This week’s Farmer Focus is senior Julissa Fortiz, a young crocheter who hopes to take her small business even further.

SNAPSHOTS

Favorite fashion trend: Cargo pants

Dream pet: Sugar glider

Someone you can’t live without: My mom

Would you rather have no legs or no arms: No legs

Lucky number: Three

ZOOMING IN

Q: How did you get into crochet?

A: “I’ve always kind of been into it, but I stopped because school got really busy. I used to do it in elementary school, and then I stopped doing it. I think it was last year over the summer [when] I started doing it again. I [crocheted] one thing and I was like ‘Oh this is so fun,’ so I started doing more stuff.”

Q: How did you learn to crochet?

A: “I had this teacher, I think it was fifth grade, she had this little knitting club and we learned how to knit, but we didn’t really learn how to crochet. I just was playing with yarn and I picked [crochet] up. Later on, I found out there were different types of stitches and different things you could do.”

Q: How do you sell and market your creations?

A: “I use Instagram and I post the stuff that I make, and then I just repost it on my main account. Usually, the way that I’ve sold a couple of stuff is a friend of a friend will be like ‘Oh, hey my friend saw this, but they’re kind of scared to talk to you.’”

Q: How many things have you crocheted in total?

A: “[I’ve crocheted] a lot of things, maybe more than 30 because I’ve done a bunch of flowers, I’ve done a couple plushies and I did some clothes. I’ve [also] made a bunch of car hangers — I really like doing those. Currently, the most recent thing I did was a bee [car hanger].”

Q: How do you price your crochet creations?

A: “It’s hard because it takes time and material [to make them]. If you price it the right way, no one would buy your stuff — it would be too expensive. There’s [a website and] they have a whole equation and you just put in [how much time it took to make] and how much material you [used] and then it’ll give you the number that you should price it at. [The number is] usually really high, so I just gage it on if I already have this [material], I’ll just sell it for X amount of money. It also depends on how big it is. The little car hangers that I do, their starting [price] would be $15, and it depends on color changes, or how hard it would be [to make].”

Q: What is the toughest part about crochet?

A: “The toughest part would be finding the time to do it because I work and I have school all the time. Whenever I have a spare minute, crochet is my go to.”

Q: What is the feedback you’ve received from your creations?

A: “People always tell me they’re so cute and ‘Oh I love it.’ I’ve had someone I didn’t talk to for a really long time reach out to me to buy something because they were like ‘I would never get this from anyone else, but I would from you.’”

Q: What do you hope to do with crochet in the future?

A: “I would like to do those little pop up shops that people do in the mall, I’d like to do one of those one day if I had the time. I used to be really big into fashion, so that would be really cool to one day do a clothing [pop up shop]. It is a lot of work, a lot of dedication and commitment.”