knitting is an escape route
how i make money
Woven instrumental, video, and reading of MANIFESTO from my last newsletter, Welcome to Knitting is a Love Language.
I loved before I understood; Love is a skill … And learned Trust and love Are crafts we practice Are wheels We balance Our lives on Are BICYCLES We ride Through challenges and changes To escape and ecstasy - Nikki Giovanni, Podcast for Bicycles, Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (2016)
Let me share with you how I make money. To fully fund a craft book, my budget is tighter than it has ever been and I feel more certain than I ever have. My wifey is zaddy to be sure: the grounding techie to my wayward artist, the Aquarian bearer of my Pisces water, the one who is approached daily in the street by someone looking for directions. She always guides them and I always trust they’ll find their way.
We’ve always had an understanding that she will not be the sole financial provider for our household. And as a child who grew up in public housing I will own an open home with complete autonomy. I have received a W2 from an employer from ages 14-34. I launched my Etsy shop to sell finished handmade products when I was 25 and also began taking on freelance teaching work.
My first job was so cute. I was a counselor-in-training at a creative arts summer camp. Parents tipped us money and things like new CDs. I worked with 3rd graders, sweeties. We sang in a chorus, knit, played instruments, went to the beach, and the cafeteria food was mad good.
Then I worked at Dunkin Donuts to be with a friend where the manager baked and laughed saying, “my sweat and blood went into these donuts” while refusing to cover his head. After he slapped my butt, I told his father the owner. I came in the next day and they had taken me off the schedule. The only time I was fired from a job. I never looked at a dunkin donut the same again.
When I taught myself to knit at 15, I went to my mom who was putting food on the table for 6 children and asked for money to buy merino wool. “$10! For a ball of yarn?! Brandi, you need to get yourself a job.” And at 16, I began working in a yarn shop for $7.50/hr. A few weeks later they gave me a raise to $8.15/hr. At 17, I started teaching knitting classes making $25/hr.
Knitting was my escape route.
Entrepreneurship was the bicycle I would learn to ride: carefully balancing all what it takes to be human with basic needs with no generational wealth and bursting with creative ideation. Working for myself is the hardest skill to master. If I have ever made it look easy, I am deeply sorry. It is a meticulous love practice. Sometimes I reach in and people don’t reach back. Continuing to reach in, continuing to pivot, continuing to lay the ground work is the craft.
Being a freelance designer for the last 7 years has meant joining teams of 4-15 people to help build products and marketing plans from the ground up. One sweater roll out can take up to 18 months from start to finish. The craft industry standard for pattern writing is $250-2500. I have also submitted photographs and essays to online publications for $250. Once I was paid $2000 for (1) IG post and the use of my image to promote an online course I was paid $2000 to develop and film. How work is valued across industries even within the same company is radically different. Pay can change drastically if I am labelled an influencer instead of a teacher or writer.
For years I was running a dream hobby with a decent office job. There were benefits: saving money, improving my credit score, building a community, learning the business, nourishing relationships and a reputation for myself. When I decided to pursue my design work full-time and crunched the numbers, I realized quickly the industry standards were not sustainable. I started charging a minimum rate of $5,000 per sweater design. Advocating for 50/50 royalty splits, to keep my publishing rights, and pay increases. Saying and hearing no to this, yes to that grew empowering.
And one thing became evident, self-publishing books and online courses is the most secure foundation on which to build. My most successful self-published digital book launch was Easie Beanie, a community pattern you can now download for free. It made over $10,000. I have also had a pattern barely break $200. I share the steps I took along side community to bring Easie into the world in a future essay entitled Unravel the Gatekeeper. I do none of this alone. If you don’t knit, send the instructions to a knitter you know with love and tell them I say hey, boo! :)
The most valuable resource we can have are formed in that moment someone reaches back in and grabs hold.
Knitting is the escape route.
Trusting my work is the compass.
Leaning into community is how we discover the better place.
I can stop searching and waiting for the perfect route to appear.
I can just get started.
The day is here.
Prepare the land.
And they will come.
I am absolutely delighted to announce Landscapes, a new digital co-working space founded by my friend Cody Cook-Parrott. I read Cody’s newsletter every week and continue to benefit from so many of their generous offerings: Newsletter Class, The Architecture of Book Writing, The World Needs Your Online Class and so much more. Their magnetic spirit, transparent stories about their own processes, and commitment to their attention brings me closer to myself, closer to the page, closer to the possibilities.
Landscapes: a writing group for all genres
Landscapes brings writers together for focused and consistent writing time, writing workshops with guest teachers, and cave days where we go deep.
We start Saturday, July 13 with a visioning session.
Bring your poems, your novel, your newsletters, your non fiction, your lists
The first three guest teachers are Tamara Santibañez, Nic Antoinette, and Ayana Zaire Cotton (all recorded). I am hosting a monthly meet up for BIPOC Writers! So excited to hold this special space to experiment and practice facilitating writing activations in community with you.
Brandi, I've always admired you and been inspired by you, and this just proves why. Thank you for your transparency and honesty. I've been working since I was 13, sometimes for others, sometimes for myself, and am now at an age where it's all me; nobody's hiring ex-magazine writers (not even ones who worked with the mighty Ms. Winfrey) who earned their silver hair. I don't want to be fully dependent on my spouse, either; there's the good kind of pride in making your own money, and your own way. Your integrity is a beacon, and I'm so glad you're here shining it. May we makers all enjoy success, of all kinds—financial, spiritual, emotional.
You write so beautifully and with such care. This essay was such a fascinating and important insight into how knitting got you to where you are today. I've shared it with my readers in my Tuesday post.