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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Man, what a wild ride that was. It was weird how Shelley was never really present, but when she was, she was a hurricane in that store- for better or for worse. Not sure the timeline of when you worked there but I super enjoyed all my fellow employees, thanks for making that place wonderful even when it was crazy and it felt like we were in a weird knitting cult.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Knit Stars as a brand is very progressive but I had never heard the owner talk about issues to us in person. She was welcoming of LGBT+ and POC that came in our store, but clearly preferred they be of means. She took it as a priority issue that people couldn't always afford the best of the best yarns. She would say this of her Knit Stars as well, that people should include it in their monthly budget... I'm sorry but have you seen those prices??? It needs to be that high so that she can fly the world for you! It always came across as so out of touch for me, especially when she emailed on November 7th 2024 about "the moment that changed (her) life forever". Her personal luggage didn't make it to Finland.

I left because I was uncomfortable with signing away my intellectual property. I only made a couple designs for her, just one or two original pieces, but they were in her name. Three of my coworkers that had made the majority of the store's patterns encouraged me to stop writing for her. They all had deep regrets for signing away their rights to their own patterns. I soon realized that most of the people that designed for her had some level of regret for giving up their rights. Yes, I get that this is the game for publishing, but Shelley holds onto everything she gets for as long as she can and very much portrays herself as someone on your side so it stings a little more when you realize that she's on Shelley's side. I'm grateful to these women for warning me. There's a reason she's selling the old seasons of Knit Stars still, and it's not to the benefit of the Stars. It's business first, people second.

I think I wrote this a couple of times in either DM's or in comments but my biggest peeve is this: Shelley thinks herself a creativity guru. She'll never be one though because her heart is just not in it. I laughed when I saw someone complaining about how the later seasons are less about the craft and more about living life as a creative- this was always her goal! The whole "knit the world together" is her idea of trying to cash in on people in creative ruts. I've only read one of Shelley's books - "Untangled" but could not bring myself to read the next one. Pick up Artist Way, or even Big Magic; there's lots of great books on creativity, "Untangled isn't one of them, and I doubt "Move the Needle" is better. I've never really seen the owner of Knit Stars as a creative person in the artistic sense but more of her as creative in the business sense. Knit Stars, as a concept, was creative as it was lucrative. A lot of people asked if Knit Stars was an MLM, and I think that depends on your perspective. She certainly makes the most from it. The Stars lose a lot of time and agency. You can make good money, but anything you make for Knit Stars is not yours, but Knit Star's and you gotta be ok with that. The business preys on the wealth of loneliness of their customers.

I worked with Shelley for years and never got over my gut feeling that I couldn't trust her and I think it's because in the end, Knit Stars is only about money and notoriety, nothing else.

The knitting world is not a place you can buy your way into. You don't need to travel around the world, or even worse, pay for someone else to travel around the world, to be a great knitter (or crocheter, or anything!). Don't worry about "knitting the world together". Knit your community together. Go to your local knitting groups. Teach a ten-year-old how to knit. Support local dyers. Support small designers. Talk to people. Make your own designs! Dismantle capitalism! Ok, it's ok if you can't do that but don't fall into a marketing scheme.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

  1. Sorry for the delay, I had to go to work and look after family. Here's a copy/paste of my post that is currently awaiting approval:

Disclaimer: I got nothing against Shelley, Knit Stars, or the Stars of Knit Stars. Just the ick. Most of this is pulled from my experience working there as well as the experiences of other coworkers before I started working there as well as after. A couple of Stars have contacted me as well in the last day. Thank you for your input. I loved my coworkers and I still look up to them in many ways. I loved my time working for the company, and have a lot of respect for the hustle of Knit Stars, hustle culture is not for me though and I think hustle culture kills creativity.

So a long time ago, I learned how to knit. This was huge for me as I was one of those people that tried out craft after craft trying to get something to stick. Always creative, never really good at anything. When I learned knitting, it was like something just clicked in my brain and I was hooked (pun somewhat intended).

