I'm Drea.
I'm Meg.
I'm Tina.
And I'm Jess.
And this is Pardon My Stash.
Welcome to Pardon My Stash, a podcast about knitting within the fiber arts and how awesome
it is.
Before we get started on today's topics, let's find out what everybody is working on.
Andrea?
Still plugging away on the Ekemi Shaw, faded jeans, fingering weight yarn.
That's nice.
I'm having a good time.
Great.
Jess?
I'm still working on the Team Cozy make-along and I'm doing the, what is it called?
It's just called the Tea Cozy Flower Basket by Yarnspiration Sugar and Cream, but I'm using
our yarns and doing it in a smaller weight for a smaller teapot.
So we'll see what it looks like.
But I got this cute little basket weave going so far.
It is really cute.
Awesome.
Meg?
I am five rows from Splitting for the Sleeves on my Sundrop Pullover by Laura Alor.
Let me tell you, I really love the way that the Raglan top looks.
I don't know if I ever want to make another one because my God, this is just tedious,
round and round and round yoke increases.
But the shirt actually gets a pattern once you get past the bust.
So I'm actually really excited to get to that.
I'm getting close.
And I am using Dragon Horde Yarn Gnome Tweed Sock in the Colorway Fairy Yule Tree.
Amazing.
I congratulate you on getting to the Sleeves Spiddlet soon.
Oh, very close.
Tina, what you working on?
I am currently back on my Engel Sweater by Boyland Networks and I'm using String NYC,
Dolcetto DK in red, dark gray and gray.
I'm actually almost done with the body.
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah, it's actually pretty much done in terms of that.
I realized today that I needed to actually measure where I'm at because I've just been
endlessly knitting for a while.
And I'm going to try to measure it and see where I'm at.
But I was supposed to knit about 15 inches.
So if I'm not 15 inches, I'm definitely over 10.
So it's good.
I feel like knitting the body of a sweater is like that last few weeks of being pregnant
where you knit until you're like, I cannot stand to do this one second longer.
And then you're almost there.
And then you're finished and you're like, oh, look how cute it is.
You're like, wow, that wasn't so bad.
Maybe I'll do it again.
Is that what childbirth is like?
Yes.
It is actually, if you must know.
Well, you did do it twice.
Yeah.
And then you go, wait a second.
I don't fall for these tricks anymore.
Be sure to check out our website, part of my stash.com for more information as well
as pictures regarding our current projects, patterns and yarns.
And now yacking about yarn with Tina.
I don't know why I'm in an EDM music festival, but I am.
So for today's yacking about yarn, I haven't talked about yarn in a while.
And one of the common questions I get often on my personal Insta is what is nice, affordable
yarn?
And when I say affordable yarn, like under $5 USD for a single skein or ball of a decent
amount of yardage.
So you mean stuff that you're not going to get like a yarn specific shop?
You might, depending on what the type of shop, but for the most part, no.
This is going to be at your major craft store brands, something like a Joann's or a Michael's.
And you don't necessarily have to have not great yarn if you're not necessarily paying
the premium of $27 to $32 a skein for yarn.
You can still have decent yarn, stuff that feels really nice on your hands.
As someone who knits plus size garments often, I very rarely make the garment with $32 skeins
of yarn.
That's fair, though, for multiple reasons.
One, if I mess it up in the wash, I'm going to cry.
Two, that's a whole lot of yarn for a whole lot of body.
And I just don't have the money to fork that out for every sweater or whatever garment
that I'm making.
So I will go basically give you a top five, starting from five and going down.
This is my opinion.
You guys can agree or disagree.
But this is all this yarn I've worked with at some point over my 15 years of knitting.
Some of them are newer.
Some of them are good old staples.
And if there's yarns that you have found that are newer, because I don't venture too much
to the big box stores as often, but if there is something newer that you think is awesome,
definitely comment on our Instagram posts or our blog post for this episode and let
us know which brands that you like that are from the big brand stores.
So number five, coming in at number five, we got a good old staple, the Lion Brand.
Basic Stitch.
So Basic Stitch is like basically, it's a worsted weight.
Most of these are worsted weight.
And the Basic Stitch in itself does not come in amazing colors.
That's the one negative for it.
It comes in weird colors sometimes.
Sometimes it has like a weird striping to it.
