This article has been written to help anyone who would like to start a knitting or craft blog.

You may want to start a blog as a hobby, to show off or promote your hand made knitting and crafts.  You might also be interested in making money from a knitting or craft blog.

Whatever your reasons, the first thing you need to do is decide which platform you want to use to actually host your blog.

There are many blogging platforms to choose from and it can be confusing to understand how they all work and therefore which one will be best for you.

This article will start by explaining the difference between hosted and self hosted blogging platforms and then we will look at some of the most popular places to write a blog.

This should help you to understand your options so that you can decide where to sign up and start your knitting or craft blog, and whether or not you would like to start a free blog or pay for some upgrades and extra services.

Hosted and Self Hosted Blog Websites

The Knitting Times, that you are reading now, is written on a hosted website.  We do not own the website as such, it is all set up and mainatained by WordPress.com.  We pay each year to have some extra features built in, including a dot com domain address.  The technical stuff is all carried by WordPress though.

WordPress also has a self hosted website option available, called WordPress.org.  Running a self hosted blog gives you ownership of your blog.  You can do a lot more with it.  You add on things called plug ins and while the bare bones of your website will be all set up for you, you maintain it yourself and have more freedom to expand in the future.

There are many other hosted and self hosted platforms where you can run a blog and it is worth checking them all out to see how they look and how easy or difficult they are to use before you actually sign up, and definitely before you spend any money on a website.

You will find a list with links to the main blogging platforms at the end of this article.

We will now have a look in more detail at some of the blogging platforms that would work well with a knitting or craft blog.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.

WordPress dot com (not to be confused with WordPress dot org)

As already written, the blog that you are reading now is made using WordPress.com.  The Knitting Times pays annually for a premium WordPress option which includes a domain name (our own name with dot com at the end) and several features such as premium themes and the ability to insert adverts from the in house WordPress advertising scheme.

Placing adverts on your blog is one of the ways that you can make money from blogging.

WordPress is one of the biggest blogging platforms on the internet and you can start off your blogging experience there for free.  You can then upgrade later if you like the way that their writing system works.

Using wordpress.com is not what is called a ‘self hosted’ website.  The Knitting Times is run by WordPress and took very little setting up.  It will be quite limited as time goes on, without paying more money for additional features.  However, we wanted to try it out as we are curious people :).

You can use this platform for free too.  Here is an example of a free WordPress blog. The free version is perfectly adequate for starting out in the world of blogging.  You can’t however place any adverts on a free WordPress site and the blog address won’t belong to you. You can however upgrade at any time.

WordPress has given us this link and any new blog made via this receives some free credits to spend on upgrades.

Weebly

Weebly is another blogging platform that you can run for free or choose to upgrade.

The free version is perfectly adequate to start off your blogging journey and it is is cheaper to use that than wordpress dot com if you would like your own domain name but aren’t worried about any other features such as accepting payments or placing adverts.

Blogger

Blogger is a great, free blogging platform which is run by Google.  After six months or so you can apply to run Google Adsense on that free blog and make money each time sometime clicks on ad advert.

You can also use Blogger to make money from affiliate marketing on your knitting or craft blog.

Where Blogger becomes limited if you want to expand your website in the future and add further features, perhaps even a store.

Blogger is really great for writing and is very simple to set up and use and well worth looking at if you want to start a knitting or craft blog for the first time.

WordPress dot org

This is the biggest blogging and website platform on the net, and is used by more companies than any other.

It isn’t free but is quite reasonable to set up.  It is cheaper, for example, than the option that The Knitting Times chose to use, but also a little more complicated.

It works by signing up with Bluehost, who will then set you up with a free WordPress dot org website where you can write your blog.  Bluehost is the host of the website, and it is them that you pay for this service.  The WordPress part is free, although you can choose to pay for some extras, such as premium themes, as you go along.

The good thing about using the WordPress self hosted platform is that it is more or less limitless.  You add things calls plug ins onto your blog website and can create a really unique site which you can expand however you want in the future.

You can run advertising from any source, do affiliate marketing, display your knitting and craft work in beautiful slide shows, whatever your creative juices wish.

How to decide which platform to use

It is advisable take a look at each of the blogging platforms listed above if you are serious about starting a knitting or craft blog.

There are other platforms too.  Here is a list of as many blogging platforms that we can think of.  We have also stated whether or not they are free, paid for, or both.

Comprehensive List of Blogging Platforms

You can click on the links to visit and find out more about what each one has to offer. 

This will help you to decide where to host your knitting, craft, or any other type of blog.

WordPress – self hosted via Bluehost	You pay for the hosting and domain name of your own self hosted website.
Weebly	Free, with paid for upgrade options such as a domain name and online store.
WordPress – the hosted version	Free, or you can pay for added extras such as domain name and an online store. The link in this table will give you a discount from a paid plan.
Blogger	Free
Wix	A free blogging platform with paid upgrades available.
Jimdo	Free with paid upgrades available.
Squarespace	A modern and trendy blogging platform.  This is a paid for platform but you can have access to a 2 week free trial.
Tumblr	A blogging platform beloved by the younger crowd, very photo driven.  Free to use.

Thanks so much for visiting our website today. We hope that our article describing the different platforms to host your knitting or craft blog has been helpful.

Please click here to read our article about making money from a knitting blog.

Please do let us know if you have any advice to share with other readers or if you have any questions about starting a blog. We will try as help as much as possible.