TOTAL KNITTING MEDIA PLAYA HERE →[More:]In the last week two companies have contacted me wanting to advertise on my knitting blog and a third has offered to send me a free ceramic yarn bowl if I'll write about it and link to their web site in a post.

Other encouraging signs:

- My blog made over $51 in its sixth month, April. In November, its first month, it made $2.16.

- My April earnings put me over the $100 payout threshold so I'll get a cheque in May. (The advertising company pays out once a month if your account balance is over $100, if not the earnings roll forward until it does.)

- I'm thinking it won't take longer than two months to get the second cheque, and that after that I'll be getting a regular monthly cheque which will gradually increase in size.

- The editor of the world's best-selling knitting magazine liked something on my blog's Facebook page a couple of weeks ago. I nearly hyperventilated.

- One of my blog posts got lifted wholesale by a content farm web site, RoyalBlogs.co.uk, and I'm not having much success in getting them to take it down. Okay, that wasn't an encouraging sign.