But the yarn itself is very comfortable to work with.
It's very affordable.
It's under $5 a ball.
And it has, I mean, the colors are, you're not going to be too worried about color lots
with this.
It's pretty, pretty consistent.
And yeah, in terms of stuff I've made this with, I did a brioche scarf for my mother
using a purple and a yellow striped yarn.
And it came out great.
Thoughts, feelings?
Anybody care about Basic Stitch?
I don't think I've ever used it.
Yeah.
So yeah, it's not, it's one of those, I would say it's one of those that you probably go
by and you don't even consider.
Because for one, the name is Basic.
You're going, well, I don't want Basic.
But I'm telling you, the Basic Stitch is worth it.
It's a good go-to staple if you want something, you know, just a little bit more reasonable.
Another staple that's coming at number four for me is the Lion Brand Wool-ese.
Love Wool-ese.
This is a wool-based yarn.
So it does not feel as nice as Basic Stitch.
Why?
Because it is wool.
So you're going to get more of that hearty wool feeling with Wool-ese.
Wool-ese has great consistency.
They come out with colorways fairly often because this is a very popular yarn from their
collections.
People do use it.
And it is great for bulking.
And what do I mean by that?
So like say you have something that you're making and you have a very fancy skein of
yarn that you want to use for a specific piece of it, maybe for the stitch work or the color
work that you're doing, but then you need something for the base and that you need a
lot more yarn for the base.
Wool-ese goes really well with other wool-based yarns.
It just mixes nicely.
It doesn't, you can't really tell.
So then when people ask you what you made it of, you could say the fancy yarn and you don't
have to mention the Wool-ese.
But I mean, you could do if you don't care.
I don't care.
The Wool-ese is as good as a good staple as well.
Also under $5 skein ball.
Any thoughts on Wool-ese?
I like it.
I've used it.
I don't think that I have ever used it.
You're just missing out, Dre.
Do you know what's funny?
I've only used one on your list.
On my list?
On your list.
Well, you're going to learn, Dre.
You're going to learn.
Well, I'm here for it.
Yeah, here we go.
All right.
So number three, number three, put these all kind of together.
Again, I'm going to hit up the Lion Brand and we're going to talk about the booze.
What does the booze mean?
The koboos, the bamboos, the liboos.
They got like a bunch of mix of bamboo with a bunch of organic materials.
What the heck is liboos?
Linen.
So they have a linen, they have a linen bamboo combo.
They have a koboos, a cotton bamboo combo, and then they have just straight up bamboo.
My biggest negative with the booze is that they split like crazy.
As bamboo does.
As they do though, like as you know, that's just.
Yeah, that's any bamboo yarn is going to be silly.
But the feeling of the yarn itself, even the linen based one is awesome.
It's very smooth, very comfortable.
And when you're done with your project, I used it for color work for my Lumiere cowl
and it came out awesome.
I love that cowl.
That one is with koboos.
So that's a cotton bamboo mix and it was with their pink and navy.
I think it's like steel, mauve and navy.
I think it's just navy.
I think the pink is called like steel mauve though.
You know, that's an interesting point too, because oftentimes if you use a non woolly
fiber for color work, it can look very ragged because the wool causes the fibers to kind
of fuse together, which makes the color work look more complete.
And I honestly didn't know looking at your Lumiere cowl that it wasn't made with a wool
yarn because you don't see that kind of separation or splitting in that cowl.
So that's a really nice alternative if you're not into wool or you can't wear wool or you
live in a part of the country where wool is not really conducive and you want to do color
work.
That makes that a great option.
I can attest also that you could throw that thing in the washing machine and it is fine.
You could wash, you could throw it in the dryer.
It doesn't shrink and it doesn't bleed.
Sounds like a wool horse.
So it's definitely something I like to keep in the stable.
I will also say that you can find that at Wally World.
So you don't necessarily have to go to Joann's or something like that.
You can also just go to Wally World and find that there.
If you don't know what Wally World is, it's Walmart.
All right.
Just in case, I just realized not everybody might know what Wally World is.
Anyways, coming in at number two for me is Loops and Threads Cotton Cream.
Another cotton base.
This is at Michael's specifically.
They do the loops and threads.
So the cotton cream also has, again, organic materials.
You're going to deal with the splitting.
So you have to kind of be careful as you're working with it.
