
and customize colors and thingslike that.
That's coming from Italy.
So in some ways they're drivingthe trends.
So we started to see a littletiny resurgence of novelty yarn.
And I don't know that that'sgoing to come back.
Although right now people coulduse a little bit of lightness in
their heart.
But we saw huge trends to, youknow, all the variegated, super
bright variegated.

(43:43):
And then it went, of course,full circle the other way.
And it went natural fibers,pure, you know, Rambouillet
yarn.
Or, I mean, Merino's fine, butthere's so many other breeds of
sheep.
What else can we see?
And so we're seeing thosebreed-specific yarns.
We're now seeing heatheredyarns.
We're seeing so many people whodo Indy Dye-in doing superwash,
but some will still do pureyarns that aren't superwash.

(44:06):
which is a different animal toknit with.
If you've been knitting withsuperwash your whole life, you
won't believe how different anon-superwash wool is.
It has the grab you have neverhad, really, with a superwash.
I am someone who's allergic towool, so I'm always knitting
with silk and linen and cottonand those things.
I'm always looking for a newyarn construction.

(44:27):
What I'm seeing in the trendsnow especially for knitters
who've been around longer arethings that we want to add to
our wardrobe.
So very specific wardrobefilling pieces.
Some people are still trying tobend the envelope and come up
with something different justbecause it's different, but it
has to also be really wearablebecause for years we've had

(44:49):
interesting shawl shapes, butnot always the most wearable.
Like a pair of dragon wings isreally cool.
How do you wear it?
Right.
Is there a way to wear it?
If you look at Jewel Closures,she's brilliant at coming up
with things like that nail thatshe calls it goes through shawls
and makes a sweater almost outof any knitted shawl fabric.
And so that makes that morewearable.

(45:12):
The trends change so fast atthis point that I just try to
keep up with them.
One thing I've noticed lately isthat we are following fashion to
a degree.
And one of the things aboutknitting that is different from
the way print magazines havebeen, which, you know, print
magazines have trained us.
So print magazines take a year.
A book takes a year to produce,which means whatever you've

(45:32):
created, is it still fashionablea year later?
With knitting, people can oftendesign it and it's in print,
like it's on the web in threemonths.

SPEAKER_01 (45:40):
So

SPEAKER_00 (45:41):
what I'm seeing everywhere now, and it has been
for a while, which means it'sjust about ready to change, is
cropped and oversized, but stillfitted in the arms so that you
don't look like you're wearing atent.
But huge body, and then you'llwear something narrow underneath
to offset it.
It's kind of that DanishScandinavian aesthetic that
we've been seeing from knitweardesigners like Petite Knit.

(46:02):
Everyone loves Petite Knit stuffbecause it's beautiful.
It's wonderfully photographedand the patterns are great.

SPEAKER_01 (46:08):
that's

SPEAKER_00 (46:09):
like the three key things so that kind of fashion
is really appealing to peopleand we had this trend of yokes
how long have yokes been goingon now two three years to the
point that dyers are creatingjust you know dye colorways just
for a yoke you could just go buythe yoke from x dyer and then
you'll use whatever for the bodyum I wish I had some kind of

(46:31):
genius about it.
I do love that crochet isbecoming much more fashionable
so that knitters maybe could puttheir noses down about it
because crochet is cool.
It just makes a differentfabric.
I am always trying to findthings that are kind of
mysterious about how they werecreated.
When you look at it, you don'teven maybe know if it was
knitted or crocheted.

(46:51):
And Tunisian crochet kind ofdoes that.
It looks halfway in betweenboth.
So I'm just looking to besurprised when stuff comes into
me.
I just want to look at it andgo, oh, I never thought of that.
That's beautiful.
Or it's just so perfectlyphotographed that it's great.
Like it's just it's just right.

SPEAKER_02 (47:09):
Yeah, I think if anybody didn't know, I mean,
even though you're calledKnitty.com, you still have
crochet patterns and you havefor a long time now.
And then now also Tunisiancrochet patterns as well.
And the other thing that Ireally like about your patterns
is that you kind of highlightand feature and tag almost the
patterns that are suitable forhand spun, which I think is also

(47:30):
really, really interesting.
it's very supportive of thisidea of being multi-craftual and
like doing all the things andthat you spin and then now you
can also use that yarn to makethis pattern sort of idea

SPEAKER_00 (47:40):
well one of the things about that specifically
see we've been on for 22 yearsthere are all of our archives
are available for free toanybody all they have to do is
just go on and look at patternand features library in our menu
bar and everything is theresorted by issue by pattern type
by topic if you want to read thefeatures And the Knitty Spin
stuff was specifically Jillian'sconcept.

(48:02):
Stuff you would spinspecifically to knit it, as
opposed to just spinning itbecause you just want to make
the yarn and you don't know whatyou're going to do with it.
And she has a whole bunch ofcolumns you can read anytime for
free on Knitty under her type.
So if you take a look at KnittySpin in the Features section,
And look at all the differentthings.
She will take you through.
Here's a pattern that I foundonline.
I'm going to spin for it.

(48:22):
And it was one of the knittypatterns.
And she showed, here it is.
Here's how I'm going to createthis yarn.
All right, now I've spun this.
Now here's how I'm going toadjust it.
All right, now how much do Ineed?
I've got to make this much.
And then she knits it.
And you can see that she spun toknit a thing.
And that is something I thinkthat has come out of this
internet environment.
I don't think that that'ssomething we ever talked about

(48:43):
publicly.
I don't think books werepublished on that topic up to
the 2000s.
But Jillian specifically doesthis stuff.
And so that resource is alwaysgoing to be there.
And unfortunately, Jillian and Idon't work together anymore
because we just couldn't affordher anymore.
And but those resources willalways still be up on NIDI.
And I'm so grateful that we havethat.

