Josie Flores, the founder and owner of KnitChats, teaching knitting at a show.
Photo courtesy of Josie Flores
“If you’ve ever had the good fortune of being at a local yarn shop and being part of the community at the knitting table, it really is something special,” says Josie Flores, “That’s where the magic happens.”
Flores is the owner of KnitChats, an online service that offers real-time personal support to knitters. As a former yarn shop owner, (she owned Cardigan’s Knit Shop in Santa Barbara for five years) Flores has spent many happy hours experiencing the magic of the knitting table. She also remembers the conflicted feelings she had at times as the proprietor of the shop, trying to sell yarn while also trying to teach.
“If you had a knitter who was in love with a yarn and made a fabulous project sitting at that table, oh my gosh you could be guaranteed to sell ten times that yarn and that pattern. But then, in would come another customer who was just desperate for knitting help. You can’t just push them aside because you want to sell yarn,” she says. “It’s a very high touch business.”
Now, with KnitChats she’s able to entirely focus on teaching. “This is our thing,” says Flores.
A knitter with a question about their project can reach out anytime, day or night, via the chat box on the KnitChats homepage and they’ll get a quick answer from a live, and highly trained, knitting teacher.
“What I’m trying to do here is create a virtual knitting table,” says Flores.
Origins
KnitChats is an outgrowth of ExpertChat, a tech startup that launched in beta back in 2017. The concept was to create an online portal where people could ask experts for help on diverse topics including plumbing, auto mechanics, crafts, and home repair. Knitting was the first topic to launch and Flores was recruited early on to be one of the experts. When the founder decided to go in a different direction, she decided to buy ExpertChat in order to keep the group of knitting instructors together. In January 2018, she rebranded and relaunched the business as KnitChats.
Now in its third year, KnitChats employs a team of five teachers whom Flores pays for their work. “We’re a small, but mighty team,” she says. Three of the five instructors have certifications through the Craft Yarn Council and some are working on their master’s certificates through the Knitting Guild Association. There’s at least one teacher in each time zone in the US.
Support at every step
“We want to help the knitter be successful in every part of their journey,” explains Flores. “There’s this proliferation of online classes and in-person classes, but what happens afterward? Where do you go to find that support? That’s why we’re here. For all that in-between, that whole mini-journey,” she explains.
Searching online for specific questions can often lead to frustration, especially when you’re new to a craft and don’t know exactly what to ask for. “You’re not really getting an answer to your question at that moment as it pertains to your pattern,” Flores says.
Community
As time has gone by, Flores has been surprised, and pleased, to find that KnitChats has developed into more than just a customer support service: it’s become a community. Although some people just ask a one-off question, she’s finding that many more stick around for the entirety of their project, and then stay for the next one.
The KnitChats team asks its customers to move from email to Slack, an interface that Flores finds very conducive to providing both customer support and for creating a sense of community belonging. Slack allows the team to post photos, send direct messages, offer video and phone calls, and create a helpline channel. “It’s a fabulous communication tool,” Flores says.
“We’ve gotten every question under the sun,” she says.
Many times the team of teachers will consult one another in order to come up with the best answer, bringing the power of their collective knowledge to help their customers.
Josie Flores, knitting.
Photo courtesy of Josie Flores.
Next steps
The pandemic has spurred a surge in interest in knitting, and KnitChats has seen a corollary surge in membership; there are now nearly 1,000 members in the Slack group. Besides a few event sponsorships over the years, the growth has been entirely organic. The company is slowly adding paid content and there are plans to eventually move to a subscription model, although Flores is committed to keeping the basic service free. The first 15 minutes of knitting help is complimentary. A 30-minute and 60-minute one-on-one session with an expert knitting teacher via Zoom or on Slack is available for a fee, and a menu of other paid services will be rolling out over the next few years.
Right now, KnitChats serves knitters and is expanding into crochet because, as Flores points out, “Lots of people are cross-crafting so we found that knitters are interested in learning to crochet, and crocheters are interested in learning to knit, and they all find a place in KnitChats.”
