Changes at Crochet Kitten

Those of you who follow us on Twitter or are fans of us on Facebook have probably already noticed some of these changes taking place, but we thought it was time to make a formal annuoncement.

In that sweet way that babies do, Little Lovely has brought a lot of changes to our lives. The Animator has been working hard to both provide for her and have time to spend with her. The Animator's Wife, like all new moms, devotes almost all of her time to caring for her. The Terror has gone back to live with his real mommy, my aunt, Brown Eyed Girl. The Dog has accepted that his new place is in his bed next to the Animator's Wife and not in her lap. Osiris regards Little Lovely as The Terror's less annoying replacement. And I have been spending more time with Grampo since everyone else is caught up with the baby. Life is crazy, but good.

Along with this crazy new life, we have decided to make some changes to our website that we hope will make it more valuable to both our family and yours.

Patterns
This was the most difficult decision we had to make. When we started CrochetKitten.com, The Animator's Wife was determined to offer all of her patterns for free. She had several reasons for wanting to do so, including the fact that she herself doesn't like to pay for patterns if she doesn't have to (she is incredibly frugal). However, along with publishing patterns comes a certain degree of tech support for anyone who may be having some trouble working the pattern. While we do not mind fielding questions and helping whenever we can, some questions can be quite time consuming. That's fine when you're a recent college graduate with nothing better to do, but now that Little Lovely is here, our "free" time has become that much more precious. Therefore, to offset the time it takes to write up these patterns and offer "tech support" for them, we are now charging a small fee for the majority of the patterns that were previously free. All the patterns that were published on the blog and that were designed for Heavenly Angels in Need will remain free, but the rest will be available for purchase through our shop on Ravelry.

*Please note, this does NOT mean we don't want you to bother us with your questions. We welcome all questions and comments and will always take the time to address them.


eBooks

To make our patterns both more affordable and more portable, we are assembling them into a series of eBooks that will be available for download in both Amazon's Kindle Store and our Ravelry shop. The eBooks will each include several patterns for a lower price than what you could buy them for individually, and the best part is they will be formatted for Kindle or iBooks. Zodiac Kittens already came out in 2009, and we just published Kitten Amigurumis this month. More to be published later this year.

Stores

Be sure to drop by our shop, Crochet Kitten Cafe to see the new crochet-themed merchandise we've added, including pajamas, messengenger bags, iPhone and iPad cases, and calendars. Our Etsy shop is closed for now, but eventually The Animator's Wife would like to start selling handmade crochet jewelry there. And you may have noticed a link at the top of our website for crochet supplies. This is where we will showcase The Animator's Wife's favorite crochet supplies, including those hard-to-find amigurumi cat eyes. This nifty little shop is powered by Amazon, so many of the items you find there qualify for free shipping.

Tutorials

The tutorials are back! They are available for free as they always were. By keeping them free, we hope to promote the art of crochet to those who may not be exposed to it by any other means.

As always, we thank you for all your support and encouragement throughout the years. We have truly enjoyed crocheting with you and hope to continue doing so for many years to come.