For many of us who like to crochet, it’s pretty much a dream come true to be able to crochet for a living. And I spent years trying to figure out how I can make this a reality for myself. And not just a reality, but a sustainable, energizing, and rewarding reality. I will be completely honest with you, it does take a ton of hard work and lots of consistency. But there is sort of this secret when it comes to making money with crochet that I don’t often see a lot of people talking about. And it’s that you do not need a giant following or massive audience in order to make a legitimate income with your hobby.

If you know what you’re doing and you take the time to think strategically about everything that you share, you can earn money with crochet in a variety of different ways. I truly believe that there is room for everybody in this community, and seeing the way that it has grown in the past year alone is proof of that. And that’s exactly why I want to share everything that I’ve learned about earning an income from crochet with you. There are so many different ways that you can choose to structure your business. So today we’re going to be talking about a variety of the different income streams that you can set up for yourself. And you know I’m serious because I have a button down shirt on. So we’re getting very businessy over here.

This article is going to be jam packed with information that I wish I had when I was starting my crochet business. So make sure you have your notepad ready to go so you can keep track of all the information I’m going to be sharing with you today. My goal with today’s article is just to provide you as much information as possible to set you in your crochet business up for success in the long run. So we’re going to be focusing on the most popular income streams that you can set up as a crochet artist. And I will be giving you advice on each one of those, thanks to years of my own trial and error. And of course, I’m going to make sure to share which ones are my favorite and which ones I find to be the most reliable.


So we have a lot to cover today, so we’re going to jump right into it. The most natural first step to making money with crochet is selling physical products. Right? I think this is the place where most of us got our start. And honestly, it makes a ton of sense. It’s relatively simple to get started. Which is why I wanted to cover it first. Selling your items at craft fairs and markets can be such a great way to make money. Although I have to admit it’s never something that I have personally done because of my social anxiety. Instead, I’ve always sold physical products online, which is another option. But if you’re someone who enjoys crocheting a ton of physical products and loves chatting with your customers in person, this can be the perfect place to start.

So of course I would recommend looking into the local craft festivals, markets or conventions in your area and maybe even visiting them in person beforehand to see how much traffic they get. However, my personal favorite way to sell finished products is online, and that’s where a great website comes in. Setting up a website was the very first thing that I did when I started Hooks and Healers and having that one stop shop that my audience can go to is one of the best things that I ever did for my business. Hostinger is partnering with me on today’s article and they’re also your go to solution for creating an online presence for your business. Hostinger is the easiest way to get your website online, allowing you to get website hosting a free domain and build your website in just a few clicks.

And perhaps the best part, Hostinger’s AI Website Builder is the easiest way for beginners to start a website from just a prompt. With Hostinger’s simple e commerce interface, you can sell physical and digital products, manage orders and shipping options, add taxes, discounts, and even offer gift cards all in one place. And perhaps most importantly, Hostinger charges no transaction fees on products. Unlike many of the other platforms that take a cut from every sale, every penny that you earn with Hostinger is yours. So now I want to show you how quick and easy it is to create a website with Hostinger’s AI Website Builder. So to start, you’ll simply select your plan.

I recommend the business plan because it offers e commerce features to help you sell your products, accept over 100 payment methods, it offers print on demand for yet another income stream, and so much more. You can choose between 12, 24 or 48 month plans, but if you’re serious about monetizing your hobby, you have to be in it for the long haul. Which is why I recommend the 48 month plan. Plus, with that plan you get three months free, a lower monthly price, and you lock in the best rate for the longest period since rates increase upon renewal. Now, once you have your plan selected, all you have to do is enter your brand name and some basic information. And then comes the fun part.

