I started crocheting in 2012. I was a dispatcher for the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office and a few of the other dispatchers crocheted, and I would see all of the pretty stuff they were making. They taught me how to do it. Now, I sell a lot of my own over-the-knee socks, hats, scarves and baby items for new and expectant mothers.
Crocheting became a business in 2019. I’m a one-woman show and the name of the business is KD’z Krochet Designz on Facebook. I’m in a business accelerator class in Waterloo [Iowa] that gives Black and brown people the opportunity to start their business from the ground up and get basic business training. Hopefully, that’ll lead into my own website and different platforms to sell my items.
The biggest thing I’ve learned from crocheting is the business side of a small business. You look at people who sell things like arts and crafts and you don’t recognize the value of having something homemade until you start to do it yourself.
YouTube and Pinterest are great tools for beginners. That’s where I get a lot of patterns and ideas from. I learned the basics from my friends at [Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office], and then I got on YouTube and worked with the videos to pick up speed. YouTube is definitely your friend. — Sofia Haan
