My Story

My life hasn’t unfolded in a straight line. It’s moved in seasons.

Some seasons were creative.
Some were painful.
Some forced me to rethink everything I thought was stable.

Knitting and building income didn’t come from ambition. They came from learning how to keep going when life shifted.

Season One: Sharing What I Loved

Fourteen years ago, I started uploading knitting videos to YouTube.

There was no grand plan. I wasn’t building a brand. I was sharing something I already loved doing. Over time, people started watching. Then commenting. Then returning.

Eventually I was monetized. It felt surprising and steady at the same time. I had found a rhythm — create, share, repeat.

Later, I learned how to livestream on Twitch. That season became about community. I showed up daily. We knit together. We talked. It grew into something meaningful and even financially supportive.

It wasn’t flashy. It was consistent.

Season Two: Holding Things Together

Then came cancer.

Knitting became something different during that time. It wasn’t content. It wasn’t income. It was stability.

It gave me quiet time to think. To process. To make sense of what was happening. It felt like knitting myself together — stitch by stitch — when everything else felt uncertain.

The community stayed with me. I encouraged others to get checked, to pay attention to their health. Knitting kept me grounded. It kept me safe.

Season Three: Realizing Nothing Is Guaranteed

Years after I began uploading knitting videos, YouTube started placing small ads on my videos. That meant I earned a little income whenever people watched. The ads weren’t long, and viewers could skip them. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it was steady and consistent.

For nearly ten years, that income quietly showed up month after month.

Then, after I slowed down on uploading and livestreaming, YouTube removed my channel from the ad program. I had never really thought about that happening. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just gone.

I felt disappointed. Not angry. Just surprised.

I briefly thought about turning knitting into something more structured — a course, a formal product — but every time I considered it, I pulled back. I didn’t want knitting to become something I had to package. I wanted to knit because I loved it.

At the same time, I appreciated the income. It had supported me. I wanted that stability back, but in a way that didn’t drain the joy from what I loved.

Over the past year, I’ve quietly been rebuilding. I’ve added new knitting tutorials, refined older videos, and leaned back into steady creation. The channel is growing again, and I’ll likely qualify for ad income again soon.

That experience didn’t end my knitting work. It reshaped how I think about relying on any one place.

Season Four: Mortality and Structure

When my parents passed away, another shift happened.

The people who knew me from the very beginning — from childhood, from the earliest versions of myself — were suddenly gone. My siblings know me from their perspective, but not from my beginnings.

It forced a deeper awareness of time.

Twenty-five years sounds long. But twenty-five years ago was 2001. That doesn’t feel long ago at all.

That awareness hasn’t left me. It sits underneath everything now.

Time is not endless.

And I don’t want to spend it chasing noise.

What I’m Building Now

I still knit.
I still create.
But I build differently.

Instead of relying on one platform, I layer small income streams around what I already do. Amazon Influencer. Product reviews. Publishing small books. An email list. Simple systems.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing viral.

Just structure.

Knitting taught me patience.
Business taught me boundaries.
Both taught me that steady work compounds over time.

I’m not trying to build something loud.
I’m building something calm.

Where This Connects

If you’re here because you love knitting, that part of my life lives at JennyKnits.

If you’re curious about building steady income from the skills you already have — especially in this season of life — that’s what I’m documenting here.

Life moves in seasons.

I’m choosing to make this one steady.