SPEAKER_02 (49:04):
Yeah, no, I'm just saying that, like, it's
incredible the amount of workthat Jillian put in to create a
lot of these resources.
I mean, I referenced them aswell, you know, learning how to
spin a gradient yarn for thefirst time and things like that,
looking at, you know, thedifferent ways of plying, just
there's so many things that I'velearned from knitting.
Specifically, I learned how tograft the toes of a sock.

(49:25):
Yes.
So there's so many things thatI've learned.
Also, you know, you mentionedKate Atherley has taught a lot
through the magazine as well.
And so it's just been such anincredible resource.

(49:45):
And now also hearing about howmuch innovation and how much
intention there is towardspromoting the innovation of
knitting and this craft, I thinkis really, really important.
just has been so important tothis whole community and growing
everything.
All of these designers who havecome out of the process of
writing patterns and beingpublished in Knitty, like the

(50:08):
whole, everything that we knowof for the past 20 years has
kind of come from this place,really.

SPEAKER_00 (50:13):
Thank you.
I mean, you know, we were luckyin that we got people who
designed beautiful things.
And some people have been quietand invisible designers.
The Aeolian Shawl by ElizabethFreeman is an example.
Elizabeth Freeman is invisible.

(50:34):
You cannot find her.
She does not want to be found.
I think she's a mathematician.
I don't even know what she lookslike.
She did some of the mostbeautiful things for us.
She put them out there.
They're exquisite.
She disappeared.
I wrote her a while ago.
She does not want to be back.
She has not written back.
She just likes being able to getpublished and then go away.
And that is her thing.

(50:54):
I have no idea.
She could be the ghost ofElizabeth Zimmerman, for all I
know.
I don't know who she is.
I just know she's a genius.
And we've had a lot of thesereally unique creators who've
come forward, created beautifulthings, and then just left them
out for everybody to enjoy onKnitty, which is a miracle.
And then when you start to getpeople innovating socks...

(51:15):
And you didn't know that peoplecould innovate the way a sock
was created.
Then you start going, I wantmore innovative socks and more
innovative socks keep coming instill 22 years later.
And so then I, you know, assomeone who has a deficiency in
dopamine in my brain, I alwayswant that extra bit of dopamine
because, oh, my God, here'sanother new way to make a sock.
And I get really excited bythat.

(51:35):
I mean, working with WoolyWormhead and all her unique ways
to make hats for all the yearshas been wonderful.
Um, and I love that we have thatfor people and that it's all
still there.
And my goal now, um, you know,we went through this little,
this lull in sort of the mid2010s, uh, personal thing and
went through divorce, all thatstuff.
And then I came back and I went,Oh, wait a minute.
I can make the archive better.

(51:57):
I can do this.
I can publicize here.
So now my goal is to make surepeople know we're there because
there's so much content.
I mean, I'm on Tik TOK, but I'mnot on Tik TOK really for nitty.
Um, There is knitting contentthere.
There's a couple of creators whoare super fun to watch.
And I've seen them on Instagramtoo.
And they're doing great.
And I'm thrilled for them.
I just would love people to seewhat we have and know that it's

(52:20):
there and share it.
I mean, the whole point of it isit's there.
And if you want it, you can comeand use it at any time.
And you may find exactly theright pattern you wanted in our
archives.
And that's why we have it.

SPEAKER_02 (52:32):
Yeah, that Aeolian shawl is on my list.
So someday I'm going to makethat.

SPEAKER_00 (52:38):
I love it.
I love that so much.
I love everything she did.
She was one of my favorites.
And when she stopped sendingstuff in, I was so sad.
But I get, you know, I'm alsointroverted and I get that it's
hard.
And when knitting becomes abigger deal and you don't want
any attention on you.
But you can't stop creatingbeautiful things.
You know, she did it for a whileand she was done.
I respect it.

SPEAKER_02 (52:58):
So, I mean, thank you so much for joining me
today.
I mean, if people want to comeand support you, obviously go to
knitty.com.
Come find you at your Patreon.

SPEAKER_00 (53:07):
Patreon.com slash knitty.
Or the link is on knitty aswell.
And you are welcome to testdrive us.
If you've never been to Nittybefore, come to nitty.com, take
a look, hit the patterns andfeatures library, take a look at
what the dropdown says.
You may find bugs.
I mean, the hardest part ofbeing a proofreader who does not
have the time to proofread everysingle thing in her site is that

(53:30):
I know there's bugs here andthere, there's mistakes.
There are ads that have droppedout that don't work anymore.
But I hope you will forgive usthat and just enjoy the
patterns.
If you see something big, writeme, I'll see if I can fix it.

SPEAKER_02 (53:43):
Thank you so much, Amy.
I mean, it's just like such anincredible, incredible resource
for everybody in the knittingand the crochet community.
And I just hope that everybodycomes and sees it and gets to
enjoy it, knit some patterns outof it.
There are some wonderful,incredible patterns.
So thank you so much for

SPEAKER_00 (54:00):
joining me

SPEAKER_02 (54:00):
today.

SPEAKER_00 (54:00):
Thank you, Felicia.
I love watching your businessgrow over the years too.
You make such beautiful things.

SPEAKER_02 (54:05):
Thank you.