HANDMADE Macrame and Knit Products - Adonica Cabreja

Artisan:  HANDMADE Macrame and Knit Products
E-mail: handmadeinjc@gmail.com

Hi! I’m Adonica Cabreja with North Jersey-based HANDMADE Macrame and Knit Products, or as we say HANDMADE. I’ve always loved crafts, but it was really my husband who started me on this amazing journey. When I learned that he liked knit ties my first instinct was to surprise him with one that I had made. Friends of his liked it and asked for their own. Once word got around that I knit, things blossomed. Even our macrame started that way. He wanted a big wall piece, so I did some research. It seemed easy enough -so I made him one! A coworker of his saw it and wanted one too. Soon I was doing something that I had never thought of doing!

Macrame is something that’s pretty much always in stock, but custom pieces can be made too. Everything is locally sourced, including the driftwood I use, which comes from the bay behind my house. I clean it up and repurpose it, matching the macrame or knit piece to the wood. Knit Products are hard to keep stocked due to demand, but it allows me to create custom products. I’ll even try doing things that aren’t knit or macrame. As long as my customers are willing to be patient when it comes to creating something that’s new for me to do, I’m willing to give any creation a shot. A big HANDMADE seller are the hand-knit blankets. They’re big and bulky -but BOY are they warm and perfect for our winter weather! As for my favorite thing to make, it has to be the feather macrame pieces. It might be a little more time consuming and tedious, but they come out so beautiful when they’re finished. I can be hard on myself when it comes to my work, but these are pieces that I can just enjoy.

While there’s still room for growth, I’d like to keep HANDMADE a small business. I want to make sure that I keep the passion I have for my craft and the happiness that it brings me. I don’t want to get caught up in the growth of the business so that I lose my passion and the quality suffers. This venture helps me be a stay-at-home-mom, which I love. Given my workload as a mom, artisan, and small business owner, I find it hard at times to know when events are taking place. Marketspace Vendor Events helps me to easily find events that I can be a part of and with plenty of notice. Their events calendar and advanced emails for those of us in their network help me better prepare, stock, and plan my schedule. I look forward to participating in new events this year and meeting wonderful new people!