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 THINKNG OF MY CROCHETED REMOTE CONTROL AS MY CREATOR AWARD & FINISHING MY SUPER THANKS ART PIECE Thursday, August 20, 2026 
The blog I had ready to go today had some makes and a ton of yarn, but after some news I heard about changes with the YouTube Partner Program, I wanted to use this blog post to talk about that and reflect a little on my channel. When we (my subscribers and I) were building the YouTube channel together, the criteria to get monetized at YouTube was to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Thankfully I eventually did and my channel was monetized. But, according to YouTube, February 1, 2027 that criteria is going to change, watch hours-wise, when it gets doubled to 8,000. Because I'm already monetized, I get grandfathered in and don't have to meet that criteria (yet?), however, to STAY in the YouTube Partner Program, you have to continue to meet criteria every year or you lose monetization. I wasn't really worried about it before because according to my analytics, I got over 6,000 watch hours last year (well over the 4,000 required to stay monetized), but with the new criteria of 8,000, I likely would have lost monetization anyway, if criteria is ever changed for those grandfathered in. As I write this, it seems like, at least for now, those grandfathered in will only have to maintain 4,000 watch hours per year to stay monetized and the 8,000 only applies to new Parters, but I can't see that being the case forever. I assume, down the line, everyone will have to meet the same criteria, but I may be wrong about that. I feel bad for small creators who are still trying to make YouTube work for them - people who have the "right shoes" and what it takes to make a YouTube channel a long-term success. But, part of me is also relieved that I was already onto my writing/website network path when this change from YouTube was announced, because if it ever were to change for those grandfathered in - that they possibly had to meet the 8,000 watch hours criteria, too - I can't imagine the pressure I would have put myself under if I had to work AT LEAST 25% harder on videos over the course of a year, just to keep monetized. It wouldn't have been sustainable for me and the unknown about the future - always waiting for the inevitable day (in my head) when everyone has to get 8,000 - likely would have gotten me discouraged with YouTube. I would have left feeling defeated instead of successful, the way I feel now, settling in here on my website network, having embraced the fact that I'm just not good at talking on camera. So, I feel like the change I recently made with my YouTube channel happened at the perfect time. Truthfully, I never made THAT much money from YouTube anyway - I mean ad revenue-wise. Yes, it was WAY MORE than I ever expected to make on YouTube - I used to jokingly say I don't see myself ever being monetized and it didn't matter anyway because I'd probably only make 11 cents. At the end of it, I actually made over $400 total; it wasn't retirement money but it was a wonderful little bonus that gave me peace of mind prior to a forecasted ice storm and a ton of fun for my Mom and I when we blew my second payment. But, if you really break down that $400, the majority of it didn't come from the ads on my videos themselves; it actually came directly from subscribers through Super Thanks. Yes, it sucks that I'm likely to lose monetization not uploading long-form videos anymore (that would have happened even if YouTube hadn't implemented changes for new Parters), but the majority of the money I got wasn't because I was monetized, it was because of wonderful people I connected with actually giving me money directly. So, to me, my inevitable loss of monetization (for whatever reason it would be) isn't as big as it should probably feel, because the money from ads was always overshadowed by the incredible generosity from my amazing subscribers. That, I will always be grateful for. As fun as the whole YouTube experience was, I knew all along I would never be a huge YouTuber. The fact that I got over 1,000 subscribers - well, technically over 1,360 - exceeded any expectations I had, by far. It was never an attainable goal in my head to be the kind of YouTuber to get one of those Play Button/YouTube Creator Award plaque things. The first one a YouTube creator can get - the silver one - is given to creators for reaching 100,000 subscribers, so I knew that would never happen. But, thinking about that and reflecting on the wild ride my YouTube channel was, especially at the height of it, I looked at the RIDICULOUS crocheted remote control I made in a different way. Yes, it was just a ridiculous one-off prop thing I made when I thought I could rebrand my channel and videos