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Living With A Crocheting Mom

Guest post by Jason (aka The Crocheting Mom’s silent IT Specialist, Web Designer, Critic, and Husband)

First, thank you for your interest in following my wife and joining us on this quest called raising kids, building a small business, and all the while keeping our sanity in check.  Second, I’m very sarcastic, but I love my wife and her drive to grow this business.
So how did I end up with yarn and crocheted inventory in my master bedroom, crocheted work-in-progress by our living room couch, and pieces of excess yarn throughout the rest of the house?

Easy…
I’m married to The Crocheting Mom.






Her journey to become a crocheter started like every other story…a lot of frustration over trying to watch a movie at night and my wife falling asleep as soon as we start the film.  Ok, maybe not every other story, but I know a lot of husbands can sympathize with me!  I’m a big movie junkie that loves to watch a film in ONE SITTING.  Not over the course of 3-4 nights.
After many, many......MAAANY instances of stretched movie nights, she picked up a crochet hook and began to create a scarf; a very…….unique….curvy…..scarf.  Let’s just say it wasn’t her refined perfection to quality and design she brings to her products on a regular basis these days.  I would strongly question whether a person at the top of Mount Everest, freezing to death, would put it on to survive….but I digress…
Next she worked on a throw blanket that her extremely foolish husband convinced her to make the size of a queen bedspread.  That endeavor lead to a narrow and extremely long twin size blanket that really wasn’t functional.  Nearly a decade later, I’m pretty sure that blanket is buried in the depths of a guest room closet.  After this project, the crochet hooks were packed away as life began to get busy with Navy deployments, new jobs, and an infant with a pair of lungs to challenge Celine Dion.
Fast forward a few years; moved to new state, new jobs, infant becomes toddler, and life continues to throw challenges at us.  The Crocheting Mom reemerges stronger, faster, and MOMMY’R.  She is working at a daycare as a nurturer of young minds at this point.

AND THEN……

SOMETHING HAPPENED TO THE WATER AT THE DAYCARE!!!

Pregnancy began to spread like wildfire at the daycare, which means BABY SHOWERS and GIFTS.  This is also when TCM began to have heartburn...and a baby bump (a crying duet was on the horizon).  This was the point when she threw open the closet to reveal a box WAAAAY in the back that had those shiny hooks.  She crocheted hats and blankets for her coworkers as gifts.  Each one she increased her quality while decreasing the time it took to make.  The end result was the development of confidence and inspiration to create a business.


The next thing up was figuring out products to make.  What do people want?  She couldn’t just make a bunch of blankets because that would be expensive and there are way too many designs, textures and colors to choose from and sell to the public.  The majority of her early sales were word of mouth and friends of friends buying custom ordered baby gear.

We decided to add an Emeril Lagasse touch to the business and kick it up a notch.
We started with the Facebook page.  We have steadily built this up to over 1800 followers and growing every week.  Next came the blog and Pinterest, which started off strong with a number of posts, a few lulls, and now we have been steadily picking up steam again.

…but Jason…what about selling crocheted products???

Well, when I was developing the blog and all the widgets, gadgets, and the rest of the bells and whistles required to have a fancy website, I was also focusing on creating a store front for all the crocheted items.  Then our store front with Square Market was created as a way to sell product with low overhead.

…but Jason…why not throw it on Etsy or some other seller site???

Overhead….overhead…overhead.  The more sites you use, the more expenses your business will take on.  Through a TON of research, we have figured out ways to keep our overhead low which in the end ENSURES WE CAN KEEP PRODUCT COSTS LOW.  I mean really…who wants to spend $40 on a handmade, solid-color, beanie on Etsy?  NOT ME (although I’m a little bias).  TCM sells the same thing for $10-15 (depending on size).


….Sooooo….what’s going on NOW?

Now, we are continuing to refine what products we provide and work on reducing the time spent on the business by producing more content.  TCM is still creating new crocheted items, taking custom orders, and engaging customers as she has always done.

My brilliant wife has a knack for looking at pictures and developing crocheted items off of sight.  Not only that, she is able to create quality patterns for others to use.  She sells these patterns currently on Craftsy and Ravelry.  Soon we will be starting a very small and limited selection of our top patterns on Etsy (I know…breaking all my rules…).

Along with pattern sales, we are getting into affiliate marketing which means when you click on an image link to one of our affiliates and if you buy something, we get a little money from the sale.  The product bought is at the SAME COST as if you went to the website directly.  The only difference is you are supporting her crocheting addiction…er…ummm…I mean business.
So, the real question is, “Jason, what is it like being with a crafter like TCM”?  Educational, challenging, wonderful, frustrating, clean, and messy.  Having a business, whether stay-at-home or at a brick and mortar building, is a lot of work and can very challenging for one person to take on fully without some support (moral, but more so technical support).  To get where we are with this business took a lot of time and research.  

We are not where we want to be with it, but hope that you continue to stay with us through this journey!  Speaking of journey…this post is completed and I leave you with this final meme.

Don't forget to check out other posts by The Crocheting Mom in our archive; especially Confessions of a Crocheter.

Comments

  1. Haha, great article. Very funny anecdotes too. Thanks for the read.

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    1. Thank you! I definitely heard some giggles as he was writing it :P.

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    2. Thanks! I cannot confirm or deny the giggling.... :-)

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  2. That was a very clever post! I'm glad you support your wife and the many skeins of yarn that your wife possesses. I hope the business continues to grow!

    --Jenny
    http://yeahwesaidthat.com

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    1. Thank you for your comment! I have to sneak the yarn into the house sometimes. ;)

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    2. Thanks! 100% true. New skeins end up at the house all the time! :-P

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  3. Ah TCM, your hubby is a great guest writer! Can we expect more from him in the future? I am hoping that my hubby will take a spot on a post in the future! Also, thanks for the info about Square Market. I have been looking for a storefront space!

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    1. Thank you, I think so too! I believe he'll be writing some more here and there on different topics. We'll see what he comes up with next time!

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    2. Thanks! I'm sure I could be persuaded to write another post for a nerdy crocheted creation!

      Square Market has been the one of the better finds in setting up the business with regards to fees. It is really hard to set up a storefront without having either excessive startup costs or being charged fees on top of more fees. Square Market is low on the fees and you can set up your store you want. Also they provide you with a square reader and their app FOR FREE. So you can do sales on the fly without having to set up a new store just for craft fairs.

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  4. This was such a fun post to read, especially with all the memes! Love that you're super supportive of your wife! :)

    xo, Chloe // http://funinthecloset.com/if-we-went-to-coachella/

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    1. Thank you for your comment. Yes he is very supportive of all my crochet addictions. :)

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    2. Thanks! She is addicted to crocheting...I'm addicted to memes....both of us are still for our support group. :-P She is also very supportive of my constant giggling when reading through memes. Support can be shown through eye rolls and SMH, right? :-)

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