But also when you block cotton cream, it will stretch substantially.
So you have to be careful with that too.
So think of a Malabrigo.
It does a Malabrigo expansion effect.
Oh, it blooms.
It blooms quite a bit.
But the benefit to it is once it stretches, it's stretched.
That's the thing.
So it doesn't reshrink.
So I've been pretty comfortable with that with garments as well, especially if I know
that it's going to bloom.
So I make it slightly smaller than what I'm expecting to make.
And what's great with that is if you're making a summer-based garment.
So if you're in a warmer area and you want to make a halter top or a dress, or I've seen
a lot of these cool summery type of outfits and pieces, cotton cream is great for that.
And it also is pretty comfortable in the summer.
It doesn't sweat.
You don't sweat like crazy with it because of cotton.
And again, you could throw it in the wash.
All set, ready to go.
You don't have to think about it.
Always a bonus.
And then my number one, my number one.
Hold on.
I got a little thing for this.
Number one.
Yeah, I don't have a bell or anything.
We're going to use the.
The law.
Stabler wants you to know the number one yard is Karen Simply Soft.
I love Karen Simply Soft.
It's always at the top of my list when somebody asks me for a budget yarn to use for garments
in particular.
But you can also use Karen Simply Soft for literally anything, literally anything.
You can make it for hats.
You do gloves.
You do whatever you want.
Does not feel awful.
It actually is quite soft as the name would let you know.
So it's actually one of the few budget yarns that I find to be comfortable for me to network.
Yes.
And I'm glad to hear that because I find it also very pleasant.
It also comes in a lot of your neutrals.
So you can get a nice black with that, a nice white, different types of browns, navies.
So if again, if you need like a base for color work and you don't want to fork over for nine
skeins of something that's thirty two dollars, you can get probably four skeins of the Karen
Simply Soft.
Not only does the Karen Simply Soft be soft, it comes in a larger yardage.
So you get a ton for your money.
I think that's also something to kind of remark on because there I was going to say there
are some yarns you can get where you look at them and you're like, oh, that's not a
bad price.
But then you look at the yardage and the yardage isn't doing you any favors.
Like if the ball of yarn is seven dollars, but the yardage is only 110 yards of fingering
that's not a bonus.
Like you're not getting a deal.
So for example, I just found Karen Simply Soft in with its worsted weight.
Right now it's three dollars and sixty seven cents for this skein or this ball or roll
or whatever you want to call it.
And it has three hundred fifteen yards in it.
So it's a little bit smaller than what you would expect in a normal skein of worsted,
which typically from an Indy Dyer or something like that would come in around like 220, 240
maybe depending on the brand.
So you're definitely going to get another at least another hundred yards with the Karen
Simply Soft.
The also in terms of yardage that loops and threads also comes in in a good yardage to
let me write.
So cotton cream from Lutz and threads comes in at three twenty four yards.
So again, great deal for what you get.
So yeah, if you ever feel like, hey, I want to know a budget yarn, a good yarn for me
to use.
I need a lot of it and I don't have a lot of money and I want to be frugal, then you
can hit up those five that I talked about again.
If there are more, I know there's more.
I just kept it to five just to keep this segment realistic.
And if you have more and you want to shout out one, please feel free to comment on our
Instagram or blog post regarding this episode.
Into our main topic this week, we have creativity versus business in the fiber arts.
We as a crew of podcasters get questions about starting businesses in fiber arts for various
reasons.
Megan Jess, obviously, you probably get the indie yarn dire questions.
A lot of times I'll get pattern design questions and random people in public will ask Dre about
her business that doesn't exist.
So so we also seen as a fiber artist.
Even though I'm not selling my wares.
So yeah, so this week, let's chat about how to kind of basically the differences between
the two because there are differences, my friends, and how to handle both sides of it
because you need both sides.
First and foremost, to make things work if you're going to try to do it.
But yeah, doing business in the fiber arts with creative, right brained people go.
I don't have a business.
No I want to hear about your business, Dre.
How are you going to sell anything if you don't tell me about your business?
Step one, don't sell anything.
Step two, go out in public.
Step three, be happy.
Great, thank you, Dre for that contribution.
Well Megan, just tell me, tell us about how it is with the indie dyeing business.
What, what, what would be things now that you guys have been in it for almost a year
now right?