She also sees other future possibilities for the KnitChats model. “I think it could work really well for sewing and quilting. I mean, wouldn’t it be great to have a place where quilters could go to just ask that question, or get advice on something, without having to search the internet for it?”
Flores at a show. Besides a few sponsorships, all of KnitChat’s growth has been organic.
Photo courtesy of Josie Flores.
To the trade
The most exciting expansion of the business model right now is partnering with various yarn companies to offer pattern support to their customers. “This team of teachers I have, they’re amazing! We’re daily practitioners of knitting. This is my biggest asset,” says Flores. “So I thought, well, how can we take that and help the trade?” Every week KnitChats fields questions from customers about patterns from various yarn companies and Flores figured if she’s getting those questions, the yarn companies must be getting them, too. “So who is helping them with that support?” Flores realized that yarn companies may want to outsource that aspect of customer support, and KnitChats could be their provider. She’s already got two companies onboard and is reaching out to more.
Staying observant
“We’re very much a work in progress,” Flores says. “All we know is that people very much need this. We’re testing things out and trying to be very observant of what our membership is looking for and just getting to know them. That way we can provide something of value.”
Visit KnitChats at KnitChats.com
Hi Josie,
It’s Janet here, from SB. How are you? I have a knitting question and have just subscribed to your group. How will I get it answered? Thanks so much.
Hi: I am looking for help with my knitting project. I am finishing a knitted blanket and am noticing that my ending b order looks very different from the top border. I have rechecked the pattern and still am getting a border that is different. Any idea to what I might be doing wrong? Thanks
Please reach out to KnitChats directly for support.
Hello,all ,my name is Cindy I want to join for the group of knitting ,can your guy accept me ,thank you so much
Please visit the KnitChats website.
How many stitches would i cast on for an adult using 5.5mm needles and number 5 bulky yarn? Thanks
Please visit the KnitChats site directly to ask a knitting question.
Dear Madams,
Sorry to disturb You. I don’t know if it’s the right place where to ask You such a question.
I add a photo.
I picked up stitches sideways, taking them all without skipping one ( I tried it also but my work puckered).
So I worked one row and I reduced the number of stitches in the following row.
The result is always the same, got with many other methods, as You can see in my image.
What should I do?
May it depend by the fact I added a sewing yarn in order to make my work stronger?
Thank You for Your kind attention
Looking forward to reading from You
Best regards
Giada Altobelli
You’ll need to contact Knitchats for knitting help.
Hi everyone
Do you know what substitute wool I can use for cascade ecological wool
I have pattern but can’t find Woolf
Length 175m
100g ball
Weight 250g
Chunky
Thank you
Hi Helen, Please reach out to KnitChats directly. We aren’t affiliated with them and can’t help you with this question.
Hi, I’m knitting a easter egg – it says row 1 kfb in first 4 stitches, next row purl. ok, next row (k1, kfb) 4 times, k1
9 stitches. purl next row ( (k2, kfb) 4 times, k1 Could u spell it out for me? I am confused on the coma and parenthesis’s in the row.
Hi Cindy, If you need knitting help, you could reach out to KnitChats directly. We’re not able to help you here.
Has anyone started the process of add the sewing/quilting version of this? I’d love to follow that conversation, or start it!
Not that I know of. The Big 4 pattern companies used to have hotlines you could call into for help, but I can’t think of anything like this that exists now in sewing or quilting.
I am a 13 year old female learning to knit i get confused with the knot and i have the needles and the right yarn i got for christmas and i want to make blue socks for my little brother pink hat for sister pink scarve for my mom and black and grey hat and i hsve no clue how to do this but im very interested in doing it
Please contact KnitChats directly. We can’t answer your knitting questions here.
How do I contact KnitChats directly? I don’t see a link for them here. Is there a separate email or site?
Yes, please Google KnitChats.