This post was updated Oct. 17 at 7:53 p.m.

From keychains to plushies, Melanie Beltran has many projects under her hook.

The third-year psychology student runs CrochetvilleGoods, a crochet business that includes a shop on Etsy and commissioned work. She said she learned to crochet in her senior year of high school during the COVID-19 pandemic and began watching video tutorials, focusing on practicing different stitches before moving on to amigurumi – creating stuffed pieces via needlework techniques such as crochet.

“I wasn’t making anything at first,” Beltran said. “It could look like a little blanket, basically a little square, so just practicing each stitch – and it was difficult, and I sometimes didn’t understand why it was too loose. I didn’t understand why my hook wasn’t going into it and in a certain way.”

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Crystal Beltran, Melanie’s older sister, said Melanie started with smaller projects such as keychains and later turned to making advanced pieces such as teddy bears and flower bouquets. She added that she is impressed with her sister’s ability to learn the craft on her own as well as the progress she has made in her journey.

As she transitioned into creating amigurumi, Melanie said she encountered several obstacles. She said at first, she struggled to identify the tiny stitches shown in tutorial videos, adjust to the traction of the yarn – which can hurt one’s fingers – and tension the hook. She added that tensioning the hook is crucial for amigurumi, as a loose tension can allow stuffing to peek through the stitches, while an extremely tight tension can end up squishing the abdomen of the crocheted product.

Regarding her decision to turn crochet into a business, Melanie said her family has supported her in this endeavor, including her dad who owns a small business, The Beltran Bros, in which he creates miniature art and dioramas of various objects and scenes depending on the commission. He encouraged her to pursue a similar venture with crochet, and her family also helped with testing out names for her business, she said. She also tried combining different names and looking at other small businesses for inspiration, she added.

“It took a long while to come up with a name because it’s hard to be creative sometimes, and it’s difficult to find a name that nobody else has used, especially common names,” she said. “But I had sat down for like an hour or two just thinking of names and asking my family members.”

In her business, Melanie said, customers can commission pieces, with her favorite being a crocheted Bernie Sanders inspired by the Bernie Sanders mittens meme. The request was unexpected and something she didn’t think anyone would ask her to make, but the process of making it was enjoyable and resulted in an end product she felt proud of, she said.

Lahisha Marquez-Soto, a friend of Melanie’s, said she followed Melanie on Instagram and after learning about her crochet business, began commissioning pieces such as the Bernie Sanders plushie. She said she appreciates Melanie’s attention to detail, mentioning how she included the chair from the mittens meme to complete the Bernie Sanders piece as well as adding a line of wire for the glasses.

Melanie’s creative process involves lots of background work, Crystal said, as whenever she receives an order, she goes to craft stores to find yarn with colors that match the design. Additionally, Marquez-Soto said Melanie is attentive to her customers’ expectations, recalling a time when Melanie gave her several patterns to choose from for a commission of Shrek.

“People make Shrek differently, especially when you crochet,” Marquez-Soto said. “She chose three patterns, and it took her a little while to look for them, but I liked that because she just wants to make sure she’s getting something that she knows we’ll like.”

While running CrochetvilleGoods, Melanie said she has faced several challenges, including navigating her business’s social media and balancing her crocheting with her classes. Finding trendy sounds and trying to go viral on multiple platforms such as Instagram and TikTok can also be difficult, she said. Crocheting amigurumi is also a tedious process, as she not only has to make various parts individually including the head, body and arms, but she also has to sew them together, she said.

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In the future, Melanie said she hopes to continue fulfilling commissions because her customers provide her with a variety of ideas for amigurumi plushies – from Bernie Sanders to Frankenstein’s wife – that she might never have thought to make. She also said she wants to begin selling small keychains as part of her business, as they can be made quickly.

Seeing her customers enjoy their orders and post them on social media makes her day, she said, as she spends several hours every week to ensure that they are satisfied with the end result. She said when she sold her first crocheted item – a small red narwhal – she felt ecstatic because it was the first time she had made something for somebody who had paid her to do it. For people who want to learn how to crochet and also transform it into a business, she said they should focus on the reward that comes with putting in the effort to create something.

“Even if it didn’t turn out the way you think it should turn out, in the future, you’ll look back on yourself and say, ‘Oh, wow, look how far I’ve come,’” she said.