Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

For De­ok­ie Ker­ry Ra­jaram, cro­chet is more than yarn and nee­dles. It is a pas­sion, a cre­ative es­cape and a grow­ing busi­ness built stitch by stitch from de­ter­mi­na­tion, pa­tience and self-teach­ing.

What be­gan as a child­hood les­son from a neigh­bour has blos­somed in­to DKR Cro­chet Cre­ations, a small Trinidad-based busi­ness pro­duc­ing hand­made cus­tom pieces for clients lo­cal­ly and abroad.

Ra­jaram, who was born on Sep­tem­ber 23, 1982, said her in­tro­duc­tion to cro­chet came when she was about 13 years old.

“My neigh­bour taught me how to do the ba­sics,” she re­called.

Al­though she nev­er for­got the skill, it was dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic that she tru­ly ded­i­cat­ed her­self to mas­ter­ing the craft. With lock­downs cre­at­ing long pe­ri­ods at home, Ra­jaram turned to YouTube tu­to­ri­als to ex­pand her knowl­edge and re­fine her tech­niques.

Through hours of prac­tice and ex­per­i­men­ta­tion, she taught her­self ad­vanced pat­terns and styles, trans­form­ing a sim­ple hob­by in­to some­thing far more mean­ing­ful.

In 2022, she of­fi­cial­ly launched DKR Cro­chet Cre­ations.

To­day, the busi­ness spe­cialis­es in hand­made, made-to-or­der items in­clud­ing biki­nis, tops, shorts, bean­ies, dolls, blan­kets, shawls and cro­chet flow­ers. Each piece is in­di­vid­u­al­ly craft­ed, of­ten tak­ing hours—and some­times days—to com­plete.

Ra­jaram said most of her work now comes through re­fer­rals and re­peat cus­tomers, with a loy­al cus­tomer base that ap­pre­ci­ates the crafts­man­ship be­hind hand­made cro­chet.

“It has its good and bad days. Work is most­ly done through or­ders now. There are the die-hard fans of cro­chet who would be will­ing to pay the price,” she said.

While the ma­jor­i­ty of her cus­tomers are lo­cal, Ra­jaram has al­so re­ceived or­ders from over­seas clients, show­ing that ap­pre­ci­a­tion for hand­made cro­chet ex­tends be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Un­like mass-pro­duced cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories, cro­chet re­quires pre­ci­sion, pa­tience and close at­ten­tion to de­tail. Ra­jaram said every item she cre­ates is care­ful­ly de­signed to match the cus­tomer’s re­quest, mak­ing each piece unique.

The pop­u­lar­i­ty of cro­chet fash­ion has al­so helped fu­el in­ter­est in her cre­ations, par­tic­u­lar­ly cus­tom biki­nis, crop tops and styl­ish ac­ces­sories that ap­peal to younger clients look­ing for dis­tinc­tive hand­made pieces.

De­spite bal­anc­ing cro­chet along­side a full-time job, Ra­jaram said the craft re­mains deeply per­son­al to her.

“Will def­i­nite­ly con­tin­ue do­ing cro­chet as it’s a pas­sion of mine ei­ther as a hob­by or a busi­ness,” she said.

That pas­sion is vis­i­ble in the va­ri­ety of items she pro­duces. From soft ba­by blan­kets and dec­o­ra­tive flow­ers to fash­ion­able beach­wear and dolls, her work re­flects both cre­ativ­i­ty and ded­i­ca­tion.

Op­er­at­ing be­tween Rio Claro and Port of Spain, Ra­jaram con­tin­ues to grow DKR Cro­chet Cre­ations pri­mar­i­ly through word-of-mouth rec­om­men­da­tions and so­cial re­fer­rals. She hopes to con­tin­ue ex­pand­ing the busi­ness while keep­ing the hand­made qual­i­ty that cus­tomers val­ue.

For Ra­jaram, cro­chet is not sim­ply about sell­ing prod­ucts. It is about cre­at­ing some­thing mean­ing­ful by hand in a fast-paced dig­i­tal world.

Every loop, knot and stitch tells part of her sto­ry—one of re­silience, cre­ativ­i­ty and a pas­sion that con­tin­ues to grow with every new de­sign.