into a variegated lineup style, but looking at it now, knowing I've reached the peak that my channel will reach, it's become symbolic. Looking at my remote after knowing the fate of my channel now that I'm back on my original path here on my website network, it feels like I already got my award. It's fitting that I added a play button to it because it feels like an award - not an award from YouTube but an award that we created together, representing OUR accomplishments. Yes, I crocheted it and put it together, but I never would have made it if it hadn't been for all my wonderful subscribers who supported me in all the many ways you did. So, it feels like you all made it with me, just as we made my channel the success it was. It means more to me now than any silver plaque ever would have. So, even though I only got to use it once in my Wizard of Oz lineup, it's now something that will permanently be displayed on my shelf as a creative, visual symbol for my entire YouTube experience. And always know, if you were one of my wonderful subscribers, that if that remote had two giant AA batteries in the back, one would represent me and the other would be representative of all of you - both working perfectly together to keep it all working. And thinking about the remote - how it's now a symbol for the whole YouTube experience I had - and the money I got being primarily from subscribers themselves, it made me think of the Super Thanks art piece I made. I had, since the last time I showed it in a video, made all the rest of the chains for it, to represent all the Super Thanks I got, but I hadn't shown them in a video yet - until now. Because I really don't expect to get any more Super Thanks, only putting out little weekly glimpse videos of the website network updates on my channel instead of the long-form videos I had been posting, I wanted to show the end result of the Super Thanks art piece. Below is a picture and video of it. All the new chains I put on the piece represent the remaining Super Thanks I hadn't shown and properly shouted out/thanked in a video yet. So, I wanted to say here, thank YOU RavenMad2313, jodiebelton625, jodiebelton625 (again), jodiebelton625 (yet again!), vicki3232, and jodiebelton625 (again and again!). You all are amazing, as are all the rest of you who gave me Super Thanks over the past year or so. I will forever be grateful to you for the support and I love that I have something in my ridiculous yarn room that represents that support. I appreciate you all more than you will ever know. 
I hope you enjoyed this week's blog. Next week's will have some yarn hauls and makes, so get ready for that! I'll see you in the next one! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOBBY LOBBY'S NEW PRIDE - I MEAN, "RAINBOW" - YARN? BECAUSE I'M... CONFLICTED Monday, August 17, 2026 
Ever since Hobby Lobby had their big yarn clearance this year, I've been on the lookout for the new yarns that they were going to get in to replace the ones they discontinued. Even though I scored big at this year's clearance, I was still curious what new yarns they were going to get in, even though they would be full price (you know how much I hate paying full price!). One day while walking through the store (looking for clearance yarn in the remnants, too, of course), there was a brand new yarn down the yarn aisle that caught my eye. It was part of their I Love This Yarn! [Comma, Damnit] brand, the colorway Rainbow. It was rainbow-colored with vibrant primary colors and absolutely gorgeous. Even though it wasn't clearanced like my cheap ass likes and is used to, I had to get some; it WAS the 30% off week, though. I was so excited I bought all the skeins they had. I couldn't wait to get home and work it up. As I started to crochet with it - I made an E.G. Stitch swatch (video embedded below) - I noticed something weird about the color changes. They weren't just weird, they were FAMILIARLY weird. The color changes were EXACTLY like the Big Twist Living pride colorway Inclusivity that Joann had (which is now sold by Michaels, among several other retailers). If you're part of the gay community, you remember what a big deal the Big Twist Living pride colorways were. Sure, they had color change "flaws," but the yarns were OURS. They were designed by Joann and Big Twist to represent some of our community's most known flag colors. What was frustrating about the color changes was how the color kept switching back to the previous color in the sequence. The Inclusivilty yarn (which was inspired by the standard rainbow pride flag) would start at red, switch to orange and then go back to red for just a little bit before switching back to orange. Then after it was orange for a while it would switch to yellow, but would switch back to orange for just a little