You can completely customize your website with Hostinger’s AI Website Builder to get the exact look and experience you’re hoping for. Here’s a look at the website I created in a matter of minutes. It really does not get any easier than this. When you’re ready to create your own website, you can click the link in my description box below or head to hostinger.com annie and use the code Annie at checkout to save an additional 10 off your order. Thank you so much again to Hostinger for partnering with me on this article. So now that we’ve talked a bit about the easiest income stream for you to set up as a crocheter, I want to move on to something that is very near and dear to my heart. The second income stream we’re going to be talking about today is pattern design.

Now I have an entire article going into all sorts of details about designing crochet patterns, how to do it, where to start, and all of that sort of jazz. But if it’s something that you’re interested in, it is such a great way to make money as a crocheter. Most of the work when it comes to designing a pattern is the upfront designing, editing and writing process. And after that point, pretty much everything is passive income, aside from responding to emails every now and then and that sort of thing. If you have a creative brain and lots of ideas, I think this can be such a great way to jump start your crochet career and really explore your interest and your design style. Now, designing patterns might sound like a piece of cake, right?

You have an idea, you put it on paper, you have a few testers, and that’s that. But I actually think there’s a bit more that goes into it than that. And when it comes to designing, I like to hold my patterns to the standard of the Craft Yarn Council. I can link their website below, but they have standards for how things should be written and all sorts of stuff like that. But knowing how to write a crochet pattern effectively and well is its own skill, which is why I consult a tech editor on my patterns. I and to be honest with you, I think that having a tech editor is one of the most important parts about being a pattern designer, and I think it’s also one of the most overlooked parts of designing patterns.

Something I’ve observed a lot over the past few years is that a lot of times designers do seem to put much more pressure on their pattern testers to do the job of the Editor, when in reality an editor is the one that’s supposed to be making the actual edits to the pattern. And the testers are just supposed to be making the pattern and providing you with any notes they have about the clarity. This is the best example that I can think to provide you with. But sometimes with movies, they will show two different versions of the same film to different audiences to see how they react with slight changes. There’s a word for this, but I can’t think of it and is essentially a test audience.

The goal is simply to see how the audience responds to that media and see what they can do to improve it. But think about it this way. You wouldn’t take that audience of people and then have them start editing the film or adding sound to the film. That is an entire profession in and of itself, which is where a tech editor comes in. And I think this is something that is so important, not enough people talk about. But a tech editor is absolutely essential in my opinion. And at the end of the day, it is not a pattern tester’s job to edit your pattern. It is a pattern tester’s job to simply see how the pattern flows. If they find it clear and easy to read, that is it.

The editor is the one that should be making improvements for clarity, checking all the numerics and all of the formatting and all of that sort of stuff. And so before I ramble too much, I think that’s why a tech editor or pattern editor is so vital to your business as a crochet pattern designer. I personally work with an amazing woman named Cherie. She’s the owner of Sweet Bird Crochet, and I couldn’t do any of my designs without her. And I think the reviews on my shop really just go to show my patterns are clear, they’re easy to read, and it’s all thanks to her. Honestly, I couldn’t do it without her. But once you get into the practice of designing patterns, it really does start to feel like a muscle that you’re exercising.

It becomes easier and easier over time and you can get inspiration and quickly create a pattern. And it really is just so amazing. And it is such an awesome income opportunity that can you. You can have. It is relatively passive and such a great thing that you can add to your website. Our third income stream that I want to talk about is YouTube. And I might be a little biased, but YouTube is my personal favorite income stream that I have. I love the community on YouTube and it really just allows me to be so creative and have so much fun. As much as I love pattern designing, there’s just something about YouTube. It completely has my heart. I think it’s the best platform out there.

But there are a variety of different ways that you can make money with YouTube and I think they’ve actually made it easier in recent years for you to be able to eligible for their creator program. But I do think it’s something that seems very daunting to people who haven’t tried YouTube yet. Like for me, I thought it was going to take months and months in order to be eligible for monetization. But it only took me about a month and a half until I started receiving paychecks from YouTube. So as long as you’re uploading regularly and whatever regular looks like for you can really grow on YouTube pretty quickly. Now everyone’s different. I personally recommend uploading once a week and then I also just include all of my short form articles on YouTube as well.

