Toying with the idea of becoming an indie yarn dyer
Ever since my partner asked last weekend if I wanted to become a knitfluencer, its been bouncing around my brain. Thoughts of short form video, pictures, needles, skeins. I’ve already been considering a knitting youtube channel for a while, but haven’t really done more than mull over the thought.
I know that actually becoming an “influencer” (hate that word) is largely up to consistency, luck, and the algorithm, but I don’t have my heart set on that, really. More just the thought of sharing my knitting is what’s really drawing me to the idea. Of being able to be fun and queer and creative, of being able to maybe build a space or create something to help someone feel seen, feel heard, even if they’re only lurking, as I tend to do.
People have been asking ever since I graduated college what I wanted to do now that I had a degree. The answer has always been “I don’t know,” followed by me throwing around a handful of ideas and mentioning some short term goals I wanted to accomplish first. They always want an answer, a plan, for me to know exactly what to do with that degree. But I don’t ever have anything. Four years into a four year degree that would turn out to be a six year degree, I came to the crushing realization that the dream I’d been chasing for something on eight years wouldn’t work for me. Becoming a big-wig editor at a giant publishing house would be a lot of ladder-climbing, luck, and a whole lot of expensive rent in a large city, for me to only have to end up making business decisions for a large corporation in order to make them money. Sure, there would be some editing in there, something I do love, but everything else involved in that is something I hate. I don’t like big cities, and it’s anyone’s guess how I would afford to pay for the rent there in order to go to my job, only to smile and kiss ass and… work unpaid overtime? I don’t understand how promotions work in corporate America. Not that I would be able to even get to the promoting point, with my disabilities.
And I had a sneaking suspicion that working at a publishing house, where books were my all-day, everyday job, would kill my love for reading. That, I wouldn’t allow.
I finished the degree — creative writing isn’t a bad degree, and writing is still something I’m passionate about, but fuck me, it was hard. Even WITH the accommodations I had, I spent much of the last six months of that degree having meltdown after depressive episode after staring at a screen until it felt like my eyes were bleeding, unable to process anything I was reading. I’ve been toying with the idea of grad school for library sciences the last week or so, but officially discard that idea — too much money to pay to a system I hate.
So I’ve been toying with the idea of being a knitfluencer. Just putting my stuff out there and seeing what happens, kind of like this blog. No expectations, no milestones, no goal posts. Just exploration and learning. I’ve been able to get a sort of apprenticeship with my local yarn store owner, so I’m hoping to get an idea of how the business end of things works. My partner’s mom threw out the idea of having a pop-up yarn store in the building space they own. I think if I did that, I would have to dye my own yarn to start with, make a little trunk show out of it, get an idea of what, if anything, the local community wants. I could use natural dyes, make something beautiful to make something beautiful from.
I think it could be neat. I think it has promise. But most importantly, I think it would be something fun. Something I can really be passionate about. Something I could share with people.