Apr 8, 2015
This Week’s Episode
In this episode, I shared an interview with Amy Ramnarine from The Stitchin’ Mommy. Amy is a crochet designer and DIY blogger, and a fellow New Yorker. We met up at Martha’s Country Bakery in Forest Hills, Queens back in March. (By the way, Amy recommends the Strawberry Shortcake which is made with real strawberries.) I wanted to talk with her about her plans for maternity leave. We also chatted about collaborations that expand your business, blog monetization, customer service, and more.
About Amy Ramnarine
Amy is a full-time crochet and DIY blogger. Her background is in finance, but she worked as a pre-school teacher before her first daughter was born. As a stay-at-home mom, she launched The Stitchin’ Mommy as a maker. She later became a designer and expanded her blog beyond crochet to include additional DIY topics and tutorials.
You can find Amy online at the The Stitchin’ Mommy, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Ravelry, and Twitter.
About the Interview
I invited Amy on the show to talk about how she’s planning for maternity leave. While you may not be planning a pregnancy in the near future, Amy shared a lot of information that can help any yarn-related business owner who anticipates a break from the business.
- Plan ahead. Amy started planning her leave about 4 months before she was planned to take off time. During the planning period, she increased her workload to meet her goals for her absence.
- Create a content calendar. Amy created a calendar for about 3 months of blog posts with her typical release frequency to include the types of content that she has seen success with in the past, such as free patterns, book reviews, pattern roundups, and more.
- Connect with other small businesses. Amy reached out to her network of bloggers and designers and asked for guest posts and designer spotlights to supplement her own original content.
- Find and train support. Although Amy hasn’t used a virtual assistant before, she started to train one who can maintain some of the social media accounts of her business while she is on maternity leave.
We also talked about collaboration. Amy’s inspiration has been Chef Carla Hall, who often says “There’s power in the yes.” This philosophy has helped Amy to expand her business by reaching out for opportunities and collaborations. One example is the Link she co-hosts with Rhondda from Oombawka Design. (We even teased Rhondda a bit about her fear of Skype.) Amy talked about how she grew her blog with collaborations, posting frequency, customer service, and by submitting content to free pattern directories like AllFreeCrochet. We discussed the different ways Amy monetizes her blog and the support she gets from RFE Hosting. Amy also talked about her approach to customer service.
If you enjoyed this episode
The Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show is no longer broadcasting. Episodes are available as a service to the yarn community. This episode originally aired in April, 2015. Be aware that content may be outdated.
If you'd like to chat with other yarn-related business owners, join the Creative Yarn Entrepreneurs Facebook group. Support Marie's work by buying one of her books, Make Money Teaching Crochet: Launch Your Business, Increase Your Side Income, Reach More Students (Amazon | Gumroad) or Design It, Promote It, Sell It: Online Marketing for Your Crochet and Knit Patterns (Amazon | Gumroad).