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Transforming string into art was not something I pictured myself doing when first introduced to crochet when I was a Girl Scout Cadette in a troop going for our Silver Awards. Our project entailed making supplies for a children’s hospital in Sierra Leone. Initially, we sewed pillowcases and hospital gowns. Then, another scout’s grandma taught us to crochet granny square baby blankets. I wish I could say that’s when everything clicked into place. The reality is: I found crochet to be incredibly difficult.
YouTube turned out to be a fantastic resource, and the motivation to complete the Silver Award with my troop kept me going when I got frustrated. I completed four baby blankets. By the fourth blanket, I was even able to watch TV while stitching! Later, I went on to crochet my own projects, often inspired by pop culture. Around the same time I started getting more involved with crochet, I discovered cosplay, or the hobby of dressing up as fictional characters.
In April 2014, Awesome Con hosted an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most superhero cosplayers in one place. I was on spring break and spent the whole week furiously stitching a Scarlet Witch costume. When I arrived at the event head-to-toe in my crocheted cosplay, the emcee announced me as the “Scarlet Stitch.” The record was not broken, but I knew I was only beginning my crochet cosplay journey.
All my free time was spent stitching new cosplays and convincing my mom to let me go to local anime and comic conventions. She was incredibly supportive, agreeing to let me miss school for cons on the condition that I remained a straight-A student. To fund my costumes, I started selling crochet and taking commissions on Etsy.
I enrolled in entrepreneurship classes in high school and started dreaming of what a future for myself could look like after graduation. An art teacher changed the trajectory of my life when she informed me I could “go to school for crochet” through a fiber arts program.
I studied fiber art at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta. While I did meet some cosplayers in school, there was a general understanding that cosplay wasn’t really respected as an art form. I felt obligated to separate my costumes from my work for school, which led me to internalize the idea that cosplay was somehow less valid than the conceptual or technical pieces I made in class. Fine art was appealing to me, but I wasn’t ready to walk away from cosplay.
Still, I loved being a fiber arts student. Having access to all the professional studios and knowledgeable teachers was almost worth all the debt. But it took a long time to find my artistic voice. It really wasn’t until halfway through my third year that I found my footing, finally feeling like I could balance art student and cosplayer.
Three days after my last critique of the year, while walking to school, I was hit by a car. In the first days of the accident I was sore, but I hadn’t broken any bones so it could’ve been worse, right? I spent my winter break going to the chiropractor and resting, thinking things would go back to normal when I started my next semester.
Things did not go back to normal. At the onset of the semester, it was clear I had PTSD and my physical injuries made themselves apparent when I couldn’t keep up with my typical workload. They progressively got worse, too. My neck, hip, knee, back and, most importantly, my hands were seriously hurt. In February of 2020, I dropped two of my classes. I couldn’t pay attention because I couldn’t crochet — or write notes — with my hands constantly rotating between numb or hurting. In my studio classes, instead of improving, I was submitting work I felt was a regression of my skills.
A few weeks later, the semester ended early due to the pandemic. At this point, I couldn’t crochet at all. I was stuck in my apartment, in a body that felt foreign. All my life I’ve struggled with mental health issues and I have experienced being disabled by pain from endometriosis — which could keep me bedridden for over a week at a time, and sometimes twice a month — from age 11. The difference now was I couldn’t crochet or cosplay. Those things got me through the pain before, but now my hooks and makeup brushes taunted me.
When the borders opened, I moved back home with my mom and grandma in the U.S. It was a bizarre feeling to be in my early 20s with health conditions that more closely resembled my grandma’s than those of my peers. I took up a job babysitting three young kids with the flexibility to go to my many doctor appointments. I’ve always been great with kids and getting to create some joy in their life during the scary, uncertain early months of the pandemic was a privilege.
They brought me joy, too. In my time with the kids, I taught them any craft they wanted to learn, and one day that craft was crochet. By this time, I’d spent two years in physical therapy and my hands could tolerate brief demos. Eventually, the kids started really getting into crochet, and I made my first small project alongside them.
Fast-forwarding to the present: I am back to crocheting. Prior to the accident, I could knock out a full cosplay in a week or two; it now takes at least a month to make most of my projects. Some of that is because I try to incorporate new skills and challenge myself, but a lot of the extra time comes from the fact that some days my hands hurt too much to pick up my hook at all. I also spend more time taking breaks and stretching.