bit before switching back to yellow again, and so on. It was irritating. The color sequence would also go in reverse, so after you went through the 6 colors, instead of the sequence restarting, it would go in reverse: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, then back to blue, green, yellow, orange, red, etc. Yes it was frustrating, but we were so happy that so much thought and meaning was put into designing the colorways that we learned to deal with and rationalize away the odd color changes because it felt like a big deal that we even got the colorways in the first place. So, when I started working up Hobby Lobby's Rainbow colorway, it was doing that weird back and forth color changing and it felt like the color pattern was exactly like the Inclusivity. When I first got a skein of Inclusivity back when Joann still existed, I made a bookmark with it. It ended up so disappointing because of the weird color changes. When I suspected the Rainbow colorway was exactly like Inclusivity, I decided to make a bookmark to compare to the one I had made with the Big Twist Living skein and you can see in this video how the color changes are exact (the bookmark on the left is the I Love This Yarn, the one on the right is my original Big Twist yarn): So, here's where I tell you why I feel... conflicted. On one hand, the Hobby Lobby yarn was gorgeous, especially to get me to pay full price for it instead of clearanced at 75% off. The colors were vibrant and we finally got a yarn in our stores that had the rainbow primary colors - really nice medium 4 weight, significant Hobby Lobby yarn. But, the fact that the colorway seemed to be an exact replica of the Inclusivity from Big Twist, brought up a whole series of questions in my head. How did Hobby Lobby get the colorway in the first place? It isn't just a knock off of Inclusivity, it's an EXACT REPLICA of the colorway pattern. That tells me they somehow got access to the colorway pattern and used it for their own yarn. Does it have something to do with the scatteredness created by Joann's liquidation? After Joann went out of business, it seemed like for a while, Big Twist and Joann branded yarns were being absorbed and redistributed by all kinds of different retailers. Some popped up on Herrschners. Some were on Mary Maxim. Michaels bought the Joann name and some of the Big Twist ended up there. The whole process felt very scattered and all-over-the-place (you know, like my brain and thoughts!). I don't know how yarn colorway copyright/licensing or intellectual property works, but maybe when Joann was liquidated, somehow some of their colorway patterns, maybe in connection with the mills that produced both Joann and Hobby Lobby yarns, ended up in a database where they could be licensed for use outside of Big Twist and that's how Hobby Lobby was able to recreate Inclusivity as their own? I don't know... Before I saw the "Rainbow" colorway in Hobby Lobby, my store got in a couple other new colorways that reminded me of Big Twist colorways I had seen at Michaels. I didn't think about it at the time that those may have been EXACT replicas of those colorways; I just assumed the ombre yarns they were mimicking must be the trend and Hobby Lobby was just making their own versions. The yarn DID feel different, like Hobby Lobby yarn, not Big Twist that has been repackaged. But, when this whole Inclusivity/Rainbow thing happened, I thought, maybe those colorways were Big Twist remnants and were somehow licensed for use by Hobby Lobby, too? I went back to Hobby Lobby and bought one of each of the ombre yarns to have to compare to the Big Twist versions. As you can see in the video below, they are EXACT REPLICAS of the colorway, too. However, the yarn is DEFINITELY Hobby Lobby's yarn. As much as I like some of the Big Twist colorways, Big Twist has a very specific feel to it - a little thin and splitty - and the ones at Hobby Lobby weren't like that. They were definitely the better-quality Hobby Lobby yarn, but the colorways were Big Twist. Honestly, I don't really care if every other retailer did the same thing and were able to license all kinds of colorways - from Big Twist remants to various others - to use on their own yarns. It makes sense if that's the case. But, what I do care about is the current fate of Inclusivity (which strangely enough DOES still exist as the Big Twist Living Inclusivity, too) and the optics of it ending up at Hobby Lobby, branded as Rainbow. If you're part of the gay community, you've probably at least heard about or even been on the receiving end of a comment from someone who takes issue with our community and wants to "take back" the rainbow from us (because we stole it?), apparently for some Biblical reason because according to them it's "God's rainbow." The only time