If not more than?
It'll on July 1st, we will officially have been.
We launched the business on July 1st last year.
So we're almost a year.
Since, since July 1st, what kind of things have you run into that you were like, oh man,
if I had to do this again, I would not do that.
Or I would do that when starting your business.
Honestly I think the, the, the best thing that we did was figure out early on who was
better off being responsible for what.
And that has been something that we have not butted heads on the entire time.
I would not recommend going into business with somebody that you, you either can't work
with or you've never worked with before.
I mean we had never owned a business together, but you know, clearly we've been together
for a long time.
So there was that.
But we kind of delegated responsibility down the line pretty, pretty evenly.
Jess is definitely the more creative side of it.
She's the one that comes up with more color ways.
Listen, you or someone you're working with is going to want to want or be able to do
all the legal stuff.
Because there's a lot of that.
And that's me.
You know, when the suggestion came up and I kind of brought it up as a joke originally,
I was like, let's start a yarn dying business and you can quit your job, which is definitely
a joke.
Yeah, definitely a joke.
And Jess actually said it really well the other day that a lot of people don't talk
about the fact that when you start a business, you are probably not going to make substantial
money off of said business for at least the first couple of years.
The IRS expects that.
When you're filing your taxes and stuff for the business after they expect you to take
a loss the first few years.
Right.
That's just how things go.
We about broke even with ours and we considered that a massive success.
Super amazing.
Super exciting that we didn't operate at a crazy loss.
Promptly bought more yarn.
But that was, you know, we went into it with very, very little expectation.
The joke of Jess being able to quit her job was a joke.
We knew that that was not going to be happening anytime soon.
And most small businesses don't take off like that unless they get really lucky and they
have like an it product.
But a lot of businesses that have a sudden it product and get swamped often end up taking
on more than they can handle and either burn out or collapse because it's just simply too
much.
You can only do so much.
We have a very small business.
Every skein that we do is died by the two of us.
We wind it all by hand.
Well, we don't wind it by hand anymore.
We have a skein winder.
Best purchase.
We do it ourselves, we tag everything ourselves.
We do all the paperwork ourselves.
The only outsourcing that has been done is Tina does the website.
That's been literally the only like.
And honestly, I don't do the web.
I set it up for you guys.
You set it up.
Yeah.
I mean, Jess kind of took on that technical role of updating the products and stuff.
I'm not doing any of that for you guys.
You guys have been doing that.
So it's a lot of work.
And that's the thing.
If you are, if you're planning on going into business and doesn't make time for that to
and both of us, you know, acknowledging that we both have full time jobs, we have a child
and there is only so much that we can do in a single week without burning out.
You know, our business is not capable of.
Yeah.
It's not booming, but you know, we're very happy with what we have.
We have a wonderful base of customers that we are so grateful for.
And you know, we would love eventually to get bigger.
I mean, no, no business is like I would love to stay tiny forever.
I would love to be stagnant.
But we're also very mindful of the fact that at the point where we're at now, if things
were to get bigger, major changes would have to be made.
And I think that's a really important designation to make is know what you are capable of doing
in the now and think about planning for if and when things do get bigger, what changes
you are willing slash able to make to accommodate a stretching business.
Because it sounds great to be like, oh man, I would love to like design that it product
that blows up and everybody wants it.
But the consideration of once you get the orders, you have to create a product.
And if you are one person and you get 150,000 skeins of yarn that are ordered, that's going
to be a substantial change in your business model.
So you know, kind of go into it with few expectations, but also knowing that, you know, things if
they do change, you're going to have to make some changes and probably for the better.
But still, things are going to change.
You want to start small, right, especially if you haven't run your business before or
if you haven't run businesses before.
You know, I've run a couple in my time and not necessarily related to the fiber arts.
But if we had the sales that we had in year four or five, in year one, I don't know what
I would have done.
I think I would have watched.
You wouldn't know how overwhelming.
Because you don't have the infrastructure or the process or the policies in place of
like, who's doing what and how do we handle this and how do we handle that?
It's just it's very it is time consuming in and of itself to do the business side of it,
where you are organizing the business itself.
The organization piece is, I think, where a lot of people get lost.
Because it's I think it's personally very easy to be creative because as fiber artists,
because we are creative inherently, right?