Teaching the kids to crochet gave me the confidence to start posting tutorials on my blog and social media. I’ve also started to do educational programming about crochet cosplays at conventions. When I first started attending cons over 10 years ago, other yarn cosplayers were rare, but I now see fellow fiber art cosplayers all the time. A few have even told me I inspired them to crochet their cosplays, which is truly an honor.
My latest cosplay was Zagreus from the video game Hades. The demigod’s character design promised opportunities to try new techniques and shake things up from my last two ball gowns.
The first step for any cosplay is acquiring as many reference photos as I can get my hands on. In some cases, like this build, there are discrepancies even within official art. When this happens, it’s up to the cosplayer to decide what parts of the design to commit to and which versions they won’t be making. Once I know what I’ll be recreating, I source my materials and map out how I want to make each piece.
I knew I wanted to wear this cosplay in warm weather comfortably so all the yarn for my clothing is cotton, and the leggings are sewn with a breathable stretch fabric. I also ordered foam, wooden dowels, electronic components, LEDs and various glues for the sword. I ordered wool yarn for the wig and used some acrylic from my stash. I made the leggings by copying the pattern of my own pair and used a serger I found in my grandma’s attic that is older than me.
The red sash Zagreus drapes over his toga is a long crochet rectangle. I alternated rows of double crochet and single crochet to add variation. I also stitched around the border in a darker color to give the appearance of an outline, something I do throughout the costume to emulate the game’s art style.
The black toga is made like most of my wearable pieces: freehanded, with lots of trying on as I stitch to see how I like the fit. I then added a simple crochet trim in cream to the bottom and a chevron-patterned band around the top. Along the bottom trim, I hand-stitched beads in a mosaic pattern. The beads I chose were not uniformly sized, so they give off a more mosaic-like texture. This was my first time adding textured detail this intricate to my crochet, and multiple people confessed they didn’t realize it was beaded until I told them!
The Cerberus shoulder piece and skull belt were crocheted with cotton yarn and stuffed with polyester filling. I sewed the skulls to a crochet belt and created a foam base for the Cerberus piece, which sits on my shoulder using five magnets. For these pieces, as well as the skull I made for my sword and the trim along the top of my toga, I used Rit fabric dye watered down to various shades to paint weathering details and add dimension. The arm wraps were simple crochet loops with elastic sewn inside to keep them sitting at the right parts of my arms.
This was my third yarn wig. The base is a crochet hat, with elastic and wig clips sewn on the inside. Next, I used black interfacing to make stuffed triangles onto which I layered brushed-out strands of wool and acrylic yarn. I glued the yarn wefts over the bases to create the spikey anime-style hair Zagreus has in the game. (I used both wig glue and fabric glue to hold the wefts to the interfacing.) Then I hot glued each spike to the wig, leaving room for the laurel crown to sit. After each piece was glued on, I flattened them with a hair flat iron. The laurel wreath was made with multiple crochet leaves hot glued onto wire I shaped to fit my head and crocheted around. I like hot gluing acrylic yarn because the heat melts the yarn as well as the glue for extra security.
To wear the cosplay, I use tape to bind my chest and wrap bandages around my chest. At cons, I always wear masks that match my costume, since I am immunocompromised, so I only have to do the top half of my face makeup.
In the Hades game, Zagreus doesn’t wear shoes because he has burning feet. I had zero interest in going barefoot to an anime con, so I needed to come up with a compromise. My solution was to use fabric spray paint on toe socks, and wear flip-flops with them.
The sword is my first crochet sword! Its base is a wooden dowel sandwiched between four layers of foam. Along the sides of the sword, I taped down a strip of LEDs that hook up to a circuit hidden in a crochet pocket behind the skull detail. The circuit can animate the LEDs to flicker, glow or change colors.
With some more programming, I plan to add sound effects and reactions to movement. The skull is attached to the sword with snaps and can come on and off quickly so I can access the electronics. This was my first time soldering and programming a board like this since my car accident. Having my hands be steady enough to solder actually made me tear up. I’m so excited to get back to working with electronics in future crochet projects.