I've ever experienced a "troll" during my YouTube channel experience - which honestly was harmless and barely trolling - was on one of my pride posts from someone who sarcastically thanked me for spreading awareness of "God's rainbow" with a hashtag about taking it back from us. Even though people like that aren't trying to take it back for religious reasons from any other community or usage in our society - I certainly don't hear about them protesting outside Autism organizations or Skittles headquarters - let's just give them the benefit of the doubt that it's their firmly held religious belief that the rainbow is God's rainbow and can't be used to represent anything else at the same time, and their crusade to take it back isn't tied to any kind of bigotry towards our community. OK sure. But, we all know what it's about. I mean, come on. I'd almost have more respect for them if they came out and said the movement was simply their response to their disgust with our community. If the movement was simply, "We don't want the gay community to use the rainbow because we don't agree with their lifestyle and we don't want to think about their community every time we see the rainbow" sure, I wouldn't like it, but at least it would be honest. But using religious beliefs and concealing selective bigotry behind a cherry picked Biblical quote to make the movement seem noble rather than hateful seems worse than just being honest about the fact that they just don't like or agree with our lifestyles. But, I digress. So, knowing that, knowing that movement is out there, this yarn popping up in Hobby Lobby and being rebranded as Rainbow feels like a gut punch to our community. It feels - or at least the optics of it - feel like a rainbow-colored colorway of yarn, designed specifically to represent gay pride, was "taken" and rebranded into a generic "Rainbow" colorway. Do I believe Christian-based Hobby Lobby specifically licensed Inclusivity, knowing what it was designed to represent originally, with the clear intent of "taking back the rainbow" by rebranding it as Rainbow? Of course not. If I had to venture a guess at how this happened, I would assume Hobby Lobby, post-yearly clearance, needed to bring in some new colorways to replace the ones they discontinued and instead of hiring someone to design new colorways, they just cheaped out and licensed some existing ones, which happened to be Big Twist remnents - one of which was a gay pride one. But, the optics of it and how it makes me feel are just kind of shitty. I know I shouldn't shop at Hobby Lobby to begin with and my fat ass can become quite a gymnist when contorting myself into the mental gymnastic positions I do to justify shopping there - me jokingly referring to their yarn brand as I Love This Yarn! Comma Damnit helps - but I can make excuses like anyone, especially when it comes to yarn and me being fortunate enough to come across it on clearance as often as I have and still do. But that's why I feel so conflicted. I actually like the yarn and the only issue I have with the colorway itself is the same issue I had when I used it as Big Twist Living Inclusivity. In fact, THIS yarn at Hobby Lobby is actually better than the Big Twist version in my opinion. It's a better medium 4 weight, substantial, the colors are vibrant, etc... I hate that I love it so much, but it's hard not to. Here are some images and a video of the hat cover I made with the yarn: 
It works up really well and I'm glad the yarn exists in an accessible way for me. Even when my Michaels got in some of the Big Twist Living yarn in the past few months, my store didn't get in any of the pride colorways. They are available on their website, but they're not in my store. But, it's hard not to be excited about finding gorgeous rainbow yarn, even if it is at Hobby Lobby. So, the way I'm rationalizing it in my head is this: even though drawing attention to this almost feels like it'll result in the Streisand Effect, I still wanted to talk about it. I wanted people to know that this isn't just a new Hobby Lobby yarn; it's a colorway that existed before (and techincally still does) that was specifically designed to represent pride. It can be rebranded as Rainbow but the origin of that colorway will always be connected to the gay community. That yarn's DNA - design process and reason for existence - will always contain the intent of representing our community in it, whether the label or ball band reflects it or not. I will always know. I hope YOU will always know. And I hope no matter what excuses you have to make to shop at Hobby Lobby to get this beautiful yarn, you always keep in your mind that it is INCLUSIVITY and always will be. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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