But you might already know this, I my articles on Mondays and it is staying that way. And once a week is the perfect amount for me. I find it to be sustainable but also frequent enough at the same time. Now to be eligible for the monetization program on YouTube, you need a thousand followers, which really is not too bad. And then you also need 4,000 watch hours, which I remember that was the part that scared me quite a bit when I started YouTube and I actually hit 1,000 followers way before I hit those 4,000 watch hours. But if you’re uploading articles that are over 10 minutes long, you can really hit it pretty quickly.

And I remember towards the end of that month or so there, I was getting kind of antsy, so I uploaded a couple articles a week and that really was enough to tip me over into the monetization program. And I will never forget when I got my first AdSense check. It was so exciting and it really just felt like such a turning point. After so much trial and error and working so hard, I finally felt like I was starting to make money with crochet. And I won’t go into specifics here, but ever since my first paycheck with YouTube, my income has been so consistent. That’s one thing I was really worried about.

You hear people talk a lot about how income is really not consistent, but if you’re uploading regularly and you have a good audience and you engage with them, your income on YouTube can be very predictable. So I think that’s something not enough people talk about. So we’ve covered AdSense on YouTube. But obviously there is a whole other way to make money on YouTube, which are sponsorships, and those typically come a little bit later. You definitely will have a monetized channel by the time you’re doing sponsorship. And usually in the beginning, brands will reach out to you in exchange for gifts and things like that in order for you to talk about the product. But as time goes on, you definitely can earn money from having integrations in your articles. That’s a whole other topic that we could get into some other time.

But my first sponsored article ever on YouTube was with a brand called Ana Luisa. And they make beautiful jewelry that I’ve been wearing for years and years. So when they reached out to me, it just felt like such a cool moment. And I think that’s Another thing about YouTube that’s really cool is the amount of opportunity there is to work with so many of your favorite brands. And when it comes to finding sponsorships, I would say that 90% of the time before I had a management team, they would come to me via email and then we would negotiate. However, there were some times when I would reach out to a brand and just say, hey, I really love your product. I would love to promote it on my channel.

And that’s definitely something that you can do as well if you are a newer channel. If you do have a channel with a smaller following, a lot of brands would still love to work with you. And it’s always worth just reaching out to a brand if that’s something that you’d be interested in. But just within the past few months or so, I have started working with an amazing management team, and they have taken so much of that off of my plate. And something I’m very bad at is advocating for myself, negotiating and all of that. So they do a lot of that when it comes to my brand deals. And I’m so grateful for them. They are the most amazing team and I could not do any of this without them. Truly.

I honestly don’t know how I was operating before I had them helping me out. So I’m just so grateful for them. And if you are curious, my management team is Maker Watch. There are several other crocheters that I know of that use them as their management as well. So it’s really nice because they know a lot about crochet and they know the kind of sponsors that I do and don’t want to work with because I do pride myself in taking only the best sponsors that I genuinely love and enjoy. So they really help make a lot of that happen. Now, those are just some of the basics of YouTube. If you have any more questions, this could be an entire article. I feel like each of these income streams could be its own article.

But feel free to leave any questions you have in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer all of you. Now we’re going to go ahead and move on to our next income stream, which is affiliate links. Now, when I first started, I thought affiliate links were going to make me way more money than they actually did. Affiliate links, I’d say, make up only about 5% of my income here as a content creator now. And I thought it would be a lot more than that. So they’re really not a huge thing, but they’re kind of nice to have because they do offer you a bit of extra income. They still can be enough to pay for your groceries, pay for the gas in your car. So I definitely recommend setting up affiliate links once you’re able to.

