Stacy Rhoads of Too Yarn Cute

Stacy Rhoads of Too Yarn Cute is the latest of the crochet bloggers appearing on the Yarn Thing podcast with Marly Bird. Her website is www.tooyarncute.com

Stacy Rhoads is a self-taught crocheter. Her grandmother and great-grandmother were both crocheters, but she thought she she was ‘too cool’ to ask to learn from them. (Now that her grandmother has passed away, she wishes she had learned from her but she feels her presence when she crochets.) Stacy was determined to crochet, and felt important to carry it on. She is a visual crocheter, which becomes hard,when learning to read patterns. When she writes patterns, she sometimes finds that she has created stitches that she can’t find names for elsewhere and has to name them herself, then figure out how to describe how they’re done.

Two years ago, in preparation for a Christmas Craft show, she wanted to create a Rudolph hat. Tara from Triffles and Treasures saw that she was struggling with the creation of the eyes and lent her a hand and once the pattern was created, really encouraged her to publish that pattern, her first one on Ravelry.

Her website was begun about a year ago as a way to share with others after she had been posting things on Facebook. Stacy is visually and hearing impaired and wanted an income not based on her disability. When she got into the blogger and designer world, she realized that she wanted to encourage others the way she had been treated. She lists patterns that she feels are simple as available for no charge, which she realizes brings traffic to her website, and more challenging patterns have different levels of pricing.

Stacy’s designs originate from a desire to meet her needs. A friend, or a relative will ask for something, or her kids will ask her to match their toys. For instance, two years ago the houndstooth color patterning seemed to be popular, she created a collection that uses it. (Really, her Rudolph patterns still are the most popular. They are very cute!) You can check out her patterns that are listed in Ravelry at THIS LINK.

Eventually she evolved her work into an e-magazine, and is working toward a directory of patterns, to save us time from scrolling between Ravelry and other pattern resources.