People who are artists, you for the most part can be have creative liberties, know how to
like do some color to match it, you know, like have this creative knack.
Right.
So I don't think that's the issue, because all of us can come up with these beautiful
ideas, but then actually implementing them in a business like way that's not going to
kill your whole budget, that's going to make sense for your time.
Like you're not working 24 seven.
Now that's not going to destroy every aspect of your life as well.
Yeah.
So I think your point of knowing your limitations is really important.
And honestly, even if you do explode, which congratulations if you do right in the beginning,
you still set limitations.
You shouldn't sell the 500 products if you're not in a position to sell 500 products.
You know, if you have that limitation already set that, hey, I know I could make if you're
an indie dire like you guys are, I know we can make 50 skeins in a week, let's say, and
that's it.
That's our that's after that, like we don't have time, like we'd have to change that,
whatever.
But knowing what that number is, would help you in understanding that when you put out
a preorder or when you put out stock or anything like that, you have that hard limit in mind
so that you can handle it.
Like you just drown.
Well and then there's there's always that fear too, is that you you ground your business
before it really starts because if something like that happens and then you don't meet
the orders and the time frame that you promised, then you start getting the bad reviews and
the word of mouth and people start like kind of shy away.
And there's so you've got to think about that too, like make sure you keep up with it so
you know people don't have something to try and drag you for.
And the other thing too is we also went into it knowing that that the market is saturated.
Yeah, there are thousands upon thousands of indie dyers that are selling beautiful yarns
at about the same price point that we are.
Some of them that have more ability to produce more yarns, they've been in business longer,
they have more business acumen than we do.
And knowing that, you know, word of mouth being what it is, our customers have thousands
of other options to go to.
If we start to to kind of drop off and not fill our end of the bargain, it's not like
we have a monopoly on the product.
There are so many other options and respecting that.
And I think too, when you're in any kind of creative field, there is just so many, because
there's so many people that have like, thank goodness, right, that human right in general
have this creative knack.
But, but again, I think the difference when people get big, and then when people who don't
make it, the biggest difference is, can you handle the business side of it?
Can you handle like making sure that you're setting low expectations and meeting them
tent like over and over and out?
Because that's the best way to be is like, oh, you know, we ship every two weeks or something
like that, or this will be out in four weeks.
And then people get their stuff in three weeks or two weeks or whatever, and they get it
sooner.
And then they're like, wait, like people are going to think you ship fast, even though
you don't.
It's just setting that expectation, you know, right out the gate.
So and you know, it applies to digital products too, because, you know, like say you're doing
more pattern design.
I love people who think that you make a pattern and then you just go away.
Like that's it.
I made a pattern.
Goodbye.
No, no.
I mean, yes, you don't have to like necessarily like print out and send a pattern every time
somebody buys a digital pattern.
But like if there's problems with it, there's pattern support.
There's, you know, you have to update it every so often just to kind of as you grow as a
designer to like make it, you know, easier to read, you know, better, you know, maybe
the yarn that you used as a yarn inside your pattern is no longer available.
It's discontinued.
You got to change that.
Then you have to change your gauge.
You know, there's like a lot of different things.
And for me, my more popular patterns, I'll get requests to add updates to it.
So they'll be like, oh, well, for example, I got somebody who wanted a ponytail hole
on the seed dot beanie, and they wanted directions on how to do that.
You know, and like, well, like, you know, if you want to keep up with that, that's a
good update.
That's I was like, oh, that sounds great.
Like that's that sounds like something that would add to this beanie.
So let's do that.
But like, it's not just walk away.
You can't just walk away from it.
It's passive to a degree.
You don't have to fulfill every order, but you definitely have to support it.
Because as you as you guys were saying, like your name as a designer or as a dyer or whatever
as a business depends on you supporting that product.
So whether it's physically shipping out skeins of yarn or making sure that you're answering
questions or providing support for your patterns will go a long way.
And if people decide to buy further patterns from you and promoting yourself to promoting
your stuff.
I mean, you can.
Sure.
You can you can do a pattern and throw it.
I mean, I'm guilty of this because I really don't.
I'm not like you in the respect where I really want to keep designing.
I've done two patterns.
They're up on Ravelry.
You know, they've gotten minor traffic.
I get really excited every like three months when somebody buys one and I'm like, yay.
And then I forget about it again.
