This episode is sponsored by Andrews Artistry.

Branding, Web Design & Brand Photography for Creatives and Small Businesses

Andrews Artistry is a queer-owned, woman-led creative duo based in Denver and working with craft businesses everywhere — virtually and via shipped products. As crafters themselves, they’ve spent over 15 years helping makers show up with brands and photography that actually do their work justice. They specialize in color-accurate, texture-forward product photography that closes the gap between the online and in-person shopping experience — plus brand identity design, web design, and ongoing creative support for makers who are ready to stop DIYing their brand.

Free for podcast listeners: The Brand Reality Check — submit your site and get a personalized video review of three things holding your brand back, plus exactly how to fix them. Grab your free Brand Reality Check at andrewsartistry.com/realitycheck

We begin this interview with Amy sharing her background growing up in Canada after her father’s work in food science took the family to New Brunswick and later to London, Ontario. Amy learned to knit from her grandmother, who taught her when she was six years old as a way to keep her busy. Amy discussed her college education in broadcast journalism and television at Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan University), which she chose after being inspired by her mother’s work at Public Television and her own experience with TV production in high school.

After working at the Canadian Captioning Development Agency, Amy became a proofreader in advertising for 20 years at Ogilvy & Mather. Her role involved transcribing audio for different reading levels and noticing details that others missed, which led her to develop skills in marketing and copy editing.

Scrapple fingerless gloves pattern from a recent issue of Knitty.

Amy is allergic to wool. She talks about discovering new yarn options in the 1980s, including variegated yarns that weren’t commonly available at the time. She became involved in early online crafting communities in the 2000s, including quilting forums and the knit blog ring, which helped connect knitters through blog codes. Amy described her idea to create an online knitting magazine with her tech-savvy ex-partner, who developed the backend system and suggested the name “Knitty.”

Amy’s former partner built a proprietary backend system for the magazine. Over the years they’ve faced various server issues which have been resolved by a systemd administrator who came on in 2017. Amy expressed some concern about succession planning as she approaches retirement age, noting the difficulty of finding someone to take over the business that provides her sole income and which she’s run for 24 years.

Knitty is an online-only magazine, and Amy explains the advantages of this format, including the ability to easily fix mistakes without high costs, work remotely, and avoid the stress of print publication deadlines. She explains that paying contributors was important to Knitty from the beginning because she wanted to respect designers’ rights and ensure they were compensated fairly.

Midwestern Sky is a scarf pattern from a recent issue of Knitty.

She described how the industry’s approach to pattern sharing and payment had evolved since the 1970s and 1980s, when patterns were often shared freely in yarn shops despite being funded by yarn companies. Amy noted that early payments to designers were relatively low at around $25 per pattern, but increased over time as the publication gained advertising revenue, particularly from Google Ads, which were very lucrative in the early days.

We also discuss the impact of Ravelry on the knitting world and on Knitty in particular, the adoption of Patreon as a revenue model, and more!

And, of course, I ask Amy to recommend great stuff she’s enjoying right now. Amy recommends:

• Exploring Hamilton, Ontario on her Vespa
• Threadloop
• Commercially made espresso concentrate