OU ballet senior Alayna Wong founded Jeté & Crochet, a crochet business featuring 3D animals from a childhood hobby.
Wong crocheted as a child and decided to pick it up again to fill the long hours between dance rehearsals as a trainee at Oklahoma City Ballet. Wong was inspired to make Amigurumi, Japanese miniature stuffed yarn figurines, which caught her fellow dancers’ attention.
“I would spend my time making these, and then people started being like, ‘Oh, I’d love to buy one!’ And my friend for their birthday was like, ‘Can you make this? Can you make that?’” Wong said.
Wong began selling her products to fellow dancers at Oklahoma City Ballet. She said that as her confidence grew in Jeté & Crochet, she created an Etsy and Instagram page to showcase her orders and self-made patterns.
“(Instagram) helps act as like a catalog when people are like, ‘What have you done before?’ They can pull it up and just scroll through,” Wong said. “And it’s really easy for them to see the possibilities.”
After beginning Jeté & Crochet, Wong faced some difficulties. Wong said the most significant difficulty was determining pricing because she was unsure of the value of her products and was afraid of customers being off put by higher prices.
“I was really insecure about whether or not people would buy them, so I way undercharged,” Wong said. “I thought people wouldn’t buy them because they’d be like, ‘Oh that little thing? I wouldn’t pay that much for it.'”
After advice and encouragement from her friends, Wong said she realized her products were underpriced. Wong said that their words helped her understand that customers saw the value in her quality, hand-made products, which increased her assurance.
“I’ve learned to kind of appreciate that (advice),” Wong said. “As a maker, I think I’m just more confident.”
Houndoom crocheted by Wong.
With time, Wong said that her crochet experience has helped refine her technical skills. Wong said that when designing a product, she is able to tweak designs to her liking based on other artists’ examples and tailor the final product for the customer.
Wong said that an important feature of Jeté & Crochet is developing her own patterns to create custom orders, one of her proudest being the Pokémon Houndoom. Wong’s crochet experience has allowed her to develop such designs. She said she has developed a formula for the base of her patterns then adds varying details.
“The head is a specific size, the body is a specific size, the arms and legs tend to be the same size, and then it’s all the details around it, like the tail or the ears,” Wong said.
Although ballet is not completely connected to the central product, Wong said she took inspiration from it when naming her business. Jeté is a common ballet jump where the dancer springs from one leg to the other. Wong said when it came to naming her business, it made sense to incorporate Jeté because both ballet and crochet play significant roles in her life.
OU ballet senior and Jeté & Crochet owner Alayna Wong.
“(That) is why the name is Jeté & Crochet, because I wanted to combine the two things that I am most passionate about,” Wong said. “They act as different, yet intertwined, therapeutic and creative avenues.”
Wong recognizes that ballet and crochet are very different in substance. However, Wong said that despite their disparities, she appreciates that ballet and crochet allow her to channel her creativity respectively.
“Crochet allows me to create something tangible that kind of stays, versus ballet is more of like a live performance art,” Wong said. “It’s kind of like you see the performance and it’s a little bit different every night.”
Jessie Lynn, a fellow OU ballet dancer and returning customer, has purchased various products from Jeté & Crochet over time, ranging from a tote bag to a custom Halloween-themed ghost. Lynn said Wong’s devotion initially drew her to Jeté & Crochet.
“I always see her working on it,” Lynn said. “I can just tell she’s really passionate about it so I really like supporting her in that way.”
Wong’s determination and creativity both in her business and in dance are apparent to Lynn. She said that in the many times she has danced with Wong, she is very reliable, always focused and that Wong’s consistency and reliability in the studio are just one of many characteristics that translate over to Jeté & Crochet.
“I’ve never gotten something from her that I thought was lower quality than I expected,” Lynn said. “Pretty much everything that she puts on her social media, that’s exactly what you got.”
Jeté & Crochet’s newest prospect is participating in the 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk, a monthly celebration of art. She first began selling at Art Walk in the summer of 2022, where she said she received eye-opening reception that assured her of the feasibility of Jeté & Crochet.
“The first time I rang up the totals from Art Walk I was like, 'Oh! People are actually interested in my products!'” Wong said. “When people continue to walk by and are like, ‘Look at that! That’s so cool!’ I know that there are people who will continue to be interested in it.”
Cher Duncan, programming and development manager of the Norman Arts Council, wrote in an email to the Daily that one of the goals of the art walk is to bring something of interest to all community members.
“Many people in our community love to crochet, so Jeté & Crochet provides an opportunity for these community members to meet and share that interest,” Duncan said in the email.
Wong said her products frequently capture the attention of community members walking down Main Street during the art walk. Wong particularly cherishes when people engage with her booth by saying how much they want a product or when people return after other plans.
“My favorite is when people come to the table and they say, ‘Are you the one who’s selling little crocheted animals? This other person told me about it!’” Wong said.
The Norman Arts Council was founded in 1976 to enrich the arts community in Norman, and Duncan wrote in an email to the Daily that Jeté & Crochet fulfills the council’s mission.
“Jeté & Crochet is creating vibrancy in our community by sharing their passion, and the more people they share their passion with is growing the arts in our community,” Duncan wrote in an email to the Daily. “They are a great example of the Norman Arts Council’s mission.”
Though rewarding, Wong said assembling a booth stocked with hand-made products every month consumes a lot of time. Wong finds herself consistently working on something, whether it be Etsy orders, requests or Art Walk stock. While each figurine takes about two hours to make, Wong said she doesn’t mind it because, unlike other work, she loves to crochet.
The addition of Jeté & Crochet to Wong’s already busy schedule has been challenging. She said that the prospect of gaining too much traction seems overwhelming to her, but currently the pace that things are coming in is perfect for a student.
Wong said that she is always looking to improve in the realms of both ballet and crochet. With respect to crochet, Wong said that she is eager to further develop her technique.
“I would love to continue to develop my crochet techniques and skills that I’m developing in it,” Wong said. "I’d love to get faster, and I’m continuing to develop a lot of my patterns.”
In terms of ballet, after graduating Wong said she plans to join a professional ballet company. Wong said that she has potential hopes of continuing Jeté & Crochet and is reassured of the possibility by her friends at Oklahoma City Ballet who have opened crochet businesses for dance attire.
“I would love to maybe explore making it into like a full time business afterward, once I’m settled into a ballet career or maybe I have a schedule that’s a little bit more long term,” Wong said.
The main motivation behind Jeté & Crochet is the enjoyment she gets from making people happy despite the world’s constant chaos. She enjoys acting as a rainbow in the wake of a storm.
“There’s so much to be sad about in today’s world,” Wong said. “You open your phone and there’s eight million things to be like, ‘Ugh, again?’ And (Jeté & Crochet) is just a little ray of happiness to bring to people’s day. That’s probably the most satisfactory part,” Wong said.
Wong’s booth in the 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk is stationed at Rusty’s Custard Factory from 6-9 p.m.