And the two platforms that I really love to use are Amazon Storefront and Magic Links. Those are the main two that I use. Unless I’m working with a brand who also has an affiliate link for me to share with you guys, then I will use their affiliate links as well. Like an example of that would be I have an affiliate link with Premier Yarn. So every time I share them, I can share that affiliate link. It gets kind of confusing. But the main thing is that you can have individual platforms where you can create affiliate links. So the most popular one is Amazon Storefront. And you can create a little storefront there of all your favorite products. And you can link things and you make a small commission off of purchases.

Something really interesting that I did not know until recently is when I was looking through my analytics on Amazon Storefront, I saw random things that I was earning commission for, like diapers or books and stuff like that I don’t share links to. And so I learned that anytime someone clicks on your link and then buy something on Amazon within 24 hours, you earn a small commission off of it. So that’s kind of cool. I think it’s easier to qualify for Amazon Storefront. But the one that I recommend a little bit more is Magic Links. And Magic Links is so handy because it’s basically a website where you can find a link to a product that you really enjoy and then you just paste it into their site and it creates an affiliate link.

So you can use a variety of different brands in Magic Links. Like, for example, Etsy is a brand that you can use in Magic Links. So, for example, if I see a pattern I like on Etsy, I can copy and paste it into Magic Links and it creates an affiliate link for me. I believe some of the other brands are Michaels. I think they also have one that works with Magic Links. But it’s really handy because when I do share a Pattern Roundup article, a lot of those patterns come from Etsy. And so if I share a link to a pattern, I can create a commission link for myself and earn just a little bit extra, which, when you think about it, is something a lot of people do when you’re sharing all types of different products.

And so you can do the same thing when you share patterns from other people on Etsy. And honestly, at first I was very confused at how this worked. I was wondering, does this take money away from the designer? How do you earn a commission off of this product? It’s kind of complicated and hard to explain, but I did learn that the designer doesn’t lose any money if you create an affiliate link for that product. So it is just a nice way for you to be able to earn some extra income if you are sharing Pattern Roundup articles. So that’s something I definitely recommend. And it doesn’t even have to be patterns. It can be any sort of product that you really enjoy and want to share with your audience.

You, you can create an affiliate link for that with something like Magic Links or Amazon. Storefront number five is my second favorite behind YouTube and it is Patreon. Patreon is such a special platform. It is such a wonderful space to be able to connect with people and engage with your audience and create a community. I cannot say enough good things about it. The company Patreon is also just so good about updating things and setting up new features for your audience and you to engage with. And so for that reason, I think Patreon can be great for a lot of people. Specifically if you design patterns, if you sell a lot of plushies, and if you already have a bit of an audience.

I do think that in order to have Patreon, I would recommend that you have a following on at least one platform of a few thousand at the very least, whether that’s TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. But I do think that having a YouTube channel really will help your Patreon community to grow and be the size that you would like it to be. The lighting is starting to get a bit weird in here, so I apologize. But anyways, back to Patreon. So my recommendation is to Start Patreon after You’ve had your YouTube channel for a little bit, because I think when you have a YouTube channel, it helps people to connect with you and see who you are, what your personality is like, and just get to know you a little bit more.

And that’s what makes them want to be a part of your community and move over to somewhere like Patreon. And also it works as a really nice kind of hand in hand tool. When you have YouTube, it’s easier for you to promote the Patreon and remind people to go check it out and. And that sort of thing, which I think makes it more worth it in the long run. Because I know for me, I put a ton of work into my Patreon. Every month on my Patreon, you get a PDF pattern, which is usually $5. So that alone pays for your membership. But then on top of that, you also get a little behind the scenes vlog podcast with me. You get to do a tester call, you get all sorts of behind the scenes footage and pictures and the designing process.

