The Beginning: 20 Years of The Crochet Dude®
Hello friends,
This month marks something that honestly feels a little surreal to say out loud:
20 years of The Crochet Dude®.
Two decades of yarn, hooks, road trips, classes, laughter, product lines, teaching tours, television appearances, books, trade shows, blog posts, mistakes, reinventions, and most of all—people.
Real people.
People who learned their first stitches with me.
People who showed up in classes with nervous hands and left with confidence.
People who brought crochet back into their lives after years away.
People who passed the craft along to children, friends, and family.
People who stayed.
As we begin this month-long celebration, I’ve been thinking less about milestones and more about beginnings.
The first pattern. The first class. The first time someone recognized the name The Crochet Dude®. The first booth at a show. The first time I realized this was becoming more than a hobby—it was becoming a life.
Back then, none of this came with guarantees. There was no roadmap, no algorithm, and no certainty.
Just a hook, some yarn, an idea, and the feeling that making things by hand still mattered.
Twenty years later, I believe that even more deeply.
This first week of the celebration is dedicated to the beginning of the journey—the early patterns, the grassroots hustle, the printed sheets in local yarn shops, the road miles, the classes, and the wonderfully analog ways real people found me before social media became what it is today.
Some of you were there in those early days. Some of you found me later. Some of you may have just arrived.
No matter when you joined the story, I’m so glad you’re here.
If you’re newer to my world and wondering where The Crochet Dude® began, I put together a page sharing the story behind these 20 years of crochet, creativity, and community. You can read that here.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing throwback patterns, old photos, stories from the road, favorite memories, and a few surprises from the archives.
And because every good beginning deserves a place to continue, I’m also making sure these classic patterns have a permanent home on The Bear & Fox Yarn Den™ website, where they can be downloaded and enjoyed by a whole new generation of makers.
If you happen to find yourself near us in Allegan, I’d love to invite you to come visit the shop. For this anniversary celebration, we’ve brought out a selection of The Crochet Dude® products from the vault—pieces from earlier chapters of the journey that are available in the shop while they last.
It has been especially meaningful to see those familiar items in person again, and I think some of you might enjoy seeing them too.
Thank you for being part of this story.
Truly.
Whether you’ve been here for twenty years or twenty minutes, you’ve helped make this creative life what it became.
And the beautiful thing is, this still feels like a beginning.
With gratitude,
Drew Emborsky
The Crochet Dude®
Co-founder, The Bear & Fox Yarn Den™