Katie's DirtyCapricorn Portfolio

I've been crocheting for about five years now. My mother tried to teach me while I was in Girl Scouts in elementary school, but she didn't know how to do it, so every square we tried to make turned out a triangle and we gave up. I taught myself during my time as an undergraduate at Pacific University Oregon, with the help of the Internet and Crochet Today! magazine.

Crochet makes a lot more sense to me than does knitting, simply because it's not linear and it's incredibly forgiving. Add stitches where you want, when you want. Don't like it? Pull it back out. Dropped a stitch or your hook came out of the active stitch? No worries, just pick it back up again.

The very first thing I made was a dice bag for myself, which I haven't even done a post for on my blog and still use today. It was a simple rectangle (not a triangle) out of thin, silky white synthetic yarn. I made smaller rectangles to form the sides, eyeballed it, and combination single crochet and whip-stitched them together before making a couple lengths of chain stitch for the drawstrings.

While with knitting, I made lots and lots of boring scarves to give people. With crochet, I am able to give them something they not only like, but use (or at least keep around). Highlights include the following:

One holiday season, I made tiny stuffed cthulhu for all my close friends. They continue to be one of my most-request items and are simple to convert into other plushies, such as Despicable Me minions or the titular character from The Lorax.

Coffee cozies are unbelievably easy to make and even moreso to customize with colors and felt to evoke character. Best sellers include designs from Star Trek, Harry Potter, Sailor Moon, Pokemon and Avatar: The Last Airbender. These are my top sellers on Etsy.com (shop currently closed).

I made a rose for a White Day gift (part of Japan's Valentine's celebration) and made the happy mistake of letting friends see it. Soon I was making rose after rose and flowerpot after flowerpot for Mother's Day, and the long-stem version was my top seller at Fanime's Artist Alley in 2013.

Accessories from hair clips to keychains have also been something of a success for me, especially batches of two-tone heart hair clips.











Other projects have varied from scarves to baby sweaters and boleros to shawls, dice bags to cell phone cases to teapot cozies. I have even stitched an amigurumi DiscWorld and a Bender (from Futurama) beanie.