Welcome to April 25th’s knitting chair chat. Today I’m talking in more depth about the new knitting community called the Knit Many Together Community.
I realized the other day that I never recorded a video to share with you more about the Knit Many Together Community: what is it, why I’ve created it, and my long-term vision for it. This is not quite a transcript, but the script I used as a guideline while I recorded the video. If you’d prefer to watch that video instead, please click here or use the button at the bottom of this article.
Before we dive in I want to mention that I made a fairly recent intention to put out free weekly content. I began by committing to weekly blog posts back in December. And I’ve more recently decided it might be helpful to also create a video with the same or similar content as what I’ve been writing in my blog posts to give you options. Personally, I love to read, so that’s why I began bulking up my blog. At the same time, I also often like to watch something while I’m knitting, and I’m always looking for new things to watch that don’t require 100% of my attention. So, here we are. My hope is that with practice, creating videos will also become more natural for me and more enjoyable for you to watch too!
So let’s talk about the Knit Many Together Community.
Your first question may be, “What is it?” The Knit Many Together Community is an online group I’ve created to help us meet more like-minded knitters. With Henlia Handmade being eco-friendly focused, I realize it can sometimes be difficult to find others in the knitting community who also share that passion. Because it’s a balance right? Our creating creates waste which is what many of us are trying to minimize. But we also love to create beautiful things with our yarn (& many times fabric, ribbon, paper, paint, etc.). I’m going to file this away as a topic for another video.
The Knit Many Together Community is also my take on a Patreon community. I’m recording an exclusive behind-the-scenes Henlia Handmade video each month for my community’s viewing only. And, like many creatives with a Patreon community, I’m also offering other benefits to my members because that’s how I like to roll. Each month I send members a code for free shipping in my shop henliahandmade.com. Members also receive early access to all product launches, sales, and any other special events. This is especially critical in the case of sales since I don’t typically hold a ton of stock in my shop. Lastly, and most importantly, is our monthly Knit Nights. This is where we’re getting to know one another in a relaxed way via Zoom. We chat about our projects, and our lives, and be in community with one another. These are still early days, but perhaps one day we could even have a proper in-person meet-up. Currently, we’re scattered across the U.S., but I love to dream so I’m throwing this out there.
Something worth noting about this knitting community is that my intention is for it to truly be community-driven.
When you’re a member, you can suggest topics you’d like for me to talk about or teach. I haven’t designed this to be a learn-to-knit community, but I’m open to it and nothing knitting and yarn related is off the table. I’ve suggested doing a more in-depth how to use natural dyes. So far that hasn’t been the direction the community has wanted to go, but I’m always open to sharing more of my dyeing knowledge. So what I’m saying is that I’d really like for this to be YOUR community. You tell me what you’d like, and I’ll do my best to make it happen.
Now, why am I charging to join this community? Okay, so the answer to this is two-fold. First, it does cost money and more time than you might think for me to create. So that’s the first reason. Second, I’ve found it’s important to have a bit of skin in the game. When you pay for something you’re more likely to participate. And participation is truly my goal and is the key to making our community thrive. This said, it only costs $5 per month, which is about what you’d pay to have one skein of yarn shipped to you anyway and free shipping is one of the membership perks. In any case, I wanted to keep this very low barrier so that even if you had to sacrifice a fancy coffee drink once a month, you’d be able to find the cash to join.
There’s just one more thing I want to say about the Knit Many Together Community. All are welcome. If you don’t have a supportive community of knitters around you, I’d love for you to give us a try. One of the thoughts that continued to cross my mind during the past several months has been that I have some incredibly wonderful, kind knitters in the Henlia Handmade community and it’s such a shame that they don’t get to meet each other. Well, the Knit Many Together Community was my solution to that.
If this sounds interesting to you, please check out the link below. I’ve told you all about it now, but you can read the details and sign up through this link here:
https://henliahandmade.com/knit-many-together-community/
If you’re new to me and Henlia Handmade, I’d love to give you a code for 20% off your purchase. You can do that by clicking this link here:
Have a wonderfully woolly day!
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Mindy Kingery
When I'm not dyeing, designing or dreaming of yarn, you can find me painting, digging in my garden, hiking with my family or working on one of my many, many WIPs.