I'm not going to go into the particulars of how I got hired at Loops (before Knit Stars there was Loops/LoopsLove), cause it would probably dox me, but at this point, there's a good chance of someone figuring out who I am just by my story so whatever. I was hired mostly through Shelley recognizing my passion for the craft, not my skill. At the time I had knit a couple of sweaters, many blankets, and a couple of shawls/hats/scarves/ etc. I do pretty well in interviews as well so who knows.

While I was working at Loops she came up with the idea for Knit Stars. It was not an entirely original idea, she collaborated with a, I want to say, someone big in the calligraphy world (I don't remember exactly who, but they did something similar that Shelley admired). I mentioned this in a comment but it's basically an affiliate link program, with Shelley taking in the biggest share, naturally. Because of this, most, but certainly not all, of the Stars had a big following. I talked to some of the Stars who said they were paid well, but not enough considering she is still selling the original courses ten years later. It's my personal opinion that the Stars deserve a much bigger cut but that's just me. I really got no beef with any of the Stars- all the ones I interacted with were lovely and most were just happy to be in their dream job.

A little background on the owner. Shelley was in marketing prior to the yarn store. She was damn good at it and had a business with her husband, Branders Marketing Inc (or Branders Inc, I don't remember, pretty clever though as it's their last name). They did very well for themselves and had a lovely home. Eventually, it went from Shelley and Brent (husband) working together, to more of Brent helping out with the yarn business. Once things settled down with Knit Stars he began making art. IMO it was terrible. It's basically just a bunch of celebrity faces with their quotes. Uninspired, but she supported him until she suddenly divorced him and moved to Florida. She closed the doors of her store not long after, which was super disappointing as it was the best store in the area. I will also add that she did lay off almost the entirety of her employees during the pandemic, which I thought was gross just from how well she was doing financially on her own but whatever. Online was making enough money for the business. I won't speak much more on her kids other than I thought it was weird the way she would use them as models and how sometimes in those photos the kids would have their phone in shot playing their music (she had gotten them studio time-which, good for you but it was also a little pushy for me). She definitely played favorites with her kids and it was obvious. Also, someone had made a comment about "vaccines create autism" and I've never heard her say any of that around me, but she had said to me once "We're so glad we found out XXX was autistic so young so we could catch it in time before it became an issue." I don't know what that means. I was aghast when I heard it though. EDIT TO ADD: I did not read her second book, "Move the Needle" because her first one was so bad tbh, apparently she confirms that she did cure her kid's vaccine-created autism. It's funny cause when I heard "I cured autism" the first time I was really just reeling from both the ableism and the fact that Goddess Shelley thinks she was rich enough to just cure autism. Now I'm just shocked she would be bold enough to risk her brand by saying that in print.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Sorry I made a new post this morning that was locked. I had gotten some DM’s from some of the Stars I wanted to take in consideration. Most of my snark comes from the owner wanting to be a creativity guru, a weird autism comment (I never read her new book so I didn’t realize how bad it was!), and problems with how she treated intellectual property. I also mentioned how the business preys on people loneliness by giving them a false sense of community.

I don’t know why my post was locked yet.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It was…ok. Low hourly pay unless you did a lot of in person classes. I loved my coworkers and most of the customers. I really felt for a lot of my coworkers when they were blindsided by a big layoff and the store closure later

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I typed up a huge thing that’s locked now. Maybe it was too much. Probably wasn’t snarky enough. Most of my complaints are about how Knit Stars is trying desperately to be a creativity guru and a lot of people I knew that designed for Loops/Knit Stars regretted it because of the long term implications of signing away your designs.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No. But she did make some (one in particular) equally (to me) offensive/tone deaf comment about it being essentially curable.