You get to give me feedback and help me make decisions about how I should design things. And sometimes we even do multiple patterns in one month. So, for example, if I release a free pattern, the PDF will be on Patreon. So recently I did a pumpkin pattern for free on my website and I didn’t share the PDF anywhere except for Patreon, so they get that as well. And also they just know about things before everyone else. So it’s sort of like this little secret community where they know what I’m doing, like at least a week before everybody else does, if that makes sense. And there’s so many different ways that you can choose to operate your Patreon. I just think it’s such a fun way to connect with your community.

But another really great tool that they recently introduced that I have not tried yet is on Patreon. You can now do live streams directly in the app. So that was something I was talking to them about earlier today, actually. I was like, should we do a live stream? Because I feel like that’d be fun. It’s just nice to feel like I have an easier way to connect with my audience. And that’s really what I love about Patreon so much. So the last income stream I want to talk about today is TikTok slash TikTok Live. And this is the one I will admit, I probably know the least about. So I think it was within the past few months or so. I just recently became a part of the TikTok Creator Fund. And it’s still very mysterious to me.

I haven’t had a TikTok for that long. I believe you have to have 10,000 followers to be a part of their monetization program. And there’s a few other things. One thing that’s kind of weird about TikTok is you have to upload articles that are a minute or longer in order for them to be eligible for monetization. So that’s something that’s kind of foreign to me because when I’m making short form content, usually it is much shorter than that. But with that being said, I was still curious to test out their monetization. And I happened to be crocheting a giant pigeon. So I was making sure that those articles were each a minute long whenever we made the giant pigeon. And I was uploading them onto TikTok. And I think throughout the entire series we got over several million views. It was pretty crazy.

And I still am getting views on those articles daily on TikTok. And it’s wild. And I want to say I have only earned like 3 or $400, which is crazy low compared to somewhere like YouTube. That would be thousands and thousands of dollars, if not in the tens of thousands of dollars, that many views. So who knows? That’s the only money I’ve made from TikTok. But I will say that it was much lower than I thought it would have been for how well those articles did. If those articles were on YouTube, they would have made a lot more money. But I will say if you upload a short on YouTube, those don’t really make very much money at all either. It’s really the long form articles on YouTube that do well and make you money.

I don’t really love talking about specific income numbers because I feel like it could be, I don’t know, it just makes me nervous. Feels kind of weird. But my most viewed article on my channel is the Hexagon Cardigan Tutorial. And I guess I’ll put it this way, but that article per month makes me more than the TikTok thing did where I worked so hard. I worked tirelessly on this series and I made a couple hundred dollars just having that one article. Creating evergreen content like that article and having it on channel that alone will earn you more than the short form content that I shared on TikTok, at least in my experience. So those were the main income streams I wanted to share with you. I think it was six of them. But now that I’m thinking about it.

There is another one and it is Facebook. And I feel like not a lot of people talk about Facebook, but I believe it’s one of the best platforms right now for short form content. In terms of monetization. You can earn quite a bit of money with it. And the nice thing about it is if you have Instagram and you share something over there, you can just automatically have it share an to Facebook and it makes it super easy. And I didn’t even realize I was a part of the monetization program on Facebook until I saw, I was like, oh wow, like I just made a couple hundred dollars or whatever it is. So that’s another really nice little income stream that you can have as well.

And if you’re already making content on Instagram, it doesn’t have to be a certain length that I know of on Facebook. It’s a really nice and passive additional income stream that I actually just learned about like in the past few days. So I’ll have to get back to you with more information on that. So that was a little overview of my income streams when it comes to crochet. And one thing I will say is I recommend that you have as many income streams as you can have to create the most stable income possible. Because when you work for yourself and you’re doing something in the creative space like content creation, design, whatever it is, it can be really hard to feel like you have a stable income. And that was something that I was really afraid of when starting this.

And so that’s why I have my eggs in many different baskets. Because you never know when one algorithm is going to change and you could end up with a paycheck that’s much less than it usually is. It’s nice to have those other kind of income streams going on so you’re always protected. And I say all of this to encourage you and let you know that it is absolutely possible. And I can’t even begin to explain how grateful I am that I have created this community. And I. I have so many just kind and wonderful and creative people that want to watch my articles. It’s sort of like a pinch me moment every time I sit down and film one of these articles. So I’m just so unbelievably grateful for that.

