So yesterday’s post about the tool cards totally broke containment on instagram, so we’ve got lots of new folks here (welcome!) with questions about how to get the tool cards (and other goodies). Plus I suspect there are at least a handful of folks who were already here who might have some secret questions, so it seemed like a good time to do a quick rundown!

Quickest possible answer right up top: the tool cards are for mail club members, sign up for the Notable Nonsense tier if you want them to show up in your mail box!

Read on for more details about how that works…

Short version for anyone in a hurry:

• I have three paid tiers on patreon: Utter Nonsense ($5, for folks who like what I do and want to support it), Rampant Nonsense ($15, for folks who want pattern downloads), and Notable Nonsense ($25, for folks who want pattern downloads and cool stuff in the actual mail). There’s also a free tier for anyone who wants to keep up with what’s going on (and we do Community Supported Memeberships for folks who don’t have room for treats in the budget right now).
• The Notable Nonsense tier is the only sure way to get the cute stuff! It’s simply not feasible for me to have small items like this available individually. I can do it as a mail club, but that’s it. I may occasionally do something like a box with several of the mail club treats all together in one package. But if that happens, it will be both significantly more expensive than a month of the club and available for a very limited time and in very limited quantities (because it depends on having extras from whatever I get made for the club).
• Join the Notable Nonsense tier before each month’s cutoff to get that month’s package. The exact dates shift around every month (because we’re making cool stuff, and sometimes the timelines on that are unpredictable), but I’ll always post about what’s in each month’s package and will let you know when we’re about to close the tier. If you’re looking for the tool cards, you’ve got about three weeks before June closes.
• You can change or cancel your membership at any point, and any patterns you get while a member are yours forever, even if you later change or cancel your membership. The knitting patterns are on ravelry (they go in your ravelry library just like usual), and both the knitting and non knitting patterns are available on payhip (in case you need a ravelry alternative).

Ok, hopefully that covered like 95% of the general ‘how does this work’ questions! Slightly longer versions  below for anyone who wants more detail!

Longer version for folks with more questions:

Why Patreon? I get it, some folks don’t want to do a subscription (or they just haven’t done something on patreon before, and doing something new for the first time is extra hard). But here’s the thing…patreon, and the stability it brings to my business, is literally how and why I’m able to do this job. And the mail club specifically is the reason I have the time and capacity to create cool things like these tool cards.

And oh, oh I am having so much fun, both with patterns (like the awesome new slippers) and with creating products for the club (like the gauge cards and the scissors and the notebook paper punchcards). And this platform is what makes that possible, so that’s what I’m doing.

Now, I have done what I can to make hanging out with us here as low stakes as possible! You can join at whatever level works for you, you can change or cancel your membership whenever you want (so if you want patterns one month and stuff in the mail a different month, and nothing at all a different month, you can do that), and any patterns you get while you’re a member are yours forever (they don’t disappear if you stop being a member). There’s a free tier (so you can hear about what’s happening and only join in when you can’t resist), and we do Community Supported Memberships for every mailing (so we make sure to send some packages out to folks who don’t have treats in the budget right now). Hopefully that takes away some of the concerns that come with a membership/subscription situation (you’re not locked in to anything, nothing goes away if you leave, and there are a wide range of price points including a free option).

And just in case you’re maybe a little nervous about joining something like this (because you don’t know me well enough for it to feel safe yet), you can check out all the posts I’ve done about the club (and see all the previous packages going out) right over here.

Why not sell things individually? Again, I get it. I know for sure there are people out there who want to be able to just buy one of the monthly packages all by itself! But here’s the thing, the logistics of that are just absolutely not sustainable for me.

I did something like that (back when I sold individual copies of my print books), and it burned me out in ways I’m still recovering from (and that was in a younger body and a less precarious world). It feels crass to say it so bluntly, but it’s simply not worth the time and behind the scenes work to have individual items at this price point available all the time. That work is manageable when I can spend a day or two once a month packing and shipping several hundred orders all at once. But it’s absolutely not manageable for three random orders on a Tuesday.

Any other options? I may (emphasis on may, this is not a promise) occasionally (like once or twice a year) decide to put several mail club shipments all together into a larger set and offer a limited number of those for a short period of time. But that’s always going to be a much higher price point item (because it will be several kits’ worth of things all sold together and so will cost several times what each month costs), and it’s always going to be available for a limited period of time (so I can send them all at once) and in small numbers (because it’s going to depend on having the extras from the clubs). So you absolutely do not want to count on that, because it may well not happen.

Anything else? If you made it this far I’m impressed!

Hopefully this helps explain how useful patreon has been (again, I’m one, single human person with rampant spicy brain trying to do all the daydreamy bits of a creative business and all the logistics bits of a product development business and all the practical bits required by any business…and that doesn’t work without a platform like this to handle the details) and why I’m structuring things the way I am. And hopefully it makes it a little more comfortable for new folks to join us here if that’s what feels good to them.

If you’ve got questions, you can leave them over here and I’ll try to help! Riiiiiight after I go play a little more with one of the next round of goodies I’m cooking up…