Transforming string into art was not something I pictured myself doing when first introduced to crochet when I was a Girl Scout Cadette in a troop going for our Silver Awards. Our project entailed making supplies for a children’s hospital in Sierra Leone. Initially, we sewed pillowcases and hospital gowns. Then, another scout’s grandma taught us to crochet granny square baby blankets. I wish I could say that’s when everything clicked into place. The reality is: I found crochet to be incredibly difficult.
YouTube turned out to be a fantastic resource, and the motivation to complete the Silver Award with my troop kept me going when I got frustrated. I completed four baby blankets. By the fourth blanket, I was even able to watch TV while stitching! Later, I went on to crochet my own projects, often inspired by pop culture. Around the same time I started getting more involved with crochet, I discovered cosplay, or the hobby of dressing up as fictional characters.
In April 2014, Awesome Con hosted an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most superhero cosplayers in one place. I was on spring break and spent the whole week furiously stitching a Scarlet Witch costume. When I arrived at the event head-to-toe in my crocheted cosplay, the emcee announced me as the “Scarlet Stitch.” The record was not broken, but I knew I was only beginning my crochet cosplay journey.
All my free time was spent stitching new cosplays and convincing my mom to let me go to local anime and comic conventions. She was incredibly supportive, agreeing to let me miss school for cons on the condition that I remained a straight-A student. To fund my costumes, I started selling crochet and taking commissions on Etsy.
I enrolled in entrepreneurship classes in high school and started dreaming of what a future for myself could look like after graduation. An art teacher changed the trajectory of my life when she informed me I could “go to school for crochet” through a fiber arts program.
I studied fiber art at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta. While I did meet some cosplayers in school, there was a general understanding that cosplay wasn’t really respected as an art form. I felt obligated to separate my costumes from my work for school, which led me to internalize the idea that cosplay was somehow less valid than the conceptual or technical pieces I made in class. Fine art was appealing to me, but I wasn’t ready to walk away from cosplay.
Still, I loved being a fiber arts student. Having access to all the professional studios and knowledgeable teachers was almost worth all the debt. But it took a long time to find my artistic voice. It really wasn’t until halfway through my third year that I found my footing, finally feeling like I could balance art student and cosplayer.
Three days after my last critique of the year, while walking to school, I was hit by a car. In the first days of the accident I was sore, but I hadn’t broken any bones so it could’ve been worse, right? I spent my winter break going to the chiropractor and resting, thinking things would go back to normal when I started my next semester.
Things did not go back to normal. At the onset of the semester, it was clear I had PTSD and my physical injuries made themselves apparent when I couldn’t keep up with my typical workload. They progressively got worse, too. My neck, hip, knee, back and, most importantly, my hands were seriously hurt. In February of 2020, I dropped two of my classes. I couldn’t pay attention because I couldn’t crochet — or write notes — with my hands constantly rotating between numb or hurting. In my studio classes, instead of improving, I was submitting work I felt was a regression of my skills.
A few weeks later, the semester ended early due to the pandemic. At this point, I couldn’t crochet at all. I was stuck in my apartment, in a body that felt foreign. All my life I’ve struggled with mental health issues and I have experienced being disabled by pain from endometriosis — which could keep me bedridden for over a week at a time, and sometimes twice a month — from age 11. The difference now was I couldn’t crochet or cosplay. Those things got me through the pain before, but now my hooks and makeup brushes taunted me.
When the borders opened, I moved back home with my mom and grandma in the U.S. It was a bizarre feeling to be in my early 20s with health conditions that more closely resembled my grandma’s than those of my peers. I took up a job babysitting three young kids with the flexibility to go to my many doctor appointments. I’ve always been great with kids and getting to create some joy in their life during the scary, uncertain early months of the pandemic was a privilege.
They brought me joy, too. In my time with the kids, I taught them any craft they wanted to learn, and one day that craft was crochet. By this time, I’d spent two years in physical therapy and my hands could tolerate brief demos. Eventually, the kids started really getting into crochet, and I made my first small project alongside them.
Fast-forwarding to the present: I am back to crocheting. Prior to the accident, I could knock out a full cosplay in a week or two; it now takes at least a month to make most of my projects. Some of that is because I try to incorporate new skills and challenge myself, but a lot of the extra time comes from the fact that some days my hands hurt too much to pick up my hook at all. I also spend more time taking breaks and stretching.
