Thank You.

Dear Patrons of Wool n’ Spinning,

This morning I woke up at my usual time to head to the gym. I rolled out of bed and made my way into the bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed. It was a bit of haze because I stayed up a bit later than I normally would, reading a good book. As I made my way downstairs, I turned on my phone to light my way and saw the screen come to life with (what felt like) a zillion notifications.

There it was. We’d reached our latest milestone. I stood on the stairs for a moment, completely blown away by your generosity and commitment to making Wool n’ Spinning sustainable and ever better. I am so humbled.

This morning, I want to take a moment to say, from the bottom of my toes (because the bottom of my heart isn’t deep enough): Thank You. 

Thank you for believing in the need to value our makers and the work they do.

Thank you for taking a moment to check out the Patreon page and determine whether it’s the right thing for you. It’s not for everyone and that’s okay! I appreciate that you just checked it out and learned about the opportunity, regardless of whether you pledge or not.

Thank you especially for choosing to support the work I do here at Wool n’ Spinning.

Thank you for giving me the chance to continue to make more content, to talk about what I love to share and ramble on about, and to continue to grow the show.

Thank you for tagging me on Instagram, and sharing in the Ravelry group, all of your projects that were inspired by the show – particularly those who use the How I Spin content for inspiration and learning.

And lastly, thank you for showing up. For making the time to come to the live streams, even if they aren’t at the best time for you and you sneak off for a late (or early) lunch break to watch. Or for setting your alarm at 3am to get up in your PJs to watch because you’re on the other side of the world. It means the world to me.

Thank you.

We’ve done a lot over the past year.

I upgraded most of my equipment behind the scenes. This isn’t something we work towards on Patreon. These upgrades happen as we grow. In particular, we upgraded lighting, cameras, microphone, computers (more ram! more ram!), internet speeds, software (free versus paid-for software) and spinning wheels.

I added the How I Spin content, shifting from Workshops. Katrina took over Fibre Club and began offering luxury options. We grew Slack … oooh, how we grew Slack. Ya’ll are chatterboxes! The support and help you offer one another in there is truly incredible! We added Co-Executive Producers to the show, and I started Wool n’ Spinning Radio, which has continued to grow and evolve. Lastly, we started Live Streaming. I think this was the biggest change that occurred in 2017. While I was deathly afraid of live streaming and dreaded having to do that first episode, I can’t imagine not doing it now. It was so much fun, I learned sooo much and now, I look forward to them each month!

On a more personal note, I wanted to say that I never thought this community would grow to the extent that it has. When I first turned on the camera to record those first episodes that I put up on Vimeo (they are now on YouTube), I never thought we would end up here one day. I remember thinking, I hope one or two people watch. Over the past few years, I’ve taken some good, hard and sometimes painful looks at what I want to create. Creating has taken on a new meaning for me. No longer is creating just about making yarn, knitting and occassionally sewing or weaving. It’s also about making the content here, creating the weekly show and learning how to run a small-scale business. It fulfills me in a way I never thought possible and when I feel rundown or tired, I remember my why. My why is You. Your excitement and enthusiasm for a very niche (cult?) craft that would die otherwise. Your honest need to learn and grow – and share that with others. And for the disasters that we all experience and wish we could do over but need a place to say, “What happened?!”

So, thank you.

The next Live Stream for Patrons of the show will be January 23rd at 12:30pm PST. I hope you can join us! It’s always a good time!

As always, happiest spinning!

Warmly,

Rachel