But if you are someone that really, you know, wants to go hardcore into pattern designing,
you know, you you want to kind of keep your stuff near the Ravelry main page.
You got to keep like you said, updating them or promoting them or, you know, marketing
them online.
If you just throw a pattern up there like I did, it's going to get buried almost instantaneously
in the thousands of other patterns that are coming out every day.
So if you want to really make designing like a business, promoting your stuff is a big
part of it.
And I think that's something that also a lot of people kind of take for granted.
It's like, well, my my product should speak for itself.
And it's like, yeah, in a perfect world at will.
But we don't live in a perfect world.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, marketing is a big part of any business that I think a lot of people
don't.
I did not think about it before we got into Critical Hit at all.
I was kind of like, yeah, yeah, I got a pattern.
Yay.
Nobody's buying it.
OK.
Well, the marketing piece, you know, is again, I think honestly, without getting because
marketing could be its own freaking episode.
There's so right.
Yeah.
I think the basic idea of it is basically consistency.
You just have to be consistent.
As long as you're consistent, people will consistently expect things from you.
But if you kind of like, I'm going to post like three things in one day and I'm not going
to post for eight years and then I'm going to come back and do seven things in this week
and then again disappear into my hermit world for nine more years.
Like why is anybody buying my patterns, guys?
Yeah, exactly.
Like you can't just like there's actually like a build up to like, hey, like I'm designing
a pattern and then like I'm testing the pattern and then I'm like, here's my thing and like
here's some engagement and then OK, now we're going to count down to the launch and then
we do the launch and then after the launch now you could be like, OK, here's people's
with their finished products and here's like this one finished their pattern.
This one's you know, I'm constantly be hyping yourself.
It all sounds exhausting, but that's it's unfortunately it's part of it in the beginning.
I will say that.
Yeah, now I have not a crazy following, but I have a decent following and now I will promote.
I still have to do my things that I do, but now there's word of mouth because now it's
like, hey, now you have people who have used my pattern, enjoyed it.
I've come out with a new pattern.
They're following me already.
They start sharing on their own.
So then you get the whole like, oh, well, you know, that's another question that I get
a lot, which is like, how do you make reels viral and how do you make post viral?
And I'm like, guys, I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah, because there have been times when you've been like, I have this great reel, it's going
to go viral and then it doesn't.
And then there's the one that you do and you're like, I think this one was silly.
And then all of a sudden it's everywhere.
It's you know, it's you never can tell what is going to resonate with people.
Yes, that is absolutely correct.
But again, my path to success has been consistency.
Basically Instagram will reward me every like seven or eight reels.
They'll say, okay, this one goes and then it just goes off.
You know, like it really just, I don't know.
It just like it and it happens now that I have a semi decent following.
It happens more often than not.
Like when I first started doing reels, I was lucky if I got over 100 views and you know,
if I got to 500 views, that was a good day.
You know that that was a viral for me.
But now it's like I sit like my average usually sits between one and 3000 and then like if
it goes over 10, I know it's going to do well.
But like it but like again, it's like I do like eight or like seven to nine are like
one to 3000.
And then like the one after that and I never know if it's the you know, the eighth, the
ninth or the tenth one.
But after that will suddenly be like 10, 20, 30.
And then some and then every once in a while Instagram will reward me with you know, one
that will go crazy.
So the last one and I say crazy meaning go over going over 100,000.
And I've seen other people who have less of a following than I do.
And they have something that goes to a million views.
And they have or people that have more than a following than I do.
And they have reels that go nowhere.
So it's like I don't know, I think it's a combo of consistency, making quality content
and just sticking with it.
But it doesn't happen overnight.
It took me a year and a half to get to 10,000.
It'll probably take me 17 million years to get anywhere close to anything else.
It's just it because Instagram's changed too and that's a big thing too, is that you have
to keep up with all that.
But but in terms of marketing in itself, whatever avenue you pick, whether it be online, whether
you do email newsletter, whether you stick with your website for marketing, whatever
it is, just stay with it.
Don't like keep changing your plans or give up on it entirely because you'll have to build
it back up.
It will start to rot away if you just kind of if you start to build something up and
then you stop taking care of it.
It's like a plan.
If you want it to have pretty flowers, you got to keep watering it.
You're watering.
Keep taking care of it.
