Cre­ative Women in Busi­ness: jordi.cro

In the third and fi­nal in­stall­ment of my se­ries Cre­ative Women in Busi­ness, I have fo­cused on women-owned busi­nesses in the cre­ative spaces of St. Louis. The main pur­pose of my se­ries is to high­light women, and to give them recog­ni­tion for their art in the com­mu­nity. This last busi­ness is es­tab­lished by Jor­dyn, an up­com­ing cro­chet artist. 

Photo cour­tesy of Liz San­ti­maw

Jor­dyn (they/​she) is a cro­chet artist and the founder of Jordi.Cro Cro­chet Club, a black + brown + queer cen­tered fiber art cir­cle in St. Louis. They started cro­chet­ing in 2021, and started sell­ing pieces in 2022. Jor­dyn is on In­sta­gram @jordi.cro (https://​www.in­sta­gram.com/​jordi.cro), where you will find their work, up­com­ing events, and pro­jects. 

Photo cour­tesy of Liz San­ti­maw

Jor­dyn’s busi­ness is rel­e­vant to St. Louis and the Maryville au­di­ence, be­cause they are in­volved in many pro­grams both as an artist and an in­struc­tor. It’s im­por­tant to sup­port small lo­cal busi­nesses and black cre­ators. For those who want some­thing hand­made with love and care, Jor­dyn is the per­son to go to!

Photo cour­tesy of Jor­dyn

The col­lage above show­cases a mix of Jor­dyn’s work. Their style is de­scribed as cutesy, bub­bly, and bouncy. They fo­cus on bright bold col­ors and pas­tels in their pro­jects. As for ma­te­ri­als, Jor­dyn uses thick and fluffy yarns with a lot of fuzz and tex­ture. They cre­ate a range of pieces from bags, plushies, decor, tops, and ac­ces­sories. Com­mis­sions are cur­rently closed, but stayed tuned for new re­leases!

Photo cour­tesy of Liz San­ti­maw

“I started cro­chet­ing be­cause me and my room­mate at the time, Vic­to­ria, de­cided to learn to­gether from YouTube videos. I saw a bunch of cro­chet stuff on­line and was like ‘I can do that!’ I would­n’t have learned as quickly if I did­n’t have her. It was kind of com­pet­i­tive be­cause we would go back and forth. When I started to cro­chet, it was all self-taught and we would learn from each other as well…” (cont.)

Photo cour­tesy of Liz San­ti­maw

“I have a cou­ple of cro­chet in­flu­encers on­line that I look up to, maybe not so much as to what they make, but just how con­sis­tent they are and how cre­ative they can be. Artists like chazchanc­ing, cro­chet­bymikiee, and skysol­star on In­sta­gram in­spire me. They do a lot more than ba­sic be­gin­ner pro­jects and I re­ally like how far out-of-the-box they’ve taken cro­chet. Right now, I’m try­ing to branch off from tra­di­tional cro­chet, and even take in­spo from car­toon shows…” (cont.)

Photo cour­tesy of @kabir­i­tude on In­sta­gram 

“Back in Sep­tem­ber of 2023, I made an In­sta­gram post ask­ing if any­one would want to cro­chet to­gether. My in­ten­tion was to be in a cir­cle of peo­ple who al­ready knew how to cro­chet, but I ended up teach­ing. The first un­of­fi­cial meet­ing was three peo­ple in Tower Grove on a pic­nic blan­ket, and it was re­ally fun! For my next one I de­cided I wanted to be in a phys­i­cal space. I reached out to Ymani who owns The Noir Book­shop, which is a black-owned book­store, and she let me use her space. That’s when I hosted the first of­fi­cial Jordi.Cro Cro­chet Club meetup in De­cem­ber of 2023…” (cont.)

Photo cour­tesy of @kabir­i­tude on In­sta­gram 

“It was a great turn out, I baked cook­ies, and brought free snacks for every­body. I also want every event I do to be free, and sup­ply ma­te­ri­als as well. I hosted an­other event for Valen­tine’s Day, and that one got a lot of at­ten­tion where a huge age range showed up. It was re­ally sweet to be a part of the com­mu­nity like that. I love giv­ing back es­pe­cially with a craft that I en­joy. I in­vite all skill lev­els, and every­one is wel­come. I’m plan­ning an­other cro­chet club meet­ing soon so stay on the look­out for them on Sun­days.” ~ Jor­dyn

Photo cour­tesy of Ma­lik Fabian-Mah­mud 

Be­cause of Jor­dyn’s cro­chet club, they got scouted by the Legacy Cen­ter which is an af­ter­school pro­gram for the Nor­mandy School Dis­trict in North County. They were asked to come teach cro­chet classes to chil­dren from el­e­men­tary school through high school. Jor­dyn teaches two times a week and has said it’s been a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence since it is very dif­fer­ent from their adult classes.

Photo cour­tesy of Liz San­ti­maw

“The most re­ward­ing part of my job is watch­ing my stu­dents get it af­ter be­ing frus­trated. See­ing peo­ple get ex­cited about cro­chet­ing makes me re­ally happy. Ini­tially, every­one thinks this is a grandma ac­tiv­ity, and then they’re sur­prised at how much fun they’re hav­ing. As a goal for the fu­ture, I made a do­na­tion call so every­one that comes can leave with the ma­te­ri­als and be able to prac­tice at home for free.” ~ Jor­dyn

Photo cour­tesy of Liz San­ti­maw

Jor­dyn is an amaz­ing artist and in­struc­tor. Their love for cro­chet has greatly in­spired oth­ers in the St. Louis com­mu­nity. They bring cro­chet­ing into such a fun and open space that I haven’t seen be­fore. I en­joyed in­ter­view­ing Jor­dyn and I can’t wait to see what else they cre­ate! Don’t for­get to keep an eye out for new drops and sign up for the next Jordi.Cro Cro­chet Club. <3