Perhaps you started making yarn craft projects because you wanted to have something to sell online. Or maybe you’ve gotten so many complements on things you’ve been making for fun that it only seems natural to open up an online shop with your creations. Whether knitting, crocheting, or both, there are plenty of places you can go online to sell your finished projects.
Opening up an online store is a great way to build a digital community around your hobby, too. You might start out by sitting down one day to make a lacy crochet shawl for your shop. Before you know it, you’ll have spent a whole afternoon chatting with other crocheters online, swapping patterns and techniques.
Etsy
It’s easy to open up an Etsy shop and display your items for sale. One of the perks of selling on Etsy is that you can set up the terms of what you make and how long it takes to process an order. You can sell goods to be made on commission so you don’t have to have a stockpile of finished items before opening up to the public.
EBay
EBay is a great place to sell finished products while doing research to see what other items are out there. Since sales are made by a bidding process, you can gauge the interest in your finished yarn crafts as you go along. You’ll probably have to make changes to what you make, styles, colours, as you get more experienced at selling things online. EBay is a wonderful for learning the tricks of the trade while earning a nice little income, too.
While technically not a marketplace, Pinterest is still a great place to share patterns, projects, and inspiration with other knitting and crochet enthusiasts. In order to make your creations stand out from the countless other items out on the web, you need to commit to taking high quality and eye-catching product photos that you can then post on Pinterest. From there, you can link to your online shop so people know where to go to actually purchase your goods.
Creating and Sharing Your Own Patterns
If you’ve gotten a handle on how to make the items you love and know how and where you can sell your creations online, then it could be time to branch out into pattern design. Take crochet patterns, for instance. It’s an exciting step to move from following other people’s designs to making up your own. You can even include PDFs of your own patterns and designs in your online shop.
To make your own crochet pattern, you can work free-form until you find components of a pattern that you’d like to put together. You could pick and choose some of your favorite stitches from other projects and put them together to make something that’s uniquely you.
On the technical side of things, you’ll need to know how to count stitches and rows in ongoing crochet projects as well as finished items. You’ll need to learn how gauge works and get used to writing down what you’re doing as you’re doing it. You don’t have to start out with patterns that require stitching different pieces of fabric together. Start out simple and enjoy yourself and before you know it you’ll have worked your way up to designing complex patterns of your own creation.