Teaching the kids to crochet gave me the confidence to start posting tutorials on my blog and social media. I’ve also started to do educational programming about crochet cosplays at conventions. When I first started attending cons over 10 years ago, other yarn cosplayers were rare, but I now see fellow fiber art cosplayers all the time. A few have even told me I inspired them to crochet their cosplays, which is truly an honor.
My latest cosplay was Zagreus from the video game Hades. The demigod’s character design promised opportunities to try new techniques and shake things up from my last two ball gowns.
The first step for any cosplay is acquiring as many reference photos as I can get my hands on. In some cases, like this build, there are discrepancies even within official art. When this happens, it’s up to the cosplayer to decide what parts of the design to commit to and which versions they won’t be making. Once I know what I’ll be recreating, I source my materials and map out how I want to make each piece.
I knew I wanted to wear this cosplay in warm weather comfortably so all the yarn for my clothing is cotton, and the leggings are sewn with a breathable stretch fabric. I also ordered foam, wooden dowels, electronic components, LEDs and various glues for the sword. I ordered wool yarn for the wig and used some acrylic from my stash. I made the leggings by copying the pattern of my own pair and used a serger I found in my grandma’s attic that is older than me.
The red sash Zagreus drapes over his toga is a long crochet rectangle. I alternated rows of double crochet and single crochet to add variation. I also stitched around the border in a darker color to give the appearance of an outline, something I do throughout the costume to emulate the game’s art style.
The black toga is made like most of my wearable pieces: freehanded, with lots of trying on as I stitch to see how I like the fit. I then added a simple crochet trim in cream to the bottom and a chevron-patterned band around the top. Along the bottom trim, I hand-stitched beads in a mosaic pattern. The beads I chose were not uniformly sized, so they give off a more mosaic-like texture. This was my first time adding textured detail this intricate to my crochet, and multiple people confessed they didn’t realize it was beaded until I told them!
The Cerberus shoulder piece and skull belt were crocheted with cotton yarn and stuffed with polyester filling. I sewed the skulls to a crochet belt and created a foam base for the Cerberus piece, which sits on my shoulder using five magnets. For these pieces, as well as the skull I made for my sword and the trim along the top of my toga, I used Rit fabric dye watered down to various shades to paint weathering details and add dimension. The arm wraps were simple crochet loops with elastic sewn inside to keep them sitting at the right parts of my arms.
This was my third yarn wig. The base is a crochet hat, with elastic and wig clips sewn on the inside. Next, I used black interfacing to make stuffed triangles onto which I layered brushed-out strands of wool and acrylic yarn. I glued the yarn wefts over the bases to create the spikey anime-style hair Zagreus has in the game. (I used both wig glue and fabric glue to hold the wefts to the interfacing.) Then I hot glued each spike to the wig, leaving room for the laurel crown to sit. After each piece was glued on, I flattened them with a hair flat iron. The laurel wreath was made with multiple crochet leaves hot glued onto wire I shaped to fit my head and crocheted around. I like hot gluing acrylic yarn because the heat melts the yarn as well as the glue for extra security.
To wear the cosplay, I use tape to bind my chest and wrap bandages around my chest. At cons, I always wear masks that match my costume, since I am immunocompromised, so I only have to do the top half of my face makeup.
In the Hades game, Zagreus doesn’t wear shoes because he has burning feet. I had zero interest in going barefoot to an anime con, so I needed to come up with a compromise. My solution was to use fabric spray paint on toe socks, and wear flip-flops with them.
The sword is my first crochet sword! Its base is a wooden dowel sandwiched between four layers of foam. Along the sides of the sword, I taped down a strip of LEDs that hook up to a circuit hidden in a crochet pocket behind the skull detail. The circuit can animate the LEDs to flicker, glow or change colors.
With some more programming, I plan to add sound effects and reactions to movement. The skull is attached to the sword with snaps and can come on and off quickly so I can access the electronics. This was my first time soldering and programming a board like this since my car accident. Having my hands be steady enough to solder actually made me tear up. I’m so excited to get back to working with electronics in future crochet projects.
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