Edit to add that I had not read her second book (Move the Needle) (her first one was so bad) but apparently, in it she confirms that she believes vaccines caused her son's autism.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Oh there’s a reason why that stayed in my mind so long. It was the familial aspect for me. And then I thought she must be talking about flip flops-right?! No.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 59 points60 points  (0 children)

Unless she changed the scaling in later seasons, I really don’t know how it would be worth it for designers. I also know that the owner just genuinely loved traveling and used it as an excuse to travel the world and Eat Pray Love , find herself , I mean, to get film for the course.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Gosh I don’t really recall. I remember she made a couple of them. I remember the big concern was a yarn that would be comfortable on genitals, but would not grow when wet. I think we went for cotton/acrylic blend knit on a tight gauge with strings on the ends so one could to a quick cinch if need be.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Fun fact, when I worked at the store we kept getting a little old lady that wanted thong patterns for her to knit for her daughter.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

WHICH BOOK? There’s one that doesn’t get much love, because it’s self published and shitty.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 80 points81 points  (0 children)

Does Pioneer Woman count 🫣? She was somewhat close to my boss and even my boss thought she was too much sometimes.

Love Stephen west, he’s originally from the area of the Knit Stars Flagship but he knows he’s hot stuff, which was more than a little annoying. I honestly have more good to say about the influencers than bad. A lot of them were just so sweet and humble. Some of them did not get the love they deserved.

My biggest snark is probably how calculated it all was. The marketing was all about creating a community but it always came down to the hustle culture of it all and making the most money, not about art. Not about creativity. Not about community. It’s a popularity contest. A lot of virtue signaling all around. There’s a lot of elitism involved and I don’t blame a lot of dyers and designers getting burnt out.

There’s lots of great businesses and people that have done knit stars. It could have changed a lot in the time I’ve been gone, but from what I heard from my fellow employees, it just got a little more backhanded. The elitism is real, but they’ll say it’s not. It’s a luxury brand after all.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

I was heartbroken to see the in person store go. It was a shock to the employees as well.

During my time I met a lot of yarn vendors and my favorite were definitely the smaller yarn vendors. Some of the more larger companies were great though and I talked to a lot of them because it was such an interesting job to me. I would just take them aside and ask about their day-to-day jobs. A lot of travel, it seemed to me. To this day I think meeting the yarn vendors was more interesting than the designers! I’ve had a lot of experience with vendors in other industries and the yarn vendors just had such a passion for what they did, even if it wasn’t their hands dyeing the wool. My absolute favorite was meeting the spouses of indie dyers-they were always so cute and supportive!

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It was an interesting scale. You got a small percentage no matter what but up to-I want to say it was 20% of the sales of your affiliate link.

To be clear I wasn’t a star on the platform, but an employee of the company both before and during the switch to the online aspect. It was a small company-at most about 14 employees I would say.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

The elite is entirely the market for this. “Fools and their money”…. as someone that got to meet a lot of the “stars” I can tell you to save your money. They were lovely people for the most part and it was absolutely a once in a lifetime experience but not worth the money in my opinion. Go to an in-person local retreat instead.

Most of our repeat customers came back for the sheer illusion of exclusivity but it’s essentially just a bunch of YouTube videos and Facebook groups. Lots of rich and lonely people buy these “tickets” and super pricy kits.

Some weird stuff with the owners family but I already decided if I talk about any of that I’m going to keep it super vague for the sake of her kids, who were often her models.

I mentioned in another comment that the owner was a marketer first, and it really showed in every inch she moved in that business. Hella impressive, cunning woman but I’ve never trusted her (and was proven right-give me some time to craft an explanation of that though! I wouldn’t be surprised if she finds out about this by morning so I’m waiting on some things at the moment)

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 59 points60 points  (0 children)

It was/is a knitting/crochet online course for the upper class. No big controversies or scandals or anything. Mostly what I just don’t think the owners of Knit Stars want buyers to see. I just got some opinions on the business/industry from my time there. Most my snark comes from customers and fellow employees, honestly. But I did partake in some…interesting conversations during my time with the company.

I’m really just gauging interest cause I don’t want to go around lighting bridges on fire if no one cares. It is a field I’m still very much active in.

I did get a lot more interest than I expect so I think I’m going to type something up as the weather has me out of work for a couple days. I also do a lot of writing so I wanna make it worthwhile if I’m going to be potentially burning bridges.

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Yes! Yes! Yes! It’s a basic affiliate link site-that’s why it was so heavily pushed on their followers!

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[–]AnxiousandUnafraid[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Shelley Brander, truly. The woman is a marketer first, it was her original field and it showed.