Put it in the sun, take it out.
You can't erase yourself and reinvent yourself every six months.
You don't say.
Yeah, because and and there's been, you know, there has been times where I I was actually
stuck at like long and not that follower count manners, but I was just stuck at like 9200
followers for like the longest time.
It was just sitting there and I'm like, what am I doing wrong?
I don't understand.
And then all of a sudden, it just went back.
It just went back to normal.
And the difference for me was consistency.
When I sat there is when I was like, I'll post this day and then I won't post for seven
days and I'll post this day.
I'll post like maybe three days in a row and then both.
So it's always goes back to consistency.
But you should also do that with your whatever you're making.
So if there's a quality of your product, that should remain consistent, your if you're making,
you know, yarn skeins and you're doing color ways, those should be consistent.
If I'm buying this picture, it should look like this picture type of thing.
Though you know, it should like you have to the consistency you gain kind of a familiarity
and then you gain a trust.
Once you have the trust, you're all good to go.
Right.
But and then I mean, and then I mean, we get people ask us about this podcast.
Listen, guys, the podcast, we have no idea.
We don't know.
This is literally just like we're like, let you know, F it.
Let's just do this.
We didn't plan anything.
There's no marketing.
I feel like the best ideas are the ideas that start out as something that's just for fun.
Yeah, it's yeah, there's no weak.
I just like we can, you know, Megan Jazz obviously can talk about the indie die stuff and I could
talk about the pattern design stuff or like Instagram stuff.
But like with the podcast, I still like it baffles us every single day when we go like,
oh, like we're on the top of the charts for like 18 countries.
Like how did that happen?
Well, I think a big part of that too is is be going into it with no expectations.
Absolutely.
And also, I mean, and I certainly can't speak for the two of you.
I've said it before, speaking on behalf of Jess and I that we will we will run critical
hit until it is either a massive drain on our income or we don't have fun with it anymore.
Probably the latter would be the more important thing.
Yeah.
And I think that's a huge part of it is that if you're going to start a business or a podcast
or, you know, any sort of creative endeavor, the main point of it should be you're you're
having fun.
Yeah.
If you're just doing it for dollar bills, you're going to be disappointed.
It's gonna yeah, it's just gonna make you sad and bring you out.
Not only that, but people are smart enough to sense when you're not doing it for the
good of it.
Like when you're doing it to siphon money off people, it's really obvious.
It's so obvious when people are just doing it for the money.
Because there's just this like sense of like salesmaniness with the whole product.
Buy me.
There's an authenticity to it.
Buy me now.
Guys, I'm just here for a good time.
Yeah.
I'm just here to kind of catalog our thoughts into this void of audio nests.
But I'm like, honestly, honestly, and this is I've said this for a long time now.
My primary objective is keeping our conversations on some kind of recorded notion, because one
day my brain is going to go and I'm going to forget all this stuff.
One day we're going to have dementia.
Yeah.
And we're going to like, oh, I wonder, you know, Pat, you know, Patrick's going to roll
in a little radio and he's like, look, this is what you did when you were young and hit
the play button.
And it's going to be like I'm with my friends again.
Yeah.
You know, because you never know what life's going to give you.
And at least we have these moments to kind of like record ourselves and like have, you
know, these memories on tape.
I really hope that I'm like 60 and I'm still like, like if I'm, if I'm dementia.
If I have dementia when I'm 60, I want to be able to listen to us back and be impressed
with myself.
It's not that far away.
I have brain problems.
I'm being realistic.
I also have brain problems.
We're just the brain problem people were just being realistic right here.
Look, if I get to be like 70 or 80 before it kicks in, you know what?
I will be pleasantly surprised.
Fantastic.
And consistent with the episode, keep your expectations low and you'll never be disappointed.
But yeah, I mean, realistically speaking, we're all not, you know, at some point we'll
all go into the ether.
And when that happens, at least we'll have recordings of us singing rap songs about whips.
Oh, very good.
That'll be our legacy.
Talking about noobs and rap songs about whips.
That'll be it.
That's it for this week's topics.
For additional content and opportunities to connect with the cast, check out our Patreon
or our website at part of my stash.com.
Guys see marketing.
Be sure to tune in next week for more live studio.
Cheers marketing and dress.
I'm Drea.
Good job.
package said parted my Stan.