When Your Hobby Becomes Your Business

The work behind turning something you love into something more

“You’re so lucky your hobby makes you money!”

I’ve heard versions of this quite a few times since starting Crochet by Maya. And whenever someone says it, I know exactly what they mean. It’s said with love. And in many ways, they’re right. I am lucky. I get to build something around a craft I genuinely love. I get ridiculously excited about designing tiny crochet animals, choosing colours, giving them little outfits and apparently spending far too much time deciding whether a mouse needs a basket, a scarf, or an unnecessarily tiny pumpkin. 😂

But there’s something funny about turning your hobby into a business. Eventually, you realise you spend an awful lot less time actually doing the hobby.

I think I do more admin than crochet these days…

From the outside, Crochet by Maya probably looks like a lot of yarn and cute animals. Behind the scenes, my days can look very different. There are patterns to write and test, photos to take, Etsy listings to create, website pages to update, emails and messages to answer, materials to order, workshop bookings to organise, venues to communicate with, social media posts to plan, videos to film and edit, patterns to format, kits to prepare and products to package. And somewhere amongst all of that…

I need to actually crochet the thing. 😂

There have genuinely been days where I’ve spent hours working on Crochet by Maya without picking up a crochet hook once. Crochet is my craft, but Crochet by Maya is the business I’ve built around that craft. And I’m slowly learning that those are two different things.

Is this actually something?

Recently, I had an interaction that left me questioning myself a little. I won’t go into the details because I don’t think the person involved intended to make me feel this way, but I walked away feeling as though what I’d built wasn’t quite… enough. And unfortunately, once that little seed gets planted, comparison is very good at watering it.

I started looking at other artists and creative businesses around Nottingham. People who seem more established. People doing bigger events. People with beautiful branding, bigger audiences, different products, studios, stockists or opportunities I haven’t reached yet. And I caught myself wondering: Is all of this actually worth it? Am I building a real creative business, or am I just taking my hobby very seriously?

It’s quite easy to reduce your own work to “I make crochet things” when you’re surrounded by everything you’ve made, because you were there for all of it. You saw every wonky prototype, every pattern that had to be unravelled, every Instagram post that barely reached anyone, every email that went unanswered and every idea that didn’t work. You don’t see your own business in the polished way you see somebody else’s. You see all the messy bits behind it.

Then tonight, I looked at my desk.

As I’m writing this, I’m preparing for my next crochet workshop. On my desk are three little mice. There are tiny pumpkins everywhere, little baskets and yarn. My camera equipment is still set up, and on my computer is the tutorial I have just finished recording for everyone coming to Saturday’s workshop. Looking at it all made me realise something: I didn’t just crochet a mouse.

I came up with an idea. I designed the character. I worked out how to turn that idea into a crochet pattern. I made prototypes, adjusted the pattern and designed all the tiny props that go with her. I photographed her, advertised the workshop, organised the venue, bought the materials and prepared what everyone would need. People actually booked places to come and make something I designed. And tonight, I sat in front of a camera and taught the project so that the people coming on Saturday have something to refer back to afterwards.

Then, on Saturday, I’ll stand in a room with a group of people and teach them how to make something that once existed only as a little idea in my head. When I look at it that way… that feels pretty special.

Loving your work doesn’t make it less like work

I think that’s the part I’ve struggled to give myself credit for. Because I love crochet, sometimes it feels strange calling all of this work. Surely work is supposed to feel like… work? But enjoying the creative part doesn’t erase everything required to turn creativity into something people can actually buy, attend, download or learn from.

Nobody magically appeared one day and handed me a little crochet business because I happened to enjoy crocheting. There were a lot of steps between “I love making these” and “someone I’ve never met wants to spend their money on something I created.” And there are even more steps between “I know how to crochet” and “I’m going to teach a room full of people how to crochet.”

That’s not just luck. It’s a lot of learning, experimenting and late nights. It’s figuring things out as I go, making mistakes and trying again. It’s a slightly concerning number of Canva designs and an extraordinary amount of admin. 😂 The fact that I happen to love the thing at the centre of it doesn’t make all of the work surrounding it disappear.

Maybe I need a different measuring stick

There will always be another creative business doing something I haven’t done yet. Someone will have more followers, sell more patterns, attend bigger markets, have their products stocked somewhere incredible, have a studio, publish a book or simply have been doing this for ten years while I’m still figuring things out as I go. If that’s how I decide whether Crochet by Maya is successful, I’m probably never going to feel like I’ve made it, because every time I reach one milestone there will be another person three milestones ahead.

Maybe the fairer comparison isn’t Crochet by Maya versus somebody else’s business. Maybe it’s Crochet by Maya today versus Crochet by Maya when I started. And when I look at that comparison, I can see something growing.

There are collections now. There are patterns. There are people following along online. There are tutorials, customers and workshops where people actually turn up with their crochet hooks and spend their morning making one of my designs. There are ideas scribbled everywhere for things I haven’t even made yet. Somehow this little thing that started with me enjoying crochet has slowly become a whole tiny world of its own.

So yes, my hobby makes me money.

And actually, I hope crochet always feels a little bit like my hobby. I don’t want to lose the part where I sit down with some yarn and get ridiculously excited because the tiny ears I’ve just attached suddenly made a pile of stitches look like a little animal. That’s the part that started all of this.

But I’ve realised there’s a difference between having a hobby that occasionally makes money and building a business around something you love doing. Crochet by Maya is something I’m building. I’m still small, I’m still learning, and there are plenty of things I haven’t achieved yet. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I look at somebody else’s work and wonder whether mine is good enough, either.

But maybe when those moments happen, I need to remember to look backwards occasionally instead of always looking sideways. Because tonight, when I look at my desk and see three little mice, a ridiculous number of pumpkins and a finished workshop tutorial sitting on my computer, I don’t just see my hobby. I see all the work that nobody else sees. I see something I’ve built. And I think I’m allowed to be proud of that. 🐭🎃🧶

Maya ♡

Crochet by Maya