Bow Ties are Cool…
I taught myself the basics of crochet 10+ years ago because I wanted to make hats for my nephews and assorted babies that kept being born in my periphery. I didn’t really know what I was doing but thanks to youtube I learned a couple stitches and got the basics of a hat pattern. My nephews got stegosaurus and fox ear hats for Christmas one year and got my first and second toys. To be honest, I still don’t know at all what I’m doing with crochet and cannot read a pattern, but I can picture what I want to do and eventually make it happen, as long as it uses the stitches I figured out!
For a while I was making mostly toys and hats and scarfs, eventually I had so many hats around I gave them out to friends that were at my house one day - I tried selling them but I am SLOW at crochet and my meger sales and inventory weren’t worth the effort when there are a lot of much more talented apparel makers in Minnesota who deserve such sales.
Toys are a ton of fun to make and I still do it every once in a while, but it’s more of a labor of love than a business venture because these little sculptures are all unique and soooooo many hours of work that to put a price tag on it feels silly. If you or your child received something that wasn’t a bow tie made by me in crochet just know that’s me saying I love you.
So I was looking for a way to make things using crochet that were somewhat efficient but also worth making and I found inspiration for what that product would be from my very best cat friend and first fur-child, Shatner.
Shatner in a red Bow Tie
Shatner always wears a collar, as a younger cat especially he had a penchant for escape and wanted nothing more than to be a wild cat (the new house seems to have tamped that instinct down finally). So he is always tagged, always. Shatner had this cute little white collar with a bow that he got I think for Christmas. He wore it until the bow fell off and then I sewed up another bow. But that got me thinking and one day I crocheted a little bow tie for him so he would have another option. My solution solved another issue we kept running into - his tag would fall into his wet foot and get coated, the bow helped hold it back while eating. Yes his bow gets dirty but thankfully these are washable.
I’ve also found that the bow can really help with noise reduction for dog tags, something I didn’t realize was an issue until Benny came into our lives and had three metal tags jingling on his collar (ID, vaccination, and city license). So I made a cardboard model of Benny and about 100 bows and added them to my product line.
Our Benny with his bow taking a cuddle snooze.
Our little Moss with his pop of color Bow Tie in Orange.
The bow ties are probably my highest volume item, they are also the cheapest, I charge $8 regardless of size. So if you really want value you can get the biggest bow tie you’ve ever seen but typically sizing to suit the dog or cat is the way a lot of people go. Sometimes that means sizing to the dog’s personality though, as my friend Mulberry demonstrates.
Mulberry with her extra large bow
I originally wrote this post in May but it was shelved because sadly we lost Benny that week and I couldn’t bring myself to deal with it for a while. We’ve recently added a new Fur Baby to the pack though so things are feeling more normal again. So I’ve added some pictures of Doug modeling his many bow ties.
You can find bows in all sizes and colors at DARE Minneapolis - make an appointment to shop by texting 612-454-5456 or shop on their open days noted in the Find Us Here section of this site.
