July 2025

4 August 2025

Crochet keychains shaped like octopuses, with colorful stripes matching various LGBTQIA+ pride flags, rainbow, bisexual, transgender, pansexual, non-binary, asexual, and lesbian.

The beginning of July was similarly quiet as June. I continued to make more pride-themed items in preparation for QueerCon. One of my bestsellers at previous cons had been my Octopus keychains (especially the blue variant). So, I decided to turn them into pride keychains.

Crochet flower pins stacked on top of each other, shaped and colored like a daisy, a sunflower, or in various LGBTQIA+ pride flag colors. Some have letter beads spelling out pronouns. One pin is turned around, showing the brooch pin on its back.

Once I had completed the Octopus keychains, I continued making more of the flower pins that I showed in my last post. I managed to make eight different flags, in addition to the sunflower and daisy variants. Then I added pronouns to a few of them using letter beads.

Two crochet flower pins, each a pale yellow center and twelve petals, representing pride flags (left: bisexual and agend, right: pansexual and genderqueer). Letter beads are sewn on spelling pronouns (left: they/he, right: they/she).

As a showcase of the bespoke items I can make on commission, I also crocheted custom pins for my partner and myself, combining the colors of two flags each (pansexual and genderqueer for them, bisexual and agender for me) and showing our pronouns.

The last week of the month (leading into August) was pride week here in Stockholm, and a local club called QueerNördarna (or Queer & Nerdy in English) hosted a small two-day convention, appropriately called QueerCon. There was a board game room, TTRPG sessions, and panels on queer and nerdy topics, but most importantly (for my partner and me) there was an artist alley. Bringing our wares to the con proved a little more complicated than usual. The venue was located in the old city center (Gamla stan), so driving wasn't an option. Instead, we took public transit to the nearest station, dragged our carts up the old cobblestone streets, and then hauled our boxes up two flights of windy stairs. That was definitely quite the workout.

I shouldn't complain, though. QueerCon ended up a major success for me. Even though the artist alley was open for only four hours on each day, I sold for almost as much as at VänCon, which was longer and had more visitors. My pride keychains were especially successful, with the trans, lesbian, and asexual variants selling the best. Of course, this hardly a surprise at a queer event. The flower pins didn't sell quite as well, but both non-binary pins with they/them pronoun beads found new owners. Not sure, if those items will sell as well at other events, but I will definitely keep them in stock. Curiously, out of all the dragon scale dice bags that I made, I only sold the ones in the same colorway (Interstellar) as the ones sold at VänCon. I guess I should keep those in stock as well.

For the next two weeks, I will still be on vacation, and my plans are to finally write up the patterns for some of my popular items. I even got a small donation, from a fellow crocheter, after I told them I was planning to post free patterns. Lastly, I have some more ideas for crochet pins, looking to better match the space/astronomy theme that the title of this website implies. I attempted to make spiral/vortex bins in agender colors to represent an accreting black hole (see my first two attempts below), but I think with a few modifications these will work better as spiral galaxies. I will try to post more frequently on this design process as well.