December Recap, 2024 Wrap up and 2025 Goals
December was quite the whirlwind of a month, as I am sure it is for all crafters! We started off December with a small local craft fair. It was the host’s first year setting up this fair. The turnout wasn’t the best, but we did make a few sales and got our name out there.
In December, Cedar the Christmas Tree Dragon pattern was released! He was such a fun pattern to design, I love that the spikes look like the lights that you hang on the tree! I also adapted my Phoenix, the Husky Reindeer pattern into a Beagle for a custom order. He was fun to make and my customer named him “Pip!” I plan to add the beagle as another pattern at some point in 2025.
Another custom order that I made this month was a rainbow dragon using Redmills_Crochet’s Luna Moth Dragon Pattern. I really loved how this came out and hope to find the time to make more in the future!
In mid December, we did a family trip to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. I made a warm Mickey ear hat for my mom. The pattern I used was the Jenna hat by CrochetDreamz. I made the base hat without the pompom and made my own ears and bow for the hat. It came out ok, but I could definitely use some practice sewing additions to hats. and for my niece I made her first Santa hat. For this hat I used the pattern by Naztazia. I wanted to make something for everyone, but with how busy the end of the year was for fairs and orders, I just ran out of time!
Other plushes I made this month were the axolotl snugglers by justamom_crocheting and the Diddy Dex by handmadebyjodie. Both patterns were really fun and quick to work up. I have several more dragons in process that I plan to add to my shop soon!
2024 Has been a big year for me. I originally opened my etsy shop up back in 2017. I was starting to design my own plushes, however I really focused more on selling the finished product and doing made to order plushes. In 2022 I got pregnant and had to slow down by the time my baby was born in October. I took about a little more than a year with my shop on vacation mode while I adjusted to being a new mother and taking the time to realize that I was not going to be able to produce as many finished plushes as I had previously. Early this year I decided to start focusing on tools that would be helpful to crochet artists and started learning about making sewing sticks and stitch markers. Later, as I noticed that the clear safety eyes were starting to be used more and more instead of plain black eyes, I took the time to start learning the best way to paint them. I have been really appreciative of the love and support my shop has gotten throughout the year as I have been rediscovering my crochet drive and my branding.
I have also found many great crochet artists this year and love seeing how everyone works as a community. Some of my favorite patterns from other designers this year have been Winnie the Dragon by Redmills_Crochet and Kain the Quetzalcoatl by Maris_Stuffies. I didn’t get back to focusing on pattern designing until the later half of the year but I’m amazed I managed to design and release 4 paid patterns and 2 free patterns. My big goal for 2025 is to continue working on pattern designing, with hopefully 1 new paid and 1 new free pattern a month. I would also like to go back to my old designs and type them up and revamp some of the older ones on my page that didn’t have pattern testers for. So be on the lookout for many pattern tests in the future!
I am sad to leave the year of the dragon behind, but 2025 is the year of the snake! I currently have a tester call open for a Tsuchinoko. It’s a fairly quick and simple pattern that has no sewing apart from closing up the tail. Leaving the year of the dragon behind does not mean I won’t be designing any dragons this year! I already have plans for a couple different designs and can’t wait to get started on designing them! If there are any particular designs you would like to see get made, let me know! I look forward to seeing how my page grows this year and what new things we make!
