My snappy self

Heidi Yates ~ Snappy Tots

I guess you can say I wear many hats 🙂
I grew up in a very crafty house. My mom is the crafty queen and best business owner you could ever meet…seriously. She has a natural talent for selling and making things come to life. For years, my main “craft” was tole painting. I started selling things in mom’s large gift shop and then started teaching classes. After a book and several magazine articles (this was before “online” was even a thing), I traded my brushes for hooks. Crocheting is much more portable. Have you ever tried to paint while riding in a car? Ya, doesn’t really work unless you are going for a “i’m outta my mind” look.

Crochet and Knit Hat
I started selling finished hats through a local shop after my youngest son was born in 2006. The more patterns I bought, the more I was frustrated with 2 things: patterns which were expensive and offered a very limited project; patterns that seemed to be designed for tiny little gnomes. The kicker was when I spent several hours making a crocheted ruffle skirt for a newborn…the waist band was so tiny I had to cut the back so I could slip it on a small newborn for photos. YIKES! Hence, the pattern writing began.

Designer Hat
Patterns for knit hats and baby cocoons were my first. I LOVE to knit and wish I was a guru knitter. Unfortunately, overtime, knitting decided it doesn’t like my wrists. About that time, a cute little neighbor boy LOVED a strange game I had never heard of, “Angry Birds”. His mom ordered a hat and after researching these crazy birds I was “hooked”. I opened “Snappy Tots” in May 2011 and quickly became “The bird lady”. I was getting requests for lots of different characters. 

Over the years my designs have evolved and I like to think my patterns have improved greatly. I am slowly working through all of my patterns to bring them up to my current format.

Most important things I aim for when designing:

• Create patterns for all levels when possible.
• Includes LOTS of variations and sizes so the pattern can be used many times.
• Make it a fun adventure for everyone. We crochet because we like to…no fun when the pattern is a pain in the you-know-what.

Blogger Hat (aka Rambler Hat)
Many eons ago I designed business websites under the name “the doodle pad”. I loved learning and writing code. Nowadays pretty much anyone can build a site with all of the online products available. My goal for this year is to utilize my blog more by sharing free patterns, biz tips and other ramblings.

Big-Gap-Mom Hat
My number one part of life is being a mom to three amazing “kids”. Two are very successful, wonderful adults and then…the big gap…and our youngest. It has been an experience and one that surprises me almost daily.

Grandma Hat

In 2015, the wonderful “Prince Leland”, our beautiful red-headed first grand child was born. In winter, 2018, our second grand child, the beautiful Miss Lucy was born. Now each of my two oldest kids have a child. It has been a lot of fun watching them become amazing parents.

Thank you Hat!
I appreciate you reading this and supporting me. With gazillions of blogs, pages, shops, sites and forums out there, each second you spend on my behalf means a lot to me!