Welcome back to #Marchmeetthemaker Day 2 everyone! If you’re here because of yesterday’s March Meet the Maker Day 1 post, welcome back! If this is your first visit here, welcome and make yourself at home! And, if you’re a tried and true follower of the blog (you know who you are **wink, wink**) thank you for your support! Today’s prompt is… “All About You”. So I’m going to be a bit more selfish than usual and ramble about myself lol
I won’t bore you all into the crazy details of how I got started crocheting, (although if you’re interested I DO go into all of those details in my first blog post: “Chapter 1: It Began with a Hat…” onceuponahook.weebly.com/once-upon-a-hellipblog/chapter-1-it-began-with-a-hat#/ ), but for today I’m just going to talk about the actual girl behind the hook! For those of you who don’t know me personally, my name is Victoria and I am (what is probably obvious at this point), the fiber artist behind Once Upon a Hook Crochet. I am a native born Michigander who is currently transplanted in NC. Although, if I’m being honest, NC is home at this point. Growing up, I came from a relatively small family, with some amazingly crafty women in my family tree. You name a craft, hobby or DIY and I can almost guarantee myself, my aunt, my mother, my grandmother, or my great grandmother has probably tried some version of it! It definitely has made for some great stories, and even greater memories over the years; and I can confidently say that it has provided me with many opportunities to stretch my imagination and thinking skills. Clearly I fell into my little niche of the hobby world with crochet, but I do still craft about with other things from time to time too. And I don’t plan to stop any time soon! For all of my childhood I grew up taking dance classes, and for a short few years during middle school and high school I even danced with a semi-professional children’s ballet company! While I loved to do jazz and tap, ballet was easily my favorite style of dance; especially pointe. I had a part time after school job as an assistant teacher at my local dance studio and loved every single second of it. Which is why it came as a huge surprise to many, during my senior year of high school when I announced that I had planned to join the Marine Corps. Talk about a career change, am I right?! I wouldn’t change the decision for the world though. While I only did a 5 year enlistment as a videographer I met some of the most amazing people (to include my husband), and took part in some amazing experiences. A few favorites that stand out are getting to take video imagery of the F-35B aircraft on it’s first flight(s) at Cherry Point (a Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina), and working with Costal Riverine Squadron during their Call to Fire exercise (in what was probably the coldest, wettest training exercise I ever went on). Of course there were plenty for other great memories splattered throughout my time at Cherry Point as well. To say those years were an adventure would be an understatement! Clearly though, I like to make sharp left turns when it comes to my life and have since moved into a more… artistic… style of life as I now take part in all things fiber related. So, as for the here and now, 2023 marks some pretty awesome milestones for me and my family. First off, I’m turning 30!! Which is crazy to even say out loud lol. My husband and I will also be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary; and of course all 5 of our kiddos are looking forward to their respective birthday’s as well. As you can see, much to celebrate within my personal life this year! Professionally I am *hoping* to get some great milestones in too. For starters, I am hoping to have my first official crochet pattern book published and available by the end of the year! I am also expanding my social media presence and storefront(s). My site here, which originally started out as just a simple little blog, will now host all of my crochet pattern PDFs, as well as finished, ready to ship and made to order pieces. I will even be adding a section for those looking to get custom commissions done (in case nothing I currently have to offer strikes your fancy). I am also expanding from Ravelry! So for those who prefer to purchase their patterns from a site that keeps everything in a hand little “library” all in one place and also supports other fiber artists and their patterns you can find me at both Ravelry and Riblr! Finally, I am hoping to show more behind the scenes work on both Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Which is why the March Meet the Maker month prompts are super important to me this year. I’m hoping that by working all month long with these prompts helps light a fire under me to keep up the momentum and show off the remainder of the year! Well, I think that’s it for now. In reality I could really go down a rabbit-hole about all the crazy things I’ve done in almost 30 years of living, but I think I’ll just end it here for now lol If you’ve made it this far I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your March and as always, Happy Hooking!
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March Meet the Maker is back!! If you’ve been amongst the Instagram maker/small business community for a bit of time now, you probably already know all about this month long Instagram event created by Joanne Hawker. I won’t go into too many details myself (in fact I HIGHLY recommend checking out the official web page: https://www.marchmeetthemaker.com/ ), but I am super excited to be *attempting* to take part in all of its goodness this year! Because the event is for Instagram I will do the majority of my sharing over on that space (and I’d love for you to come give a follow if you like!), but some of the prompts definitely deserve some longer posting in my opinion and I will be throwing in some of my blog ramblings as those themes come up! I also plan to show off some in theme TikTok’s and Facebook posts as well . I can’t wait for you all to meet this maker… so without further ado, here’s today’s post! BRAND ORIGIN Once upon a time, a girl named Victoria fell in love with crocheting. So much so that she decided to create a Facebook page where she could share (and potentially sell) her finished crafts. At this time the Facebook page was known as, “Victoria Stewart’s Creations”; because if Martha Stewart could brand herself as a household name, why couldn’t a girl named Victoria?
I’ll tell you why… from a bit far away “Victoria Stewart” can quickly be misread for “Victoria’s Secret”; and that was NOT the type of household name I was going for! So after a few brainstorming sessions I managed to create a list of all the fun and whimsical things I had loved over the course of my life. All of which had the elegant theme of what I call, “storybook-esque”. As a note, I would like to say that at this time I was not yet into the crochet pattern design scene. I had ZERO idea that I would ever become a pattern designer, and as such only had lofty dreams of stitching up beautiful heirloom dolls, lace-y blankets, and other timeless Pinterest and magazine photo worthy pieces. To stay on trend with this theme I thought about how every great fairytale began, “Once upon a time….” And tailored the phrase to my craft. I spent hours Googling the phrase, “Once Upon a Hook” or titles similar to see if my amazing idea had already been claimed, and was happy to find that a crochet/fiber arts business by such a title had not yet been taken. So I grabbed it and ran! Fast! Once I had my name picked out, my years of cross training with the Reproduction/Graphics Marines while in the Marine Corps took over and I began sketching a few drafts for a logo design. I knew I wanted something timeless, that would immediately spark brand recognition. I played around with the idea of an open book with yarn and hook intertwined around it, but ultimately found love with the logo you see today, which is an old school ink quill pen with the nub changed out for the tip of a crochet hook. If I’m being completely honest, that logo is my pride and joy (I’m even debating getting it tattooed onto my forearm I love it so much!). My logo encompasses so many things about my business; most importantly it serves as a reminder of the path I took to get to where I am as well as a compass pointing to all of the great pieces yet to be designed. And as any reader knows, a great story is all about the journey - past, present and future. At the risk of showing off my vulnerability, I will admit, I have a good deal of self doubt about my brand. Not necessarily that it’s a bad idea, but I know my want to “make all the things” sometimes clouds over my want for solid brand recognition. Clearly the patterns I design aren’t the typical cutesy, whimsical, heirloom pieces I imaged when I first began. Nonetheless, my hope is to one day have my logo immediately recognizable in the fiber arts community. I think of all of my favorite designers such as Natalie Allen from The Twisted Hatter, Stephanie Pokorny from Crochetverse, Mikey from the Crochet Crowd, Sarah Zimmerman from Repeat Crafter Me and all of the other amazing fiber artists I’ve learned from along the way. All of them put in crazy amounts of hard work to create the brand they’re known for, and I can only hope to one day be even half as popular as they are lol So, there you have it. a bit of my story and how it came to be. If you happened to make it this far in my ramblings, I hope you have an amazing beginning to your month of March! I look forward to sharing more of my story with you all thought the rest of the month; and as always Happy Hooking! |
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