But now I want to go ahead and rank these since we’re kind of on a little tier ranking kick here on the channel. It’s just something that I love to do lately. So we’re going to rank these in order from my least earning to Most earning income streams. And this is probably different for every content creator out there, but I figured I would share it with you to give you a bit of a insight since I don’t have the exact percentages. So in sixth place we would have selling finished products because it’s something that I rarely do, if ever anymore. Usually what I will do is I’ll have sort of like a drop of plushies and I will let people buy them that way. But I’m just not good at making things to order because I don’t know, it doesn’t work with my brain.

I get really bored. And also I’m just trying to be a little bit more gentle on my hands these days because they have been hurting a little bit lately. So that is number six, the one I make the least amount of money from. Number five, we have TikTok because I’ve only really made a little bit on there. It’s not something I’m working too hard on at the moment, but still definitely a great income stream. Number four, we have affiliate links and still another really great option to earn some passive income. But it’s not something that I really push too heavily because I know how that can feel when you’re watching a content creator and you just are constantly seeing affiliate links and you just kind of want to be there and enjoy hanging out with them.

So it’s not something I push too heavily, it’s more like a thing I just keep in my description of my articles. And even then it still is a good income stream. But I try to just never be too pushy with things like that. So it’s not like one of my main ones. So number three, we have Patreon and I’m so happy that Patreon is in my top three because I’ve put a ton of work into my Patreon and just creating a community that people really want to be a part of. I feel like I just do so much over there and it feels nice to know that people enjoy being over there. And it is just such an amazing way to connect with people too. It just, it feels really special. So it’s something I do not take for granted.

But Patreon is number three. Number two is pattern design. So between my website pattern sales and Etsy pattern sales, it makes up the second highest income stream that I have in my pattern business, which is so amazing. But also I’m surprised it’s not number one because it feels like it’s the majority of what I do. But I’m sure you won’t be surprised to HEAR what number one is now. And it is YouTube and it is a variety of different ways that you can make money with YouTube I think is why it is the number one income stream. Obviously we have Adsense. YouTube now has its own sort of affiliate marketing that you can do in your articles, though I haven’t really used that. And obviously sponsors.

Sponsors are so amazing and getting to work with such awesome brands is one of the reasons why I love doing what I do. Because I have so many brands that I just love and getting to work with them is like a pinch me moment. So that’s just a little breakdown of how it works for me and my business. But I share all of this to show you that it is so possible. It is possible for you to earn money doing what you love. And it is something that I never had told to me. It’s something I had to figure out on my own and I didn’t really believe. I didn’t believe in myself. And so I just want to be able to be that person for you, to remind you that you absolutely can do it no matter what anybody thinks.

I’ll never forget a few years ago I was watching one of my favorite youtubers and I heard how much money she made from her AdSense and still had a relatively small following and I thought, wow, that could pay my rent. Like I thought that was the craziest thing ever. And again, it just goes to show thesis of this article. Article you do not need a giant platform to make money and do what you love on the Internet. I think that is so important to remember and I want to be here to support you every step of the way. So if you have any questions, feel free to leave them below. I actually love talking about this, but I feel like it’s kind of taboo so I never know whether I can share or not.

But I’m happy to answer all your questions and do what I can to help you because it has been one of the greatest joys in my life. I’m so passionate about what I get to do and I. I don’t take it for granted at all and I would love to help other people be able to do the same thing. So thank you so much for watching. I hope you were able to learn a little bit from this article. And again, don’t forget to check out hostinger at the link in my description. If you’re ready to set up a website, they are your go to. They’re seriously amazing. I can’t recommend them enough so I hope you found this article helpful and informative. And until next time, happy crocheting. Bye.