Why invest in small creators?
By Bailey Spiteri
Bailey Spiteri is the marketing manager at Kelbourne Woolens, a woman-owned yarn company based in Philadelphia, PA.
Bailey Spiteri is a craft enthusiast “gone pro” based in Philadelphia, PA. She has a love for nearly every craft: knitting, crochet, sewing, weaving, quilting, cross stitch—you name it! With a background in higher education and nonprofit work, Bailey began her career in digital marketing at the Curtis Institute of Music. She now works as Marketing Manager at Kelbourne Woolens, where she leads digital marketing, social media, and content efforts for the Philadelphia-based, women-owned yarn company.
Why Invest in Small Creators?
I’ve had the delight of building the influencer marketing program at Kelbourne Woolens over the past few years. Influencer marketing was always something I wanted to try as a digital marketer, but I never had the opportunity to explore it while working in higher education due to the excessive amounts of red tape to get new programming in the budget.
So when Courtney and Kate gave me the green light to start working with knitting and crochet influencers to promote our yarns, I was thrilled! I also had absolutely no idea where to begin. As a small business, Kelbourne Woolens doesn’t have the luxury of a six-figure marketing budget, so I knew a traditional, paid, “brand deal” approach wasn’t going to be realistic, nor would it be authentic to the brand.
Because we are a wholesale company and yarn brand, we were able to find room in our budget to leverage a different strategy: Giving away yarn with little to no strings attached. Rather than finding the biggest creators with the biggest followings to give our yarn to, we decided to take a look at our very own fan base to find smaller creators who we already had a digital relationship with to start. Owners Kate and Courtney founded Kelbourne Woolens as friends who liked to knit together and wanted to make simple, good quality yarn. Finding our online ‘friends’ who shared a similar ethos made perfect sense!
One creator I knew I wanted to send yarn to was Tommy Knits. Tommy had already posted a video using our Germantown yarn and shared how much he enjoyed working with it. At the time, Tommy had around 5,000 followers (on TikTok) and fewer on Instagram, technically putting him in the micro-influencer category. His small following was not a detriment, because beyond being a genuine fan of the yarn, I could tell that he shared many of the same values as our company. He was also working on a vintage pattern that may have originally been knit with Germantown yarn nearly a century ago. (For the history lovers reading this: you must watch this wonderful lecture about the history of Germantown yarn!)
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We packed up a box of Germantown for Tommy to use for his next project, and the rest is history. He surprised us with dozens of videos documenting his progress, sharing his honest experience with Germantown and what it was like to work with the yarn. Because we sent the yarn without any expectations (our only ask was that he tag us if he shared any content) Tommy had complete freedom to create something authentic, personal, and unscripted. And that authenticity really came through to his audience.
I also genuinely enjoyed the content Tommy (and so many other small creators) made with our yarns. That meant I was naturally engaging with their content, rather than treating it as another marketing deliverable, and those interactions helped us build personal relationships alongside our professional ones. Over time, we’ve seen mutual growth between Tommy’s account and Kelbourne Woolens, which has made the partnership feel much more like a collaboration than a traditional influencer campaign. In fact, he even made the trip to our headquarters a few weeks ago and we had the best time making videos together!
Towards the end of 2025, Tommy submitted a design proposal for our Year of DK Hats series, and we loved it! It was especially exciting to be able to support him as a designer outside of our influencer relationship. His hat, the Callisto Hat, is really adorable and everyone who knits it absolutely loves it! (You can download the free pattern here).
So, what makes a good micro-influencer partnership?
Tommy’s partnership is a good example of what I look for when deciding whether a creator is a good fit for Kelbourne Woolens. We don’t necessarily look for the biggest following or the most polished account. Instead, we look for creators who feel like a genuine extension of the community we want to build around our brand.
A few things we look for:
- We love to find a new creator who is already a fan of our products. A genuine affinity for the yarn makes it much easier for a partnership to feel natural rather than transactional.
- The creator has to share our core values. For us, that means creators who treat others with respect and aren’t using their platforms to spread bigotry, hate speech, or intentional negativity.
- The creator makes things we’re excited to share. Polished, inspiring finished objects and thoughtful, creative work are important to us.
- The creator should have their own, unique voice. We want our partners to have the freedom to interpret our yarns in a way that feels authentic to them. Flexibility and creativity are much more valuable to us than following a strict campaign brief.
- We’re always looking for someone who brings something different to the table. Diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, aesthetics, techniques, and experiences is always something we want to prioritize.
Our goal isn’t just to get our yarn in front of more people. It’s to build genuine relationships with crafters who are excited about what we make, and to give them the freedom to create something that feels like their own. This allows them to introduce our brand and our products to their followers in a way that feels organic.
We recently brought on a new group of creators to work with in 2027, so make sure to follow our social media platforms to meet the new “class!” This group has makers that have anywhere from 1,000 followers to nearly 1 million, knitters/crocheters from over 5 different countries, designers, new knitters, and everything in between!
@KelbourneWoolens on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest
If you’re a craft business interested in setting up a creator program, Stitchcraft Marketing can help! We work with creators across craft categories, and can set up a program for your brand. Reach out to us and we’d be happy to chat through the economics and options in a free thirty-minute call.
